Mother's Day High Tea

The Peninsula Hotel has been here for a while. On the third floor, on December 25, 1941, the Hong Kong Governor Sir Mark Aitchison Young surrendered the colony to the Japanese. It was the Japanese headquarters at the time. When my mom and I went to high tea, the wartime atmosphere had dissipated.

Going for tea is one of those things people still do in Hong Kong. There are nice high teas in various hotels, nice restaurants, even the Godiva shop. Little local restaurants advertise "tea sets" for the afternoon where you can get your tea or coffee and a dessert or a bowl of noodles cheaper than lunch or dinner time. But the quintessential, archetypal high tea is at the Peninsula, or at least that's what I'd read. It turned out to be as lovely as predicted. The lobby was elegant and quiet, but full of activity. The actual tea was lovely and so was the food.
There were finger sandwiches, little quiche, cakes, sweets, tiramisu with ground pistachios and other delights displayed on a three-tiered plate rack. It didn't look like that much, but with cups of tea, civilized talk and dainty bites, it was plenty. After, we wandered around and explored. The only thing we missed was the hotel shop. Apparently, it has all kinds of goods like a Harrod's store.

But the most fun was going out together. Last time we had high tea together was in London in 1990. That was fun, but we didn't have as much to talk about and I wasn't grown enough to enjoy the experience as much. Too bad my mom's not here today to celebrate on the day, but better early than never. Happy Mother's Day, Mommy!