PDA

View Full Version : Tea Service at Steakhouse 55!



Pages : [1] 2 3

Malcon10t
12-08-2015, 05:55 PM
https://disneyland.disney.go.com/dining/disneyland-hotel/afternoon-tea/

"Step Back in Time
Experience an elegant afternoon complete with sweets, savories and a lovely selection of teas.
Within the glamorous Hollywood-style setting of Steakhouse 55 at Disneyland Hotel, prepare for one of the most regal rituals to survive a bygone era—afternoon tea. Originally introduced to European high society in the 1800s, this relaxing respite promises to forge unforgettable memories with family and friends.

From 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM beginning January 22, 2016, you’re invited to sip loose leaf teas and herbal infusions while treating your taste buds to an assortment of delightful morsels. The menu includes traditional scones, tea sandwiches, desserts and more. Aperitifs, wines by the glass, ports and cordials are also available for an additional charge."

I'm excited!

tea4two
12-08-2015, 07:40 PM
This sounds like fun!

tlovesdis
12-09-2015, 08:09 AM
It's pretty pricey, but then what isn't at DL. Someone called and posted on another board that it will range from $40 for kids to $65 for adults depending on the package.

cstephens
12-09-2015, 03:05 PM
They've pretty much owed us afternoon tea since they took away the Practically Perfect Tea. I miss that a lot. I've been campaigning for a Mad Tea Party, but I'd heard there were rights issues. Phooey.

My only disappointment is that since this is just being held at Steakhouse 55 and not a dedicated tea room, the decor won't be tea room themed. I'll probably try it once.

bennette
12-09-2015, 06:22 PM
I reserve judgement until the cucumber sandwiches have been tested.

adriennek
12-09-2015, 08:39 PM
I'm.

So.

There.

YEAH!!!!!!!

Drince88
12-10-2015, 06:57 AM
Yummy. My sister and I did the one in the Grand Floridian a few years back. Obviously the decor won't be the light and airy that it was there, but I'm hoping it's even a better experience food wise!

leota's necklace
12-12-2015, 10:49 PM
I reserve judgement until the cucumber sandwiches have been tested.

*Chuckle*

LauraTD
12-14-2015, 04:17 PM
I reserve judgement until the cucumber sandwiches have been tested.

I hope they are historically accurate :geek:

bennette
12-14-2015, 04:50 PM
I hope they are historically accurate :geek:

I doubt that very much.

LauraTD
12-15-2015, 06:13 AM
I doubt that very much.

Maybe if you eat them with a posh British accent.

tea4two
01-25-2016, 12:25 AM
Has anyone done this yet? Any reviews?

stan4d_steph
01-25-2016, 11:47 AM
Has anyone done this yet? Any reviews?

MousePlanet will be covering it but our writer won't be able to attend until next month.

Malcon10t
01-25-2016, 08:23 PM
Has anyone done this yet? Any reviews?

I haven't been able to get a reservation yet. They are completely booked I was told.

tea4two
01-25-2016, 08:56 PM
I've been able to book reservations pretty easily online. But I'm not looking for busy dates like Valentine's weekend.

AnotherJenny
01-25-2016, 09:39 PM
There are reservations for this Friday. I'm available, but broke. However, if someone else wants to pay I'll happily report back. I could live tweet it. I'll even post at least one Vine. :D

Free Agent
02-01-2016, 05:23 PM
$65 is about the right price for afternoon tea at all the good places in North America.
My 14 year old daughter talked me into it at the Empress in Victoria BC and we loved it.
We'll most certainly be enjoying it at the 55.

