Yum Cha Buffet

Ok, so on Tuesday Grace, James and I went to a yum cha buffet at the Summer Palace at the intercontinental......it was amazing! It was my first yum cha since arriving here so I was quite excited! The summer palace is beautiful....looks just like a palace and comes complete with Chinese folk music playing softly in the background! Decor was elegant but not over the top. Chinese styled wood carvings and furniture made me feel like I was enjoying pork buns with emperors.

Here is my table setting, complete with oshibori, and chopsticks which look like you could stab someone they had such pointed silver ends on them! I liked the silver spoon, although I never quite figured out its purpose for existence on my table. The menu was nice, and made it seem less buffet like, even though that's what it was and that's why I was there! The menu was extensive, and each dish was individually brought out by attentive waiters rather than mass carts being pushed around the room.




Service was amazing. The maitre d' ensured we were well looked after. Staff were attentive and always filling empty table space with dim sum delicious things! The tea service was amazing....this lady could pour tea whilst holding the plate and teapot in one hand!




One unwelcomed surpirse was the fact that we were offere drinks. Expecting tea just to be included, we ordered a fruit juice each. I ordered a kiwi juice, which was made of real kiwi, and the straw came with the straw covering on the top!






However, the tea wasnt included in the price, so we had to order it, at a kinda large price I have to say. But, the tea was excellent quality, so I'll pass over this small gripe I have and focus on the quality of the food! Starters were these salted nuts (minus points for the salt) and bamboo shoots and carrot with sesame (bonus points for use of sesame)




Then came the yum cha! Oh wooooow! It all looked so amazing. The chef flies the ingredients in from mainland China so it tasted fantastic! No substituted quality here! We just told them to bring us out one of everything! Here they all are in all there delicious glory!

The shumai had real caviar on top, I was most impressed!

Dessert was equally as impressive. The chef put lotus seed with century egg to create a dessert...never had century egg in a dessert before, but it worked well.

Then, the manager brought us out these caramalised custard buns. They weren't on the menu, but they made them for us espeically, even though we didn't even ask! That was nice of them! They were so tasty too!

So, moving proved to be a challenge when it came time to leave, but luckily I had enough strength to put left leg before right leg and so on and so forth until I was successful out of the hotel....then came the climb up the stairs to the bts....longest climb of stairs in my life! After this, I went to TU2U to teach english, and as it was the last lesson, we ate pizza.....lots and lots of pizza.....thank god for my 4 remaining stomachs!