Hello all! Well, I'm back from holidays. The week around Christmas/New years was spent with my partner's family in Bega, it was full of great food, hanging by the pool (a $48 one we bought a Big W - what a bargain?!) and great company. The second week was spent with my family who had come to Canberra to visit me, this week entailed being a tourist in my own town, hanging with my family who I hadn't seen for about 5 months, our "second Christmas" and most importantly, my birthday (yay!).
During our week in Bega we made a cooking video called "Cooking with Hayfever" in which we make Donna Hay's chocolate fudge brownies (delish!) have a look if you want a bit of a laugh- it's definitely not a technical video! We made another video as well but it isn't complete yet so I'll have to post it once it's done.
Now, back to discussing my birthday which most people know is the most important day in January (in fact I tend to relate every event in January to how many days it is away from my birthday) :P. On the morning of my birthday I had delicious panacakes with macerated raspberries and whipped cream made for me by my Mum. We then went to Questacon which is like a "science playground" where you go to learn sciency stuff whilst having heaps of fun- it was great, we spent ages there! Next we went to high tea at the Hyatt Canberra. A lot of you might know that I LOVE high tea and I do it every chance I get. I have been to many places for high tea but the Hyatt Canberra was one of the most expensive at $52 per person. High tea is offered every day between 2:30 and 5 pm. This high tea was different to every other one I have been to in that it is a buffet where you serve yourself rather than receiving table service.
We arrived and walked through the doors into a giant hall where the concierge pointed us in the direction of the tea lounge. As we came to the tea lounge we saw the buffet full of delicious bites available for our dining pleasure. We were then seated at our table and the waitress poured each person a glass of Fat Tree Brut nv sparkling. The sparkling wasn't a huge success amongst us with only myself actually consuming the whole glass full. It was a very dry sparkling but was also refreshing, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to buy it again. Coffee, tea and hot chocolate were served to the table.
Myself, Mr T and my family at our table.
We then helped ourselves to the buffet. I helped myself to some savories first and then went onto the sweets. There was an abundance of sandwiches and wraps (including the obligatory cucumber sandwich, which turned out to be a favourite with the men of the group). There were: cucumber sandwiches, tuna and cream cheese sandwiches; salmon, cream cheese and caviar crepes; roast beef, carrot, lettuce and mayo wraps; crab and pea crostini; cucumber, feta and sun-dried tomato crostini and the two hot foods were: mini vegitarian quiches and triangles which none of us could quite identify (possibly a curry? I really should have clarified with a waitress). This was my first time trying caviar and I really enjoyed it, the flavour is very fishy and salty but it had a crunch that is lovely. As I mentioned, the favourite savory for the men was the cucumber sandwich, my mum's favourite was definitely the crab and pea crostini of which she ate her weight and my favourite was the salmon, cream cheese and caviar crepe.
The savory selections.
My savory plate: (clockwise: tuna sanwich; roast beef wrap; salmon crepe; vegetarian quiche; cucumber, feta and sun-dried tomato crostini; crab and pea crostini and unidentified triangle).
Now to the most important part of high tea, the scones. There were two variations, plain scones and fruit and nut scones both of which were delicious. They were served with strawberry or apricot jam and cream although, you had to put the jam and cream on at the buffet bar which was quite inconvenient as the scones were not pre-cut. The picture below is not great, it was very difficult to assemble my scones with one hand whilst holding the plate with the other. There was also a warm dessert, this being bread and butter puddings served with raspberry compote (looks like tomato sauce in the photo but I promise it was not). I was expecting a more sweet flavour as I was told it was apple pie so I was disappointed when it was not very sweet, this dessert was quite bland but the raspberry compote saved it.
Scones and bread and butter pudding with raspberry compote.
Onto the desserts... This high tea was heavily weighted towards sweets- there was so many to choose from and it was impossible to try them all. There were several types of biscuit (including three colours of macaron- not sure of if they were different flavours as the one I had just tasted like a generic flavour), there was panacotta, small cakes, friands, tortes and even a pavlova- amazing!
Sweets buffet from one end.
Sweets buffet from the other end.
The strawberry tart was Mr T's favourite- it was light and delicious and the strawberry on top was just so cute. The hazelnut gateaux was Mr Ray Ray's (my brother) favourite- it actually tasted like ferrero rochers- so amazing. The cheesecake was the perfect mixture of berries and white chocolate each complimenting the other.The eclair was also very delicious and with the chocolate surprise inside it was even better! The chocolate friand for me was a bit over the top, it was very dense and had a large chunk of chocolate in the middle which was quite off-putting for all of us, there was also a quinnel of the most smooth and velvety ganache I've ever had on top- it was amazing but was also pushed it over the edge into chocolate overload! A big chocolate fan would probably have appreciated it a bit more then myself I think. The macaron was a bit of a let down- it looked great with amazing feet but was not glossy on top. The texture of the shell was great but I was disappointed with the filling of which there was only a tiny amount, it also had no particular flavour that I could decipher. Compared to the macarons made by their inventors (Laduree in Paris) they are not great but they weren't completely terrible. The panacotta was probably my favourite- it was light and full of strawberry flavour, it was very well done, my only gripe was with the amount of cream on top which was a bit excessive for me.
My sweets plate (clockwise: strawberry tart; chocolate friand; green macaron, chocolate hazelnut gateaux; chocolate and custard eclair, white chocolate and berry cheesecake).
Strawberry panacotta.
Last of all were the drinks, it was difficult to track down one of the waitresses to order a drink which was annoying as when you are paying so much per head you expect some sort of service (they did not check on us at all during the tea and I was only able to get one of the waitress' attention when she came to clear plates near the end). I don't have much to say about they drinks, they were quite unremarkable but they were nice and were displayed very well.
Hot chocolate (left) and mocha (right).
Overall, the food was delicious and of great quality. The service was not up to what I would expect having paid so much per person for afternoon tea. The setting was lovely and you could see outside although, it would have been nice to be closer to the window. At the end of the day we all went home with very full bellies and did not need dinner, a good day was had by all.
We were all full as googs afterwards.
Do you enjoy high tea/afternoon tea? Do you have any recommendations of places to go?
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