Free Agent
02-01-2016, 05:36 PM
There are reservations for this Friday. I'm available, but broke. However, if someone else wants to pay I'll happily report back. I could live tweet it. I'll even post at least one Vine. :D

I can get anyone in the family available to go in the near future so if you want to bring a friend and join me this month I'll pick up the tab.
I love this stuff.

adriennek
02-07-2016, 12:20 PM
Confession: this is an expanded post from comments I made on my private FB page:

I attended the tea on Saturday, February 6. Our reservation was at 1:30 pm. We were seated shortly after 1:30 and the restaurant was PACKED. Every table was filled. We were among the last parties seated and we were the last to leave. As we left, the dinner servers were setting the tables for dinner. Please note: We did not purposely linger. Two things contributed to us being the last there: Our server brought us a second round of tea, on her suggestion. As it was, we did not have time to finish the second round and we all left tea undrunk. Also, our server apparently left and the servers that remained did not realize that we had not yet paid our bill. So our bill sat on the table, waiting to be picked up, until we asked one of the dinner servers to take it.

I attended with two friends, a third had to cancel at the last minute. We scheduled this a few weeks ago because this was the first weekend reservation we could get at the time. The company was lovely. I was very glad to have an opportunity to relax and have tea with my friends, both of whom, I can VERY safely say, are Disney fans.

My overall impression is this:

For $65, it's worth upgrading to the Premium tea because the $15 difference is less than the cost of the champagne alone.

That said, I like tea. I like going to have tea. I think the price is high for the amount of food you get. Others in my group agreed that as teas go, this one is on the light side, and, yes, everyone at our table ordered the Premium tea so ours included the salad, champagne and truffles. It could be high because it's Disney. It could be high because they give an Annual Passholder discount.

The service was a bit lacking, but that could be a factor of this being still a new event/service at the restaurant. I would hope that if they continued with the tea, that the service would get smoother and improve.

Finally, one thing that I want to say that I don't say in my comments below:

NOTHING about this tea said: I'm having tea at a Disney owned restaurant.

No Scones were shaped like Mickey heads or any other hidden Mickeys.
There were no character decorated white chocolates on the sweets.
There were no characters on the china or the serving plates.
This could have been any tea any where.

Ok, on to my specific comments:

My biggest criticisms were this: For the price we paid, the service was a bit lacking. Keeping in mind this is a very new thing - they've only been doing it for a month or so. So it's probably unfair to judge the service. But. Feedback is a gift so here it goes:

1. Our champagne flutes had water spots/dishwashing residue around the tops of the glasses. This was a bit disappointing considering the champagne they serve and price they charge. (Iron Horse, $17 per glass if ordered separately from the tea.) Steakhouse55 has been open for years so that's an issue they shouldn't have.

2. We sat down it took a LONG time between our order and getting water. When the champagne and sparkling cider arrived, we had to ask for the water. We needed the water. While I appreciate that they want you to have a leisurely experience, we were thirsty. Water didn't need to be quite so leisurely. As soon as the champagne arrived, we pulled out our phones to take pictures. Based on the time stamps, we can confirm: It took 30 minutes from the time we were seated for the champagne to arrive, and when it did, the water did not arrive with it. 30 minutes seems to be a bit too leisurely.

3. It's so new, they couldn't tell use what we were eating. There were many different macarons on the sweets plate. I might say too many different flavors actually. And we had no way of knowing which was what - no guide and the server didn't know. She said she'd bring us a list but she never did. The last time we saw her, she said she was going to grab it and she never came back.

Please note: She was a delightful person. Absolute delightful. I just think that maybe she was juggling too many balls at one time or still figuring it all out. She seemed a little overwhelmed when we asked about the macaroon flavors. There were at least 6 different flavors on our plates.

If I had a suggestion I'd make it would be to reduce the variety of macarons. They were small to be shared 3 ways and I had a hard time trying to figure out: Which would I like the most, which would my friends like, and then we didn't know what they were. Blah blah blah. Too much.

One friend commented that she thought there was an imbalance between sweet and savory - too many sweet options not enough savory. She also thought the scones were too sweet. I agreed that the blueberry was rather sweet. The current scone was less sweet but could have been even less so.

4. I thought that for the price we paid, they could've given us more food. Maybe more on the salad or a nice creamy soup instead of the salad. The sandwich selection was good but they could've been bigger or the scones could've been bigger. I wasn't as full as I felt I should've been giving the price. I'll definitely needed dinner afterwards. In fact, I thought I might at least be able to eat a later dinner but despite our 1:30 seating and the food not arriving until after 2 pm, I was hungry again at my normal dinner time.

