Fairmont Pacific Rim

Atmosphere

I would like to describe this Afternoon Tea experience as a "Mad Men Tea".  With it's mid-century modern vibe including low slung olive green club chairs, orange-red carpet, low cocktail tables and Brazilian lounge music, it does not take much of an imagination to feel like you are Joan shimmying into the hotel lounge to meet Roger for an afternoon delight.  In fact, coming here (combined with my nightly ritual of watching Mad Men on my iPhone while putting my girls to bed), has inspired me to purchase a very fitted leopard print dress and ask my husband to meet me at the hotel one afternoon to do our best Joan and Roger imitation.  Clearly I was not the only person thinking this as I'm sure the very well endowed woman I saw on my way in was certainly of the "by the hour" variety.  The place was full of business people in suits drinking scotch and who knows what else and I found myself craving a Happy Hour cocktail, rather than the Afternoon Tea I had signed up for.  Alas, this was not to be.  I came to enjoy a tea ritual with my friend Sheryl and we happily enjoyed our time travel back to the sixties.

Tea and Food Selection

Twelve kinds of tea were presented to us to choose from a wooden chest.  They were pretty standard variety (one white, some green, one scented green, one oolong and an English Breakfast, Flowery Earl Grey and another flavoured black tea called Eros). We both chose Eros (the Greek God of Love is a good tea choice, yes?).  The Afternoon tea theme at the Pacific Rim was Westcoast Asian Fusion.  We should have thought about this before making our tea choice.

The service started with warm scones with seasonal fruit preserves, devonshire cream and fresh strawberries.  All were of excellent quality and flavour, but being the purist I am, I prefer my savory sandwiches first, followed by my scones.  

Next we were brought our tray of savory sandwiches and sushi (bottom tier) and pastries/cakes (top tier).  The tea sandwiches served sushi style (cold) were miso tofu (sweet miso paste tofu on a bed of rice), tuna tataki (pineapple, lightly seared tuna on a bed of rice), and crab + cucumber (crab mayo mix topped with tobiko on top of cucumber wrapped rice).  This sushi was good if you were drinking green tea, however as I chose black tea, the cold sushi and hot milky tea did not fit well at all.  Also, it didn't seem right eating sweet and creamy scones and fresh berries and then eating sushi! 


On the bright side, their classic sandwiches were delightful and went very well with my tea selection.  They included a farm raised truffled egg salad with pickled cucumber and pea tendrils, a chilled tiger prawn and avocado-citrus with crème cheese on rye, and tandoor roasted chicken with laccha mango salad and mint chutney butter.  My favourites were the egg salad and tiger prawn sandwiches.

Finally, we finished with the pastries.  Our selections included financiers (a light, moist teacake topped with sliced almonds and powdered sugar), blueberry macarons, lemon fruit tarts, matcha layer cakes with lychee, and chocolate ganache jewels.  All of the pastries/cakes were fine except the blueberry macaron which tasted a bit jammy inside (was it blueberry compote? wasn't quite right, mind you - after going to Soirette, we are macaron snobs now!).  But what REALLY stood out for me was the matcha cake layered with lychee (see green triangular cake below).  To me this was an excellent fusion of east and west.  The flavours worked so well together (if you like these two flavours individually, which I do), and it was different enough from regular tea offerings and, therefore, a nice surprise!


I can't say I thought this menu and order of presentation worked well for me though.  Rather, it felt very multiple personality with all the conflicting temperatures and flavours (for example:cold sushi, warm milky tea).  I would like to suggest two possible ways to make this menu work better: 


Option One:  Change the order of the menu and provide a tea to pair with each course.  I would begin with the sushi (paired with a white or green tea), and then follow with the classic sandwiches (paired with a black or oolong without milk), and then follow with the scones, cream and berries (paired with a black tea and with milk and sugar if desired), and finish with the pastries (staying with the same black tea as with the scones).   


Option Two:  Change the order of the menu (as listed above: sandwiches, scones then pastries) and provide the Asian influence in a less literal sense.  For example, instead of offering tuna tataki sushi on cold rice, make a tuna tataki sandwich on a suitable bread with a pineapple or wasabi mayo and maybe some watercress or pea shoots.  This way, the jarring cold temperature and the heat of the tea would not clash so and the sandwich would pair nicely with a black tea, rather than needing to offer multiple tea pairings throughout the tea service.

Presentation 

The tea itself was served in two beautiful cast iron Japanese tea pots (called Tetsubin); one red and one blue.  It kept our tea nice and hot, but on the down side, the leaves were left in so we ended up with oversteeped, bitter tea.  Not good.  The cups were a pure white with very modern lines and nice to the touch, and the two-tiered tray and the square plates were beautifully made from frosted glass with black drawing-like depictions of flowers.

Service

Overall, the service was fine.  She was attentive in that our milk was warmed (nice touch) and our hot water was refilled (even though the leaves were never removed, see my gripe above about bitter tea), but we did not feel a connection with our server which is unfortunate because it certainly is one of the great parts about going for tea!

Value

The total cost for two people was $78.40 plus a gratuity.  I can't say I would pay this much to go here for Afternoon Tea again (cocktails and sushi and night - yes).  The only thing that would have me returning here for Tea would be a change in the order of the menu and the menu itself (see suggestions above under "Tea and Food Selection"), or a super deal (2 for 1 maybe), especially since I know I can go to any other Fairmont hotel in the city and have a perfect Afternoon Tea for the same price.  

Overall Experience

Overall, even though I really did enjoy the atmosphere of the hotel lobby and the neat mid-century vibe, I did not find the menu to be conducive to coming here again.  I would recommend coming here for cocktails at night though for a little Man Men Happy Hour action!

Just the Facts

Fairmont Pacific Rim
1038 Canada Place
Vancouver, B.C.  V6C 0B9
604.695.5300
www.fairmont.com/pacificrim 

Date visited: April 4, 2012 

Robyn at the Mad Men Tea - Where was my leopard print dress?