Mad Hatter High Tea, Westin Hotel – Martin Place

April 25, 2014

“Yes, that’s it!” Said the Hatter with a sigh, “it’s always tea time.” -Lewis Carroll-

I love my high teas. This isn’t the 1st time I had high tea at The Westin. Previously, I had the traditional high tea (before I started my blog) so that was quite awhile ago. Nevertheless, wouldn’t skip an opportunity like that. Love sitting back with a good cup of tea and a whole lot of scones.

Here’s the menu for the day.

We started with a tea each. Went with the $49 set. Remember to sign up for the Starwood preferred member card ahead of time, to get a 15% off your high tea! Plenty of choices. There’s the usual English Breakfast, earl grey, peppermint, to the more exotic: jasmine pearls, silver needles. Or any coffee of your choice. You can swap teas at any time.

Here’s our platter!

From the bottom. We started with the roast beef and asparagus on mini laugen. Inspired by the characters Twidledee and Twidledum, it’s a pair of open face sandwich. It’s such an adorable little pair of sandwich. And delicious too. Asparagus was cooked well, not over cooked. Adorable pair.

Next up is the salad. Cherry, boccocini, tomato on a fresh green boat. Inspired by the hookah-smoking caterpillar in the story, the only thing this needs is a giant mushroom to make it look more obvious. Good salad. I loved the crispy wonton skins on it.

This is the dressing. A nice citrusy emulsion, just perfect.

Some-what open faced mini sandwich. Alaskan crabmeat salad in double bread, with more crabmeat salad on top, topped with 1/2 a cherry tomato. Inspired by Alice falling down the rabbit hole and being all upside down. This little sandwich packs a decent punch. Love the soft bread with the delicious seafood. Love the bite. Crab salad was great. I can’t believe I didn’t even question the contents of this sandwich. (I tend to pick apart at various bits, is there onion in this thing? Cucumber? – yes, I asked for no cucumber on mine.)

On to the top! In the middle, is the pocket watch as inspired by the watch the white rabbit looks at it’s pocket watch while saying “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date!” Quite a lovely simple macaron with an edible printed wafer. Lovely blueberry cream. Not too sweet. The crown bit is made of marzipan. Not a fan of marzipan. My sister said “I’m not sure what this is. You will know it when you try it. Tell me, what is it?” I popped it into my mouth and said “omg eww marzipan” THEN my sister said “yah, that is what it is, by the way, you don’t like that thing.” Could have told me before!!

Here we have, the queen of hearts. Raspberry buttercream, chocolate ganache, and a raspberry jelly heart. Layered on thin layers of short cake. She’s such a doll. Just a cute little cake.

“Off with her head!” I yelled, while slicing her down the middle. The poor queen tastes great.

Next up, the mad hatters hat. Everyone knows the mad hatter. Mainly because it’s portrayed by Johnny Depp in the 2010 Alice in Wonderland movie, “have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?” Also, he’s a character that pops up a lot in the book as well. And he’s known for his hat. This dark chocolate mudcake encased in coloured chocolate fondant with edible wafer is such a perfect little piece of mudcake. And so pretty too.

Roll the top off to reveal a nice moist little chocolate mudcake.

Last but not least, our scones for the day. I don’t buy the whole “oh, modern high tea, no scones, scones are for traditional high tea only” that’s bs. If you can’t make a scone, you don’t serve high tea. Scones are the whole thing the tea is supposed to be. These are tiny scones. I would say, perfect sized scones. The chunky ones are too big, and after a full tea, honestly, this is the perfect size to go with.

These are incredible scones. Fluffy, not too dense, but not all squishy. Baked just right.

Here are the jams, clotted cream and perhaps the most genius of them all, a raspberry chocolate spread. Genius I say, it is such a lovely spread. And the cream. Makes everything better.

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Enjoy!!

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