Celebrating Chinese New Year with a special afternoon tea in KL.
Our experience
As no doubt happened to you, dear readers, Covid disrupted many of our travel plans for about 2-3 years. 😦 So it was, after almost eight years, we finally made it back to the Asia-Pacific region for a visit. As we do with all of our travels, we try to make it a point to seek out some local dessert spots, and in the larger cities, we also try to check out a notable high tea spot. While in Kuala Lumpur during Chinese New Year last month, we visited the St Regis hotel for its special themed Chinese New Year afternoon tea.
On our visit, the St Regis’ high tea was priced at 168 Malaysian Ringitt per person, around USD $40-50. Served in a traditional three-tier manner, the first platter of savoury morsels featured rather fancy foie gras, salted egg yolk and truffle sandwiches, and an abalone tartlet topped with ginseng jelly. There were also more traditional new year-type foods, such as nian gao, radish cake with XO aioli, and a mini char siew bao. Two accompanying scones arrived with clotted cream and strawberry jam, and were a little harder in texture than we ordinarily prefer.
The piece-de-resistance of the afternoon tea at the St Regis was, without a doubt, the 7-dessert course…for one person. 😀 The first tier of desserts were crafted in a lighter style and included: a red choux pastry puff filled with hazelnut cream, a mango sago creation shaped as a gold ingot, and a Japanese-esque style cheese tart inflected with Earl Grey flavours. Consisting of a trio of finely sculpted trompe l’oeil desserts, the upper level of desserts included: a “Bonsai Tree” (a vanilla and green tea sponge in a chocolate pot); a “Mandarin Tree” (a rich dark chocolate mousse cake surrounding a mandarine compote heart); and a “Money Bag” cake (with a creative interplay between chocolate, pistachio and raspberry). And the final palate cleansing dessert was a large peony-like coconut jelly flower. It reminded us of the desserts we had last year at NYC’s Sarisa Cafe.
Our verdict
Whereas high tea in NYC is almost always, an underwhelming experience, high tea in the UK and in Asia almost always makes for a splendid dessert adventure. The St Regis’ afternoon tea is one such excellent example (and even more so, by contrast to the high tea we had at Penang’s E&O hotel some years ago). We look forward to checking out more creatively-imagined afternoon teas in Asia and beyond.
Dessert adventure checklist
☑ Dessert destination: St Regis, 6, Jalan Stesen Sentral 2, Kuala Lumpur Sentral, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
☑ Budget: $$$ (approx USD 40-50 pp).
☑ Sweet irresistibles: High Tea.
☑ Must-eat: Come for the trompe l’oeil desserts in the themed afternoon tea.
☑ The short and sweet story: Celebrating Chinese New Year with a special themed afternoon tea in KL.
