Services: 3/10
Scale: [ 1=poor ----- 5=average/standard ----- 10=outstanding/exceptional ]
It was one fine but extremely hot Saturday that we decided to give Erawan Tea Room at Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok a go. The Erawan Tea Room is located on the 2nd floor of Erawan Bangkok Mall which is the shopping part of Grand Hyatt Erawan. The place is pretty big with large windows through out the area. The inner decoration is somewhat Thai style but with fusion regime of contemporary. For me, though it at least gives comfortable and relax sense, there are still some weird feeling of unbalance mix and match. The part that we do not so in love is the fact that some tables can be so close to each other. When we say so close, we really mean it: just turning back and you can be face-to-face with the next table. Erawan Tea Room surely fails the privacy category.
To travel here is rather convenient as Erawan is just a few minutes walk from BTS Chidlom station, else driving is perfectly fine too with spacious car park. The part that we would particularly like to complaint is the service. Staffs were pretty much ignorant and unfriendly. The first impression was the bad one. We were here for afternoon tea. However, Erawan Tea Room starts serving afternoon tea from 02:30pm, we happened to arrive 15 minutes earlier. The welcoming staff did not look so happily to welcome us at all. All she mentioned was afternoon tea wouldn't be served until 02:30pm and we may return 15 minutes later. I supposed that a good service should be like offering us to take a seat and wait or order some soft drink while waiting. Anyway, let not mention the other not so impressive experience. Perhaps we were wrong to be local and Erawan Tea Room happens to be famous amongst tourists.
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| Erawan Tea Room @ Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok |
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| shop front |
During lunch and dinner, Erawan Tea Room serves ranges of Thai food. However, the famous part of Erawan Tea Room is obviously the afternoon tea. Afternoon tea (THB390 per person) here is different from other places in the way that range of savoury bites and desserts is not the Western style but Thai style with mix and match of some Western dishes. For beverage choice, you can choose any of tea or coffee range from the menu. For us, we went for
Thai Milk Tea and
Lemon Iced Tea this time. The Summer heat in Bangkok this year is pretty bad and we could not really insist for hot tea. Both Thai milk tea and lemon iced tea were still short of tea concentration. They were too light indeed. For food, they were on average, meaning enjoyable but not a must try thing. What surprise us was the scone. It happened to be better than expected. Scones in many places in Thailand are really not so nice from our point of view. The one at Erawan Tea Room was not bad at all. They were soft but chewy and tasteful. If they do serve clotted cream instead of whipped cream that would be much better.
The tea set came in 2 parts: Savoury Bites and Desserts. Here are the savoury bites part of the day we visited.
Larb Goong Sod - ลาบกุ้งสด (spicy minced prawn salad with chilli and mint leaves in cucumber cup)
Tod Mun Pla Krai - ทอดมันปลากราย (deep-fried fish fritter with cucumber and peanut sauce)
Chor Muang Sai Poo - ช่อม่วงไส้ปู (steamed flower-shaped dumpling filled with crab meat)
Mieng Kratong Thong - เมี่ยงกระทงทอง (roasted coconut, lime, chilli and ginger with betel leaves in crisp basket)
Mar Hor - ม้าฮ่อ (minced pork and peanuts on fresh pineapple)
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| Thai Milk Tea and Lemon Iced Tea |
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| afternoon tea set |
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| savouries |
The range of dessert is as below. They came with the mix of Thai and Western choices. For macaron, the texture was good but the filling was strange, especiall the pandan and lemongrass. The part that we did not like was the seasonal fruit skewer. It was just fruit really and too plain in fact.
Kanom Krok - ขนมครก (crispy rice pudding with taro, corn, pumpkin or spring onion)
Kanom Bueng - ขนมเบื้อง (crispy bean crepe with sweet or salted filling)
Thong Muan - ทองม้วน (crispy sesame roll)
Chocolate Macaron - ช็อกโกแลตมากาฮอง
Pandan and Lemongrass Macaron - ใบเตยและตะไคร้มากาฮอง
Mini Organic Passion Fruit Tart - ทาร์ตเสาวรสออร์แกนิค
Khao Niew Mamuang - ข้าวเหนียวมะม่วง (mango with sticky rice)
Polamai Ruam - ผลไม้รวม (seasonal fresh fruit skewer)
Look Chub - ลูกชุบ (sweet bean paste fruit shapes)
Scones with Whipped Cream and Chiang Mai Strawberry Jam - สโคนและแยมสตรอเบอรี่
Anyway, the overall taste and atmosphere was ok. Only the service that was not so great from our view. We wish they can improve on this as well as the attitude of staffs. What we feel was that the afternoon tea is not really the one must try thing, however, the range of Thai food looks not bad at all. We may perhaps find another occasion to try their Thai dishes. But no more for afternoon tea here.
By the way, do book in advance if you would visit Erawan Tea Room for afternoon tea during weekend. It can be really packed.
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| dessert 1 |
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| dessert 2 |
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| scones with whipped cream and strawberry jam |
