Right before I jumped into crazy working mode, I had this such cheering and amazing chocolate featured afternoon tea with my fellow sweet plus hightea fellows. Ritz-Carlton's afternoon tea seems never to stay away something related to chocolate and high-end. This Autumn (October & November, Cafe 103 of Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong pairs with Godiva, to present ONLY one-month chocolate signature hightea set. The big man behind this concept, Godiva Chief Chocolatier, Philippe Daue, named it as [ SAVEUR DU MONDE ]
Wooooo, to be translated, it's a worldwide chocolate journey (hope my basic-basic French is working well now), and let's see :P
It's a golden and dark chocolate mountain instead of normal 3-layers hightea set. Everything is about Godiva chocolate even starting from savories to the finishing drink. Inspired with different culinary, the pastries were made of Godiva chocolate in different percentage.
To talk about the environment, it's incredible as to every one has been there, and easy to image for those haven't time to be there. It's on the 103 floor of ICC (the lobby level of Ritz-Carlton Hotel Hong Kong), very cozy and soft decoration in light grey and brown, at the corners attached to windows enjoying an awesome birdview of Harbour, busy sea lines and Hong Kong Island.
To start with Chocolate chips scones served with milk chocolate Chantilly and raspberry jam, I was so satisfied with the purely smoothy Chantilly with its melting milky chocolate taste and fresh sourness and naturalness of the jam, but scorns were really disappointed, lacking of moisture and heat.
Kuromitsi and chocolate verrine, to me, definitely a journey starts from Asia. Japanese (black honey) sugar syrup made the jelly, Peru 64% chocolate mousse and cocoa hazelnut crumble on the top, created a balance of sweetness and a conflict of crunchy, smoothy and I don't know how to describe jelly in a word.
Journey back to China, it was Sichuan Pepper & smoked black tea macaron. Sichuan pepper was not only decorated at the central point of macaron shell, but added a special numbing and smoky flavor into Costa Rica 64% dark chocolate ganache.
Another shot-size dessert is Chocolate flan with Speculoos and apple compote, representing Belgium. It's caramelized apple and pear at the bottom, and used Goviva 72% dark chocolate flan and topped with Speculoos streusel. It's a fresh start in terms of crunchy streusel first and sweetened and moistured fruits at last.
Coconut Banana used Uganda 80% dark chocolate truffle but also with coconut milk tuile and caramelized cocoa nibs, which was a double-chocolate pastry with a coconut-flavor highlight, in representative of Africa.
What's for Great Britain? Coffee praline cake is. I love the semi-moisture biscuit there with a little coffee nibs connected it with white chocolate, sweet and in a widely crunchy way.
Caramel and milk chocolate tartlet, as sweet and milky as usual in terms of US style, used Costa Rica 38% milk chocolate ganache and crunchy almond nibs. It was the sweetest among all chocolate pastries; of course I enjoyed the smooth and melting caramel liquid while the after-taste would be impressively sweet and heavy which was only sweet-teeth can handle.
Despite sweets, there are also limited savories in the tea set menu, which are Chocolate BBQ pork baby burger, Cocoa butter confit tuna, salmon roe, focaccia, and Duck foie gras mousse macaron, cocoa nibs. The first are quite normal items for afternoon tea, which I preferred mini-burger, coz it's perfect dry and raw burger bread with a deep but dry BBQ flavor, but the pork filling was not juicy or say moisture enough. Macaron was really impressive, to be as savory, it combined the sightly almond-sweet and the rich flavor in foie gras.
Normally we take coffee or tea with afternoon tea, while for Godiva, we continue with chocolate. Classic hot chocolate is my choice, which not hit the Top 1 pure chocolate drink list of mine, but at least not bad; besides Mango hot milk chocolate drink and Earl grey hot chocolate drink is served as special drinks as well.
Hope there would be more flavorsome and qualified brand doing crossover project with good hotels, so that as a foodie could enjoy more :P
Weekday $348 for one / $568 for two
Weekend $368 for one / $588 for two
103/F, International Commercial Centre
1 Austin Road East
Kowloon
Hong Kong
+852 2263 2270
restaurantreservation.hk@ritzcarlton.com
Mon to Sun. 12nn - 10.30pm
Afternoon Tea. 3.30pm - 6pm
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