Care for some English style tea at British colonial Hong Kong? Head down over to The Peninsula hotel at Tsim Sha Tsui, one of the most well-known and established institutions in Hong Kong.
Is it a gorgeous building. One of the Hong Kong harbour highlights. (check out just how much this costs for a night here!)
Here’s an abstract from Wikipedia about the Peninsula Hotel :
The Peninsula Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港半島酒店) is one of the most internationally recognizable hotels in Hong Kong. Opened in 1928, it is Hong Kong’s very first hotel. It is located at the junction of Nathan Road and Salisbury Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. Founded by members of the Kadoorie family, the hotel today is part of the Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels group headed by Sir Michael Kadoorie, and it is the flagship property of the The Peninsula Hotels group. The Peninsula has been voted as the world’s best hotel on a couple of occasions, and is widely regarded as one of the legendary properties.
It’s interesting. The Kadoori family, together with the Sassoons, are two very wealthy Jewish families whose contributions to British Hong Kong (as well as other parts of the more international foreigner friendly China) are still highly recognizable. Makes you wonder about the almost zero Israeli / Jewish presence in greater China nowadays.
Anyways, back to the afternoon tea. It seems this option at the Peninsula is a very popular one, as the lovely Taiwanese gals who invited me to join them for tea waited for an hour and a half in line to get a seat.
Together with the various tea types is the famous Peninsula combo…
The Peninsula is everything you’d expect from a 5 stars hotel…
Grandeur, an aroma of prestige, with the occasional famous people walking about.
For the less wealthy among us, this might be a bit expensive, going for ~400HK$ for a small combo tea-set for two, but it’s worth it for the experience.
Enjoy.
My missus went with a friend before Xmas and was disappointed with the small portions and shoddy service. She complained to the manager and got a voucher for another visit which will used when the in-laws arrive in 2 months
Quickroute – Yeah, I know what you mean. I was also disappointed. I like your wife's style, though, I think most people take it as it is and make up elaborate cognitive dissonance excuses as to how great it was ^_^
Wonder what the in-laws would think of it…
This hotel reminds me the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The afternoon tea and sanck in Empress Hotel is about US $150-200 or above as well. I have not tried, only took some pictures! 🙂
an interesting blog you have here – looking forward to learn more of the roots of my culture, being if chinese descendant. never stepped into peninsula hk before but was always in awe of it from outside. now i get to see the inside & it looks pretty grand too.
l love this peninsula afternoon tea.
My sister visited this hotel and bought it for me. The taste is really good for me.
I wish I visit to Hongkong and enjoy this afternoon tea. 🙂