I don’t feel so guilty for not going to the gym this morning, because I woke up to sea of snow. The ever-picturesque view from my apartment window:
So that gives me extra time to do a blog post of the first afternoon tea for the year in Tokyo.
After running around watching the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday, I ended up in Ginza where I met a handful of friends for afternoon tea. I had chosen the venue with it’s location in mind – prime real estate in Ginza with views of the Marathon to boot.
The building on the corner in the photo above is where we had afternoon tea – on the second level of the Mitsukoshi departo (in the corner of the shoe section) is Laduree French tea salon.
We got there early (before midday) to secure a seat. This place gets busy and reservations not accepted.
It’s a little heavy on the French decor.
The sole reason for doing this venue on this day was to watch the marathon whilst having tea. The L-shaped tea salon has large glass windows with full views over the Ginza intersection, allowing front-row seats to the Tokyo Marathon. Check it out!
So yep, safe to say, that Laduree Tea Salon is the best place to go and watch the Tokyo Marathon with a cup of tea and macaroons in hand.
We we’re in fact here for food and tea. Laduree is both a tea salon and french patisserie. They have lots of beautiful-looking sweets to tempt the tastebuds:
The dessert to the left (in photo below) looked oppai-ish.
I started off with the champagne and macaroon set.
The menu here is quite extensive. They offer a la carte light dishes, the 3-tier afternoon tea set, as well as various lunch sets. We actually all ended up doing the lunch set instead of the afternoon tea set. I went with the omelette lunch set which came with an omelettte, mini bread roll, choice of dessert and choice of tea. I probably wouldn’t recommend the sandwich sets as they looked tiny (half a sandwich only). It was a truffle omlette too.
Had a little bit of food envy because a couple of the others got the hot lunch special – choice of fish or beef. They went the beef which looked delicious.
We could choose one dessert (from a select 4). So a friend and I chose a different one each and shared them.
The desserts here are pretty divine. They really excel in the patisserie department. I got to try the giant raspberry and lychee macaroon sandwich filled with raspberries. The other dessert was insanely delicious – chocolate, hazelnut, crispy goodness. Tasted like nutella. Really clean, sharp flavours. The tea selection here was also impressive. 3 pages of teas to choose from. You can choose any tea with the lunch sets.
The highlight of the day were the macaroons. Laduree is famous for their macaroons. I’m generally not a fan of them. Love looking at them, but I don’t enjoy them so much. The macaroons here won me over. They are totally worth it. And you’ve not had a macaroon until you’ve tried Laduree macaroons. Hands down, they win the best macaroon award in Tokyo (to date). This is their specialty. I got to choose two flavours from the window selection.
I settled on the chocolate madagascar macaroon and the citron macaroon. Simply divine. Totally satisfied with my selection. The chocolate madagascar was yummy and the citron was amazing lemon creamy tartiness. Imagine a lemon meringue pie captured in a macaroon. And the texture of these macaroon were amazing.
Macaroon Tower:
Laduree Tea Salon: Level 2, Mitsukoshi department store, Ginza But there’s a bunch of them around Japan. Also one in Nihonbashi (Tokyo). Afternoon tea and lunch sets vary between 3200-3500yen. Champagne and macaroon set 1800yen A la carte also available.
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