High Tea at Tea Leaf Merchants, Cottesloe

Yesterday a group of eight girls went out to celebrate our wonderful friend Carla’s 24th birthday (happy birthday for today, Carla!). Here are a few photos of what we ate:

A mini fritatta-quiche-thing, cucumber sandwiches, and a strange pate sandwich. I had 5 of the cucumber sandwiches, I think, because my tea-partner doesn't like cucumber! There were also beef and vegetable party pies and tomato sauce on this level.

A tiny pink-swirled vanilla cupcake, and merangue. I don't like merangue, but the vanilla cake was definitely the sweet-food highlight for me! One of the other tiers had a big heart-shaped version of this cake.

I believe this was a mango and passionfruit cake, though I didn't try it.

A heart-shaped carrot cake, and an absolutely delish rich, moist mini chocolate muffin.

L-R: a chocolate heart (you can only see a tiny bit of it), which was lovely; a fortune cookie - I always forget how sweet these are!; Turkish delight (yum!)

A yummy chocolate-coated strawberry

The whole shebang; this is the tier for two

The verdict? Whilst I enjoyed it, I would prefer the option of having two tiers of savoury food, and only one of sweet. This is just a reflection of my preference, however, and not of the quality of the food. All the sweet food was beautiful, but I just don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so I found it difficult to eat as much I would’ve liked. We washed this food down with copious amounts of both white and pink champagne (I think Carla brought along six bottles, and Lauren one – we went home with one bottle, but a couple of the girls only had a glass each, meaning that some of us had an awful lot), as well as a pot of tea each – I don’t remember what mine was called, but it was good. We then headed back to Carla’s place for more drinking (Long Island Ice Teas and Cosmopolitans, as well as more bubbles) and to eat the leftover cakes. Needless to say, I woke up with a sore head this morning, but it was totally worth it.

I’d been wanting to try high tea at Tea Leaf Merchants ever since The Food Pornographer blogged about it more than a year ago, so I’m glad I finally got to go! I’m wondering whether it would be possible to choose the food that goes on your three-tier server, however. In more high tea-related news, I’ve just booked a table at The Raffles in Singapore for high tea next Monday. Supposedly one of the best high teas one can get, it is a little pricey (about AU$45 a head, once taxes are included, thanks to the deplorable Aussie dollar…), but you get quite a bit for your money, apparently: a three-tier English afternoon tea of four varieties of finger sandwiches, four kinds of pastries, and scones, as well as free-reign of the dim sum buffet – something that will excite my sister beyond belief because she’s a total fiend for steamed pork buns (the hotel we stay at serves them at the breakfast buffet, and I’m sure she’s been known to eat three or four at breakfast time, in the past!). I’m so excited, and will be sure to take a million photos!