Monday, 31 March 2014

A Very Chocolate Afternoon Tea

Months ago, I bought a Groupon voucher for the David Leslie Chocoholics Champagne Afternoon Tea for £39 to be enjoyed with my KDU buddy, Alyssa. The description that came along with the voucher was pretty impressive. Plus, it was on the 8th floor of the Penthouse and it has a view of the London skyline.

“Complimentary glass of champagne or berry cocktail
Mug of hot chocolate, made from real melted chocolate
Individual chocolate cakes
Macaroons with chocolate ganache or caramel fillings
Decorate your own truffles”

Sounds pretty impressive right?

Since the afternoon tea was held by session, booking was rather problematic. First, our preferred dates were not available. Then, the confirmed booking had to be cancelled because there was a problem with the venue. Finally, with some rather straight forward demands, I managed to get a booking confirmed.

Arriving at the 8th floor, we were seated in pretty comfortable seats and served with a choice of champagne, alcoholic or non-alcoholic berry cocktail. We chose the latter which is a sweet concoction with a hint of sourness of berries. Later, we were served with 2 slices of cakes, 4 chocolate dipped berries and 2 macaroons.

Berry Cocktail
Non-alcoholic berry cocktail

Cake
The only food for the afternoon tea:
4 strawberries with chocolate - heavenly combination as many would know
2 macaroons - well done with a soft filling of cream
Raspberry cake - victoria sponge cake with raspberry and cream; somewhat common
Chocolate cake - rich chocolate taste infused in the cake, cream and icing

After 15 to 20 minutes, everyone was gathered to make our own truffles. Well, technically it is only to fill the truffles. The mould had been prepared with tempered chocolate which forms the shape of the truffle. We were taught to fill it with chocolate cream and sealing the base with melted chocolate. The only thing we learnt was piping the chocolate. *how impressive*

Afternoon Tea- Alyssa
Alyssa getting her hands on truffle making
Truffle case
Truffle mould readily prepared. All we had to do was fill in the cream and sealed it off

Moments after we are finished, we were served with a glass of hot chocolate and finally, our truffles which we could choose to take them back.

Truffle
Our very pretty truffle - looks as good as those on sale in chocolate boutiques right?
Well, i'm quite impressed although all I did was filling in the cream and sealing it off because most of the others in our session overfilled theirs and it wasn't standing flat like ours! :D
Truffles
Decorated with some food glitter

Despite the impressive description on the voucher, the afternoon tea was less than impressive for its price. Originally priced at £80 for 2, buying the Groupon voucher made it much cheaper but even with the voucher, it was not really value for money. Though making truffles was quite an experience, the quality of food was merely average. Obviously, all pictures were for illustration purposely only as none of the food we had was anywhere close to the pictures on the website.

Food rating: 6/10
Service rating: 7/10
Ambience rating: 7.5/10
Overall rating: 6.5/10


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