Afternoon tea is a luxury, not just in paying for it but also taking the time in the middle of the day and is pretty much an extra meal between lunch and dinner. But if you can afford that luxury of time, it's certainly a great way to spend your afternoon with friends, relax, and pamper yourself.
In England everyone might take afternoon tea all the time, but here it is more the home of many a bridal shower and girls getting together exchanging Christmas presents. For these events, then, atmosphere, ambiance, and appearance are all the more important. Afternoon tea at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City provides just that.
Set either in a lovely and quiet side room facing the courtyard, or weather permitting, on the courtyard itself.
The china that they're using for the afternoon tea has been used at the hotel since its first inception.
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There are two ways to enjoy your afternoon tea here at Park Grill. You can either order the afternoon tea set for $21.50, or order individual items a la carte to create your own tea set.
For the set, your choice of tea includes some with fancy names that unfortunately gave me little clue as to what they are: Lady Grey, Prince of Wales, Decaf Earl Grey, Organic Dragon Lily Flowering Tea.
If you were to order a la carte, the regular loose leaf teas are $6, while the "flowering teas" are $8. For this media event, we got our choice of any of their teas, all lined up on a white linen covered cart. I got one of the "flowering teas", the Jasmine Lover, which is served in a clear glass pot so you can see it bloom.
Bloomed into quite a pretty orange flower, didn't it? It tasted pretty good too.
Petite Tea Sandwiches:
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Other savories are priced at $2-2.50 individually and include:
Grilled Vegetable Wrap
Smoked Salmon with Dill Cream on Pumpernickel, Curried Egg Salad on Wheat, Crab Salad on a Savory Herb Scone
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Mini quiches, served warm.
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Scone/bread ($2 each if you order a la carte) selections include:
Scones with Clotted Cream and Preserves, Lemon Cake, Zucchini Bread.
The scones are fine though I liked the buttery scones at Gordon Ramsay better. My British friend told me scones are supposed to be kinda bland though. That's what the clotted cream and the preserves are for!
The sweets don't stop there. You also get a choice of Crepe Suzette, Mango Jubilee, Banana Foster ($7 each a la carte)
For the tasting we actually got to try both the crepe suzette and banana foster, both of which are prepared tableside.
Both are topped with some chocolate chips, which everyone seemed to like. I thought it was too sweet for the crepe though it did work well with the bananas.
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Petit fours to end. There was only a piece of each to share with everyone, so I only tried the macaron, which was good.
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Oh, one more thing. We got a tour of the hotel at the end and they apparently have a helipad! Due to some ... circumstance that I can no longer remember, I ended up watching bits of an episode of this season's The Bachelorette, where she and the date cross over to another building on a high wire from ...
Looks familiar?
If you're organizing something for your girlfriends, this is the place to get some "ooh"s and "aah"s from the blooming tea to the tableside crepe suzette/ banana foster. Everyone likes a show.
Park Grill at The InterContinental Hotel
2151 Ave Of The Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067
(310) 284-6530
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