Each Friday my sister, Lisa takes over the blog to write about some of her adventures around the world and in little old New Zealand. Here is Lisa’s review of the High Tea at Sky City Auckland!
What is a High Tea without scones? Tapas!? Can you even really call it High Tea?
I recently dined out at Orbit 360 restaurant for High Tea and yes it is high at 190 metres in Auckland and there was tea, but doesn’t it still need scones – modernising high tea or not.
Sandwiches
not a one!
However there was a mini burger that was quite nice, I was surprised as I didn’t think I would like puhoi, until general consensus was it was actually lamb and mint. Again there was nothing wrong with the food itself, though the portions were rather small considering this was all there was.
Scones
nope!
Pastries
Now this is where it gets a bit frustrating – the only place that says whether an item is gluten free, vegan etc is the menu and the menu is not up to date so some items are what you get for afternoon tea and some are not as advertised grrrrr. There was a lemon meringue tartlet, Opera cake, Raspberry macaroon dipped in chocolate and a kiwifruit tart.
Tea
I had the rose and french vanilla tea, and it was nice but one teapot with hot water between three is not very classy. You each get your own teabag (different flavours), place in your teacup and fill with hot water and turn over a timer to tell you when you’re done. I don’t see how this is revolutionary or trendy it seems very lazy to me and a little tacky. Each time you add more hot water you are diluting the flavour of your tea and where does one place said discarded tea bag?
Service
We were seated and shown the menu and given our choices of tea. Once we received our teas then we had a fifteen minute wait to receive our cake stand. We had our server come past once more to check if we wanted another pot of hot water.
Would I recommend? – To be perfectly honest I would not recommend coming to the Orbit 360 restaurant for Afternoon Tea to anyone wanting the perfect Afternoon Tea experience. But I would have no problem recommending it as a place to come for lunch or dinner to take in the stunning views.
High Tea at Sky City Auckland costs NZ$40 pp and this also includes access to the to viewing platform at the top.
Big Sister Kelly here – I booked Lisa and my folks in for High Tea and requested a number of times (too many in fact) that I wished to make payment prior as it was a gift and told them I was in the UK – my Dad had to end up paying at Sky City on the day as they actually sent through the paperwork a few hours before they were due to arrive for the high tea and I was fast asleep. To say I was furious with them was an understatement!
From a gluten free perspective – only four items from the menu were gluten free and they were small! As Lisa has said above if you’re looking for the perfect High Tea experience then check out The Langham in Auckland.
I think Dad summed up the afternoon perfectly by commenting on Lisa’s photo of the person jumping off Sky City with – no scones, I’m out of here!
Have you visited the Orbit 360 restaurant – what did you think?
You can follow more of Lisa’s adventures on twitter, Instagram or Pinterest
xx
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