5. As I mentioned earlier, our server left the restaurant entirely without telling us she was leaving. (Usually when I've had a server leave, she's introduced the person taking over for her.) We were the last party in the restaurant. No one took our bill, we had to flag down a dinner service waitress to run our bill for us.

The Good - I feel like my kinks are just issues to be addressed and that they're on to something good:

1. The food was all very tasty. The cucumber sandwich had something lemon in the spread and it was really good. The egg salad had a nice spice. The only complaints about the sandwiches was that I would've liked more of them. (With the exception of the smoked salmon sandwich, but that's a personal issue. I'm just not a fan. This was a good thing for my friend who likes smoked salmon because after I cut off a small bite to taste, she got the rest of mine!)

Scones were good, if not a little too sweet, I would've liked them to be bigger.

2. The teas were **awesome**. Very tasty. We all enjoyed the teas we had very much and we all got two "pots". Each of us had one hot pot and one cold. My friends had two different teas, I had the same tea, one hot, one cold. And it was not my "go-to" tea. I went out of my comfort zone. This is one point where the service shined: Our server was very enthusiastic that if I didn't care for the tea, she would gladly bring me something else. She made it safe to try the new tea. And she clearly was familiar with the teas on the menu. Either that or we just happened to ask about or order all the teas she knew!

3. Real china. That was nice.

4. Here's the deal: They have a "Classic" Tea and "Premium" tea. The Premium tea is $15 more and you get a glass of champagne, the salad and two truffles to take home. That glass of champagne is the one they charge $17 per glass for, throughout the Disneyland resort. So you're getting $2 off that champagne plus salad and truffles. Totally worth the $15 upcharge if you're going to drink the champagne. They subbed Martinelli's if you don't want the champagne. Going in, I had planned to "just" get the classic but when I saw the menu, I was enticed by the bubbles and I will say I'm glad I did it.

tea4two
02-07-2016, 07:56 PM
We were there the day before you went and agree with your assesment overall. I went with the premium tea for the same reasons you did. The salad was good and, as you noted, the price on the bubbly alone was higher than the $15 difference between the tea offerings. I agree that the amount of food should have been more generous. Mr. Tea went with the classic tea and walked away hungry. He got something to eat in DCA afterward. However, the generosity with the actual teas was great. Our table of 4 must have gone through 10 pots of tea at least. And the Mountain Berry tea iced is very refreshing. (My favorite was the Darjeeling.) Our server was very good, knowledgeable about the menu and teas, and very prompt. So, as you said, maybe some servers haven't had enough time to train fully for this meal. We really did enjoy the tea -- location was nice, classical music was nice, the idea of having afternoon tea at DLR was very fun. My biggest complaint was that the quality of the food wasn't what I thought it could have been for S55. The scones were heavy and under baked. My blueberry scone was clearly made from the scrap dough after the first scones had been cut out. It was tough (work those glutens!) and damp in the center. My current scone was better, but still under baked. The custard tarts were a bit tired, like they had been sitting out too long. We were with friends who were having a super good time, so I didn't think it was the right time to ask the server to inquire about these things. I'm glad we did the tea (and the AP discount didn't hurt either!).

Free Agent
02-08-2016, 07:46 AM
Nice reviews, thanks for the takes.

stan4d_steph
02-08-2016, 09:49 AM
2. We sat down it took a LONG time between our order and getting water. When the champagne and sparkling cider arrived, we had to ask for the water. We needed the water. While I appreciate that they want you to have a leisurely experience, we were thirsty. Water didn't need to be quite so leisurely. As soon as the champagne arrived, we pulled out our phones to take pictures. Based on the time stamps, we can confirm: It took 30 minutes from the time we were seated for the champagne to arrive, and when it did, the water did not arrive with it. 30 minutes seems to be a bit too leisurely.

Did you request the water when you ordered? California restaurants are still under water restrictions, and cannot automatically give you water.

tea4two
02-08-2016, 04:37 PM
A few minutes after we were seated, our server asked whether we wanted water. The glasses arrived quickly after that.

