• Food - Tea Things

    Fall Afternoon Tea at Salamander DC in Washington, D.C., United States

    November 26, 2024 - By 

    I will probably not be back at Salamander DC for afternoon tea after the ridiculous experience I had, but I might still book the hotel for its excellent location. It happened like this: I noticed that Salamander DC, my scheduled hotel in Washington, D. C., offers Afternoon Tea in their lounge. I would be in time for the very last day of Fall Afternoon Tea in 2024. The cost was US$95.00 per guest excluding tax and gratuity. I immediately ran into a potential problem: I wanted to possibly apply $100 of hotel experience credit (which I received for booking through…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Afternoon Tea at the Windsor House Tea Room in Lafayette, NJ, United States

    June 24, 2024 - By 

    The Windsor House Tea Room and Bakery in Lafayette, New Jersey, United States, is open from Thursday to Sunday. Afternoon Tea, advertized as “an authentic British tea session (with a few American twists!)”, is served in the tea room on Thursdays at 1 PM; Fridays and Saturdays at 11 AM, 1 PM, and 3 PM; and Sundays at 11 AM and 1 PM. The Windsor House does require reservations. My husband was able to make a reservation on Thursday for Sunday at 1 PM. He was allowed to choose 11 AM or 1 PM. He notified the Windsor House of…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Sugi Bee Garden Honey – Flavoured Honey for your Water

    April 6, 2024 - By 

    Sugi Bee Garden honey has been around for decades and presumably popular, given the number of locations they are sold at in their home country, Japan. In Taiwan, this honey seemed to be a popular souvenir gift for older people from their relatives who had stopped in Japan. I usually saw one of these containers in my grandmother’s fridge in Taiwan when I visited. To enjoy adding this to your drink, you should like honey and fruit flavours. Yuzu is the most common type you can find from other brands, so Sugi Bee Garden decided to set their honey apart…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Afternoon Tea at the Bar Artefact / Auberge Saint-Antoine in Québec City, Canada

    March 9, 2024 - By 

    When I am in Québec City, Canada, again, I will strongly consider returning to the Bar Artefact in the Auberge Saint-Antoine for Afternoon Tea. Thé à l’anglaise, as they call it, is served on weekends between 1 and 3 PM. In 2024, the price per person was CA$49 (~US$36.40) if 13 or older, CA$29 (~US$21.54) if between the ages of 6 and 12 inclusive, and free if 5 or under. Reserving afternoon tea was very simple. We visited the front desk to ask for 1, they let us know they were full and could take me at 1:30, and I…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Afternoon Tea at Sally Lunn in Chester, NJ, USA

    March 1, 2024 - By 

    Sally Lunn’s Tea Room & Restaurant in downtown Chester, New Jersey, United States, is a small tea room with a Victorian theme and very good scones. No matter the flavor, they have a nice texture and they serve some of the nicest clotted cream I have found in the US. One important thing to note is that they are dedicated to the Victorian theme. Victorian-era people thought it was bad taste to have bare walls and tried to cover every surface with things. This restaurant tries to do that while still making it possible to run a restaurant that is…

  • Food

    Seagull Egg, or Kamome no Tamago from Japan

    January 19, 2024 - By 

    In the Tohoku region of Japan, a common souvenir item you will see is their regional specialty, the Kamome no Tamago, which translates to “egg of seagull”. In English, they frequently refer to it as a “Seagull Egg”. Like most regional specialties, you will have to physically be in Tohoku (Iwate Prefecture is the safest bet), look online (https://saitoseika.co.jp/), or pass through international departures at the airport to find it. Like most of the other regional products, it has a short life; this one typically has 30 days from the date of manufacture. Although they claim that the motif is…

  • Food

    Tokyo Banana from Japan

    January 6, 2024 - By 

    This tastes like a banana Twinkie, agreed all of my taste testers. I have not eaten Twinkies myself too often and cannot remember what it tastes like, but the Tokyo Banana certainly looks like a banana Twinkie. Tokyo Banana is basically banana filling on the inside and a very soft sponge cake on the outside. The banana filling is rather plain, but it works fine together. (According to a vegetarian friend, these were vegetarian at some point but no longer are. They currently have gelatin. She was very sad.) The packaging is rather nice. The inside box is not plain…

  • Food

    Langue de Chat and Where I Found Them in Japan 2023

    December 11, 2023 - By 

    I very much enjoy the cookie called langue de chat, literally “tongue of cat”. It originated in France but has proven itself to be quite popular in Japan. We can observe this because many tourist attractions and towns have their own version of it. The Japanese versions are commonly not shaped like a cat’s tongue but are more like a square sandwich with filling. In 2023, I purchased these langue de chat from these places: The Famous Hokkaido-Exclusive Langue de Chat As far as I know, the famous Shiroi Koibito chocolat blanc et langue de chat from Ishiya (“ISHIYA GUARANTEED”,…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Afternoon Tea at the BL. T 33 / InterContinental Kaohsiung in Taiwan

    November 14, 2023 - By 

    Afternoon Tea at InterContinental Kaohsiung in Taiwan ended up being in the back area of what looks like a bar. The BL. T 33 seemed to share space or be right next to the SEEDS Restaurant, but that could also have been because I brought a 2-year-old with me. They allowed me to place her stroller behind the seats. My cousin phoned to make the reservation for me at the BL. T 33 the day before. It is also possible to make a reservation online. The cost for one set of afternoon tea in November, 2023, was NT$1680 before the…

  • Food - Tea Things

    Halloween Afternoon Tea at the Tokyo InterContinental in Japan

    October 31, 2023 - By 

    When I looked at the delightful pictures of attractive spreads of afternoon tea, I felt that I really, really wanted to have experience a nice one before leaving Japan. Besides, I was with a friend who I knew could appreciate it. In Japan, many things need reservations. The online website would only allow me to book for the next day and asked that I call in for the day of. We decided to just walk over and check for afternoon tea at the Atrium Lounge of the “InterContinental – ANA Tokyo, an IHG Hotel” (located at 1 Chome-12-33 Akasaka, Minato…