TWG Tea is known for tea. Surprise surprise! This review is mainly about the food at lunch as I don’t know enough about teas to comment. However, an associate who knows a lot about tea mentioned to me a while back that there are better places for someone who is really into tea. For me, I like the wide selection they have. Anyway, they have various menus including a tea menu and a set menu. We went with the set menu which includes choice of a main dish and either tea or dessert. I think the menu can be improved to include a small starter plus tea AND dessert.
The first thing I noticed was that for a posh place, they did not bother to iron the table cloths.
A food writer once said “if someone can’t be bothered to clean the bathrooms, imagine how the rest of their operation is like” or something along those lines. In any case, it boils down to details. Details matter.
Anyway, I chose the lobster and prawn club and dessert. I also ordered a pot of tea. I can’t remember the name, but it was a flower tea from Fujian. My wife had a fruity tea.
The salad dressing was good. It had a good balance of acidity and sweetness (some sort of fruit). It was a bit overdressed. The sandwich was very good, but a bit difficult to eat as it was so big. The bread, which the menu says is homemade, was a delicious white bread (the bottom piece was a bit soggy by the time we got it). The portion of lobster and prawn was generous though I could not really taste the basil or lemongrass that was mentioned on the menu. The veggies were fresh. The dessert was good as well. They gave us each a different one.
The presentation was nice and the flavors were well balanced. Lots of different textures and not too sweet. The tea became better the longer it steeped. Overall, service was a bit slow and nonchalant. Not bad, but not attentive. This is a place I would go to maybe once a year (and in fact, I think that’s probably how often I have been since it opened). There are other places around the city for tea time from large hotels to small cafes. This is an option if you want to be downtown and looking for a place to have tea and some pastries or lunch after a day of shopping.