5/04/2013

"Le Jardin" in Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo Afternoon Tea /
ホテル椿山荘「ル・ジャルダン」のアフタヌーンティー

Our afternoon tea tour has hit the 4th one, Le Jardin today.
The 3 others are the following.
#3: Shangri-La Tokyo
#4: Peninsula Tokyo
#5: Ritz-Carlton Tokyo

Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo  is a new name since January 1, 2013 and it used to be called "Four Seasons Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo" but they re-branded by integrating with the adjoining facilities (nuptial ceremony, banquet, and restaurants).
As you can see the name "Four Seasons," it started as one of the luxurious foreign hotel in 1992. However, the hotel terminated a franchise contract after about 20 years to focus on appealing Japanese history and culture.

"Le Jardin" means the garden in French and you'll see why it's called. 
Hotel itself is actually located on the hill and surrounded by trees.
From the Le Jardin, you can see greens if you seat by the window or the terrace.
On weekends and holidays, they don't take reservation so that we just needed to come in early enough to have a table.

We arrived at the hotel after 11:30AM.
The bus stop is located by Plaza bldg., which is one of the 3 buildings at Chinzanso, and Plaza is the farthest from the Le Jardin, which is in Hotel bldg..

So once we got off the bus stop, we walked from Plaza, passing Tower, then arrived at Hotel.

This is a parking lot you'll walk pass.

The sign is placed on the wall of the Plaza hotel.

Le Jarding is located on the 3rd floor of Hotel bldg., but you don't have to take any elevator or escalator since the entrance is apparently on the 3rd floor from the first.
Maybe from the Plaza entrance, it'd take 5-10 minutes walk.
There's another entrance (Hotel entrance) which is located at the Hotel bldg., so if you take a cab or walk from the station, you'll get the closer one.

This is the Hotel entrance for instance to see the difference between Plaza's and Hotel's.

In the lobby, there're flowers in vases and closer to the stairs, there's a Japanese bonsai.
(This photo was taken by the stairs, so you're looking at the lobby.)

Anyways, we got to Le Jardin around 11:45AM and asked if there's any table left for that day.
The waiter said there's a table by the window we could stay till 2:00PM so we took the table.

The waiter said the window side is open but we asked if the terrace had some vacancy.
Unfortunately already all the tables were taken by the people who came in early to write down their names.

This is the view from our table.



I saw buds in greens but it's not bloomed yet.
If it'd been normal weather, it'd have been already prettier with colors.
(2013 spring in Japan was crazy; some snow in April, cold and warm alternately.)

Table wasn't ready when we sat there.
We're provided 2 menus.
Longer one had some other menus besides afternoon tea set.

Shorter one had afternoon tea set and tea menus.


Current high tea set is My Fair Lady to celebrate 50th anniversary of the show in Japan. 



Tea menus.






On the last page, there's a note that they sell scones to go.

We ordered high tea sets, and a waitress said they'd prepare our table and I asked green tea muscat for the first tea.

We'd waited for about 10 minutes without anything to see but the view since the waitress took both menus away.
After waiting for a while, another waitress came and put the table clothe a little bit roughly as I could see some loose part was left.

We got a booklet over the napkins.
Hot towels were served pretty quickly and this one had no scent.

Tea was served fast, too.



Green tea muscat: sweet muscat flavor but tasted like green tea.



We're sipping teas and waited for the high tea set would arrive.
While waiting, I took some photos of the tea place and plates.







As we're sitting by the door which goes to the terrace, people walk back and forth.
And it's not that relaxing place to sit I'd say.

Same thing at Shangri-La had happened here again.
Waiters and waitresses brought high tea sets to others who came in later than us.
But we waited for a while again to see if they'd bring us anything without mentioning the situation.

It finally came to our table 20 minutes after we placed our order.

From the right, clotted cream, homemade strawberry jelly, and azuki (sweet bean paste) clotted cream.

Sandwiches at the bottom plate.

