London 2015 Day 7: Savoy High Tea
The day began with an early wakeup (that seems to be a trend of ours!) A 1.5 hr bus ride to Edinburgh airport -- St. Andrews is quite remote, I thought it was closer to 45 min! We got there in plenty of time although, and dropped bags off. But first... my bag is already overweight?!! Glad I'm taking Star Alliance for the rest of the trip!
First stop in the terminal was to the Duty Free, this was the same one that Matt and I went to in 2014. I was particularly excited because... ohhhh mannnn... yes you CAN buy duty free if you're just going from Scotland to England! I was particularly excited about the brand-new, UK travel-retail ONLY Glenmorangie Dornoch! And they had it there waiting for me :)
They also had another new one called Glenmorangie Duthac, but I was laser-beam focused on the Dornoch, being a very unusual option, a peated Glenmorangie, so I was PSYCHED. The amazing shop there let me actually try both which was amazing, despite it being kinda crazy at 9am. Duthac seemed good but nothing special really. Dornoch was not very smoky like I was expecting, just very slight at the finish. I also suspect my palate was not particularly well-refined at 9am. Nonetheless, epic-win. Insta-buy!!!!!
We got to London swiftly. We had brekkie on the plane, some grilled tomatoes, and Fairmont had also packed us a great smoked salmon bun so that was amazing. We got to London and onto a transfer bus and hit a pretty large amount of traffic. It was a long journey into London, but wow it looked super amazing. They took us straight to our destination, the only Fairmont in London, the famous Savoy! It was SO fancy. We skipped the arrival room since we had a high tea already booked, and headed straight to the Thames Foyer for the MOST INCREDIBLE HIGH TEA OF MY LIFE. It was A-MAZING. It was so grand, glorious, excellent, tasty, fancy, classy... all of the things. Holy moly!!!! Here's an incredible way to start a high tea service, "You can have as many sandwiches as scones as you'd like, sir".... whaaatttt?!??! I've never heard of that before. Even at a fancy spot, you are generally always limited to what is supplied and nothing more. I was astounded. Most. Epic. High Tea. EVER.
And it's not like the sandwiches were lightweights... they were so, so, so, soooo good. The Egg Salad was definitely the best egg salad of all time. So rich and not "tangy" like Egg Salad can be. Just amazing... smooth?!?!?! Holy moly. The chicken salad was insanely good too. Damn!!!!
Don't get me started on the Devonshire Cream!!!! It was almost a BRONZE colour... never seen anything like it!!!!! The Lemon Curd was so smooth, no sickly sweet as Lemon Curd often is, not eggy or gel-y... this was beyond compare. And nevermind if you picked an Earl Grey first and later wanted a Green tea or perhaps an Afternoon Blend.... "As many tea choices as you'd like, sir".... uhhhhhh.... my head almost exploded from how amazing this place was. (In a calm and justified manner, befitting to our surroundings, of course). Seriously this place rocked so much.
Clearly, given the choice to try several of the amazing tea options, I went for it. I first had a White Rose tea, then Breakfast Tea, then Afternoon Tea. After a (few) rounds of the incredibly delectable sandwich choices, we moved onto the Scones which were, as I'm sure you'd suspect, a total slam dunk. And some scones and enjoying the heck out of that amazing Devonshire Cream, they moved us onto the (not-so) petit fours!! As seemed to be the style of this incredible establishment, "As many as you'd like, sir"... uhhhhh.... crazy crazy crazy.
Of course by now we were getting quite stuffed, but it was amazing to be able to pick your favourite and have another if you had room! I tried 3 of the 5 choices, and Michal tried 2, so that we could make sure to at least sample all of the amazing options once. The Mango Passion Fruit one was of course super epic and tailor-made for my area of interest. The Orange Almond one was also of particular impressiveness.
But wait, there's still cake!
I always find it quite funny that in high tea, after all the smashingly-awesome treats, there is oftentimes STILL a Cake at the end!!!!!! Mercy me! There were two choices, so we tried one of each, Apple Cinnamon, and Banana Chocolate! Both were EXCEPTIONALLY moist and epic. How in the world they craft such brilliance at this place is beyond me. The pastry chef is a national treasure. Crazy crazy crazy. This place rocks. I recommend it to an extreme extent (if it wasn't obvious from the amount of exclamation marks in this post!) What a start to the trip!
Up we went to the room and there was a fancy "Savoy Tea" box up there waiting for us, with chocolates and 2 cupcakes, and a sculpted "Kaspar the Car" chocolate! Whoa!!! So freakin' incredible.
We walked around the Embankment area and got a nice photo of Big Ben. I hadn't been to London since I lived in Oxford when I was 12-13, about 20 years ago! Big Ben was a little smaller than I remembered... guess I was smaller then! We saw the London Eye which was new since I was last in London. It was cool but a bit touristy. We wandered for a while and then found Gordon's Wine Bar and took a photo for Michal out front :) EJ had told us about it and said it was an amazing spot, and also funny that it was called "Gordon's". Good times and great wandering.
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| Let the silly faces commence! |
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| OH MAN, IT'S MAGNIFICIENT |
We got back to the Savoy and changed and then headed to Blanc for dinner in Covent Garden with the other folks on the trip. I had tasty chicken and potatoes and a creme brulee for dessert. I'm glad we took that long walk after tea, I can't believe I had any room for dinner!
From there, for this amazing day of non-stop action, we headed to a show of War Horse... and we were in the front row! It was a beautiful show and I loved the "Special Effects" -- people even "rode" the horse, which was a puppet controlled by other actors! It was very cool and crazy awesome. Very emotive actors were portraying very emotive horses. So cool. I loved it. A really fun experience.
After after THAT amazingness... oh, you know, just back to the SAVOY!!! Wow what a spot! We tried out the American Bar at the Savoy ("American" = a cocktail bar). It was seating only, more like and old-school "cocktail club". SO fancy.
I had an old-fashioned-like drink called Secret Agent. The bar snacks were even fancy: a regular mix, beans, and olives with anchovies! Crazily, there was a £5000 Sazerac... with Bourbon from 1860. Seriously. What an epic spot.
And just to wrap up this amazingly epic day, I got my shoes shined, as you do. :) So incredible to be in London and what an unbelievable opportunity to get to stay at such a legendary location.
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