The 2 stars are because the afternoon tea at the Empress has gone down substantially in quality in the last few years, it is overpriced for the quality and variety offered, and they certainly managed to spoil a very special occasion for us! We could...have gone elsewhere for our anniversary and enjoy a much better experience!
Because we were celebrating our anniversary, we had clearly requested, under "special requests" in Open Table, to save us a table with a view, as close as possible to the street. Our seating was at 11:15am, when the restaurant was not even 25% full (it opens for tea at 11am).
Not only did they NOT reserve us a table with a view, as requested, they also had no idea about our request, although it was confirmed the day before when we spoke with their staff member who called us to confirm food allergies. So why then is the restaurant allowing a "special request" section if they don't even read it??
To top it off, the person who seated us was quite curt, and when we reminded her of our request for a view table made both in writing via Open Table and during the phone conversation with their staff member the day before, just shrug shoulders.
In spite of celebrating our anniversary here, we were given bad seating in uncomfortable armchairs that were not designed for drinking tea and eating finger food; there was no privacy either, we were seated right by two other couples on each side and could hear their conversations (?!?)
We requested a table with a view however got stuck at the back of the room, away from the view!! We requested to be close to the street, and we ended up at the back of the room, right by the food preparation station... why would someone in their right mind chose to celebrate their anniversary here?
There was no chocolate card wishing us happy anniversary although they have done this for other customers in the recent past (judging from pictures posted by other reviewers in Yelp and Open Table). Hmmm... very disappointing experience.
The food was mediocre, and they did not even follow their own menu.
A few examples:
All finger food was served on regular bread, just like standard sandwiches:
- Although the menu said the salmon would be served on "blinis", it was actually served on regular white bread; interesting that other reviewers said that their salmon was served on blinis and the pictures showed blinis, ours WAS NOT!
- Although the menu said that the Artichoke and Red Pepper was going to be served as a "Pinwheel", it was also served on regular bread
- Although the menu included "Herbed Free Run Egg Salad Brioche with flat leaf parsley, radish", this sandwich was NOT INCLUDED in our menu, and instead they replaced it with a PLAIN hummus sandwich. How incredibly boring and unsophisticated! Very disappointing replacement which is obviously deviating from their own menu, because previous customer’s pictures showed that the egg salad was served for them, but sadly, NOT FOR US!
As a pescatarian I have had much more interesting food options at places where we paid half the price!
Did they run out of eggs? Did the cook no longer have time to prepare blinis and pinwheels as stated in the menu, which would certainly make for a better, more sophisticated, and more diverse food presentation? Why was the famous vegetarian item "egg salad" replaced with PLAIN HUMMUS??; this may happen at much more inexpensive places, but to pay $85 for this?!?
Are they out of staff? Did the main cook quit? Or maybe they are trying to save money???
The sweets were also mediocre, and truly tasted like they came from Safeway.
Last but not least the piano was way too loud, not the usual subdued music one would expect, and hence no conversation was possible when there was piano music, and when there wasn’t, we could hear the conversation of the other couple seated at the tables close to us.
In summary, the quality of the food options, food presentation, and taste were suboptimal, and seating should be better for the amount of money being paid. There was no attention to detail and our anniversary was completely disregarded and NO CHOCOLATE CARD was offered for our special day…
We've done high tea in many different countries and locations and for this amount of money I would have hoped for a bit more variation of delicacies.
Incredibly disappointing experience! Also very sad that they disregarded our anniversary completely both by not giving us the seating we requested, and by not putting any chocolate card wishing us Happy Anniversary like they did for other guests.
Do yourself a favor and go for tea at Abkhazi Gardens as it is a much better experience for half the price!!More