September 2024
The good the bad the ugly the yummy of afternoon tea, Waldorf Astoria edition
On vacation last week I had afternoon tea by myself as a solo date at Waldorf Astoria in Las Vegas Nevada. I will be sure to give you my star rating if you stick around until the end. This hotel is near the Aria resort and it’s a high end hotel on the vegas strip. They’ve been serving afternoon tea for a long time; this is my 2nd time coming here but the first one was maybe 7 years ago.
As always, let’s begin with the good. Most aspects here were good but I will choose the overall experience as the TOP good thing to note. There was good attention to detail, good food variety among the tiers, a good tea selection, and a lovely window view with comfortable seating. I also like their pretty flowery dishes.
I was lucky enough to be able to choose a table by the window. I dont really love how the cream and jam are already sitting on the table when you arrive. I always wonder how long it sits there before you come? The answer is quite awhile as I watched them setting tables for later reservations. That doesn’t feel food safe to me for dairy products.
I began by choosing my tea from a nicely displayed and described menu. I chose earl grey - no surprise. But there were many options 18 to be exact so several varying options for everyone, including you! The waitress poured my first cup and i added sugar and milk. and the food was brought out soon after onto their unique tiered trays which sit on the floor beside you. There were two scones for me (yay), and 4 savouries (I swapped out the salmon for a second chicken salad) and 4 sweets for me to enjoy.
In terms of flavours and tastes - the pork sandwich was good, quite fatty but that’s to be expected with porchetta. The choux bun of egg salad was fine; a bit messy. And the coronation chicken salad was good. It has a strong curry flavour which was okay for me but might be less enjoyable for others as it was pretty strong. Again, I don’t have the salmon so I cannot show you what it looks like nor speak to it. Overall, the savouries were fresh and generally good.
The scones arrive in a warm napkin to keep them warm - if you started with the sconces they’d still be warm for you. I like to eat mine after my savouries. The scones were described as being accompanied by devonshire cream which is similar to clotted cream, lemon curd, and berry jam. I liked that I was given 3 spoons to serve the accompaniments with; most places don’t take this extra step and I liked it. I got 3 pots to myself b/c this was a solo date but I saw that tables of two people also got the same amount of scone accompaniments and would share these servings.
The scones were a cakey texture which I enjoy. They split nicely. The cream tasted good but I would say it wasn’t authentic b/c it had a sweet vanilla taste to it - almost like a vanilla ice cream flavour, obviously of a different consistency than ice cream though. Clotted cream/ devon cream doesn’t taste like sweet vanilla so I would say this was not very authentic. However, it did taste good to me. The lemon curd was very good too. Not that lemonly so I think it may also been thickened with some cornstarch or something to tone down the acid. It wasn’t exactly like pudding but but definitely more mild than lemon curds I’ve had in the past. But I liked it and it all tasted good with the scones. I was happy having 3 scone accompaniments on fresh cakey scones; I was a happy tea queen b/c you know I love my scone tier!
Moving onto the sweet tier. You can pause to read all the descriptions as each small item had a lot flavours going on. There was a lot of creaminess for me but thankfully the tart still had some crisp to it to add an additional texture besides creamy. The chocolate caramel sable cookie was my absolute favourite. The other 3 items didn’t excite me b/c too much as going on but this cookie with its simple chocolate on chocolate on caramel really hit the spot for me. I was so happy to get a good yummy decadent chocolate item. Yippee!
As you can see, overall the food served here was all good.
The bad - Nothing here was bad in terms of food or ambiance. The service was OK but not stellar. The bad for me, was that this tea is on the expensive side. It cost $64 USD per person. With an 18% tip and tax the total was $81 USD which is about $110 CAD, all in. So this price is comparable to the hotel tea at Royal York in Toronto. Although the service there was much better. I guess the hotel tea price checks out, comparison wise, but as I said when I review higher end hotel teas, for me, they are a splurge special occasion experience - which I guess that is fine since I am on vacation!
The ugly - nothing was ugly here. It’s a bit challenging to get inside this hotel if you’re not the street level but once you find the entrance you’re good to go. The tea is currently being served in the bar beside their regular tea lounge which is under construction. It was still pretty and still very nice. I wouldn’t call anything ugly here.
The yummy - I am thrilled to say my favourite bites here were the scones. There were two per guest which is great and their texture and flavour was superb. Love me the good scones!
All things considered, My queen of afternoon tea rating is 4 out of 5 stars. Maybe borderline to 4.5. I could go all keith leigh, since i m in vegas, and say it’s 4.3 out of 5 stars.