AVP
02-08-2016, 07:31 PM
Did you request the water when you ordered? California restaurants are still under water restrictions, and cannot automatically give you water.I did, and we had to ask again when the champagne came.

As the non-drinker in the party, I'll add my 2c. A member of the party asked if there was a non-alcoholic option for the Premium tea, and the server said she could substitute Martinelli's. I asked if they had any of the Navaro or Ariel wines available, and they don't serve them at S55.

I went ahead and got the Premium tea anyway because I knew the other two members of the party were getting it, and I didn't want there to be an awkward mismatch on courses, especially since I figured (correctly) that the actual tea wouldn't come out until after the salad course.

The salad was delicious, and the green goddess dressing they used amazing. I would have liked a tiny bit of cheese or something salty on the salad, but it was great.

AdrienneK nailed most of my criticisms of the tea, but my biggest peeves were:



Martinellis. Ugh. I KNOW they know that there are other non-alcoholic wines and sparkling options. Why oh why is it ALWAYS Martinellis? Look, I love the stuff as much as the next tea-totter, but when you're charging $15 for the glass, can you try a little harder to put something interesting in it?
Menu knowledge. The servers should be able to answer – or quickly find the answers – questions about specific tea blends, and identify the macarons and other sweets. I have a peculiar allergy to an herb found in some teas, and our server had a deer-in-headlights look when we asked her to check for me.
Service speed, and the Incredible Vanishing Server trick.
If you order your tea iced, it is brewed, then poured into a glass wine carafe filled with ice. It's served to the table in the carafe, where it is then poured into a water glass. The glasses at the table don't contain ice, so you end up with a glass of lukewarm tea unless you request more ice.
I agree that the sweet/savory mix was off. I think a nice soup option would be welcome for those who want a larger meal. We saw several people boxing up their dessert plates. I can only figure that they filled up with hot tea, or couldn't handle another bite of sugar.


A few positive things AdrienneK left out:



If guests had a lot of tea left in their pots, (most, but not our) servers brought to-go cups full of ice so guests could take it with them. That was a nice touch.
The truffles come in a little box, so you can take them home. They aren't served on a plate, and don't have to be eaten there.
Anyone can order the kid's tea - you don't have to be 12 or under to order it.


For me, "well, the company was great" is not a strong recommendation for a dining experience. I'm glad I had the opportunity to spend that time with friends, but I can think of several other restaurants on property where I'd choose to spend that $70 if I had it to do over again, knowing now what I know. (And if there's any hope of getting those same teas served during breakfast hours at S55, I'd book a breakfast reservation there next week).

adriennek
02-08-2016, 08:56 PM
Martinellis. Ugh. I KNOW they know that there are other non-alcoholic wines and sparkling options. Why oh why is it ALWAYS Martinellis? Look, I love the stuff as much as the next tea-totter, but when you're charging $15 for the glass, can you try a little harder to put something interesting in it?

I totally agree with this. I didn't want to say anything to you about it - felt a little awkward to say, but I thought the same thing.


If you order your tea iced, it is brewed, then poured into a glass wine carafe filled with ice. It's served to the table in the carafe, where it is then poured into a water glass. The glasses at the table don't contain ice, so you end up with a glass of lukewarm tea unless you request more ice.

+1. Totally.


A few positive things AdrienneK left out:


[LIST]
If guests had a lot of tea left in their pots, (most, but not our) servers brought to-go cups full of ice so guests could take it with them. That was a nice touch.

I asked for a to-go cup because I had iced tea left over. The cup was a little small. It wasn't a "medium" size cup, it was a more designed for hot tea or coffee.


For me, "well, the company was great" is not a strong recommendation for a dining experience. I'm glad I had the opportunity to spend that time with friends, but I can think of several other restaurants on property where I'd choose to spend that $70 if I had it to do over again, knowing now what I know.

My mom and I have been talking about going to tea for a while. She was asking questions about it based on my Facebook post, but I told her that for the price, I thought we could have a better experience elsewhere.