Hidden away from the bustling crowds of Regent St is a small food court on Heddon St. It contains various restaurants and bars including Ice Bar and Momo Restaurant. We were given the choice of either sitting inside or outside but since inside was a bit too warm for us, me and J.Y decided on the latter. Now sitting outside in November, in London sounds crazy but they had the overhead heaters which made it bearable, however what we did not account for was the fact that they offered shisha. Personally for me shisha and tea do not go together so we did feel regret when the table next to us started blowing big puffs of smoke our way, as we were trying to be dainty and ladylike with our afternoon tea.
For the menu please see here. We decided on the traditional afternoon tea which was £22 per person however there is a 13% service charge which they say is optional. In regards to tea I chose 'The A L'opera' green tea and J.Y chose the 'Blanc & Rose' white tea which we were both happy with. The food did take awhile to come out and I can not say for sure that it was worth waiting for. Although my expectations may have been too high to begin with.
To start off with is the savoury plate at the bottom. Now the overall appearance was somewhat off-putting. Imagine my surprise when I was taking the picture and realizing that the brown roll resembled something from the toilet but immaturity aside the mechouia (Tunisian salsa) on toast was quite nice however the zaalouk (eggplant) on toast I was not too keen on. The filo pastries had cheese inside which J.Y was a big fan of.
These mini sandwiches were so cute, it reminded me of something from Mario. Inside it was smoked salmon and cheese. The wrap had a Moroccan chicken filling which was delicious.
The start of the sweets begin here! First up was the scones with clotted cream and a strawberry and fig jam. The jam was absolutely gorgeous! It was flavoursome without being too sweet. The scones itself had a slight cinnamon flavour and raisins inside. If I could have stomached 2 I would have but being greedy has its consequences.
The macarons were lovely! It was pistachio-flavoured with a lemon filling. The brownie had bits of walnut inside and on top was a dark-chocolate icing. The last one was a victoria sponge with a slab of white chocolate stuck on top with a tiny bit of lemon filling to stick it together.
The service was good and the waiters were very friendly, maybe too friendly. One of them asked us where we are from when he saw me snapping away with my camera and I said 'We're Chinese', he then proceeded to throw out all the mandarin he knew which made it very awkward. I am not going to start a cultural lesson here but what I will say is that China has over 200 languages and yes the main one is Mandarin but please do not assume that every Chinese person can speak or understand it, especially British born ones!
Overall I would not recommend this afternoon tea to friends. I think when you dislike nearly a whole plate or level then it is not worth it. Although I would go back to the restaurant and try the food because much of the savouries were nice and we had a good whiff coming from the table next to us who had ordered from the restaurant.