In the middle, 3 types of scones.

Top, sweets set.

Details of sandwiches.
Shrimp and Broccoli Sandwich with Cream Cheese Flavor.
It was a simple and light sammie.
Never had shrimp with cream cheese but it was really good.

Salmon and Egg Sandwich.
It had strong mayo flavor so I only had one bite.

Open Face Zucchini and Smoked Wine Beef Sandwich.
It was like a bruschetta. Nice to have beef from the first for this as we usually see ham on it.

Tortilla Roll with Tuna and Basil.
I'm sure this contains mayo but it didn't taste that strong so I could eat it.
Mixed with tomato and cucumber, it seemed like a diet tuna wrap.

Moving on to the scones.
I thought Shangri-La would be the rare place to provide 3 types of scones but Le Jardin serves 3 kinds, too.
Plain scone.
Warm and rose high, smelled really good.
Any kind of topping went well with this without a doubt.

Mugwort.
I've never had mugwort flavor scone before!
It's really interesting and azuki clotted cream went so well; both are famous flavor and ingredients for Japanese plate and confectionery.

Currants.
Sweet and sour currants flavored scone.

Homemade jam was as good as other Hotels' homemade jams, but the strawberry was a big chunk and it was hard to pick up the amount I wanted...

Dessert section.
Black Currant and Pistachio Cake.
Topped with gold powders and candy petal.
Had slight pistachio flavor in the mouth but had more berry flavor.

Green Tea Tiramisu.
I first didn't know why this is tiramisu, but when I ate this all together, I could taste chocolate and green tea.
The 2 thin plates at the bottom was white and milk chocolate.
It was like a new way to serve tiramisu.

Sweet Milk Cake with "Wasanbon" sugar.
It was really sweet and tasted like condensed milk cream with thin chocolate walls.
Wasanbon is a type of sugar produced in Kagawa pref. and Tokushima pref., both are in Shikoku area.

Mango Pudding and Raspberry Jelly.
Semispherical yellow objects are mango pudding.
It had characteristic mango flavor as if I was eating mango.
As the mango flavor was so dense, I couldn't taste raspberry in the jelly, but maybe they made the jelly a little bit weak so that the mango flavor is more enjoyable.


This hotel has a huge Japanese garden and you can take a walk after to work off the calories you just had.
2 photos below are views from Hotel building.


There's a board that we might find Tanuki (Japanese racoon) since this is located in a nature but the animals are wild, so don't feed, don't go closer, or don't chase them.


There's a waterfall.

And you can go backside of the waterfall, too.

Left one (shorter building) is Plaza, where we first went through, and the taller one is a Tower.
Hotel bldg. where Le Jardin is far right (not in this photo).


<Personal Evaluation>
View: 4.5 out of 5
Even though it's located in Tokyo, you get to see a lot of trees and three-story pogoda in the distance. 
Depending on where you sit, it might be hard to see what we saw though the tea space is facing to the garden with big glasses.
Hotel itself is located on the hill and hard to walk up from the closest station (Edogawabashi station on Yurakucho line), it makes it possible to make us feel like we're somewhere far from the busy and loud city of Tokyo, like an escape.


Food: 3.5 out of 5
Fine finger foods, great combination of seasonal ingredients, and I could see what they're focusing on; Japanese aspect.


Tea: 3 out of 5
Had a decent amount of choices but they tend to be Japanese/Asian tea flavors or fruit flavor teas with well-known English tea selection.
I only tried 2 kinds; green tea muscat and Keemun.
Green Tea Muscat: Japanese green tea with muscat grape flavor. I liked the first cup but then I started feeling I like regular green tea without any fruit flavor.
Keemun: Orchid flavored Chinese tea. It smelled too strong for me and soon it got bitter.
I didn't try other kinds so I can't tell if there's some simple or any tea which is distinctive enough to be special like "Chinzanso only."

Service: 3 out of 5
The waitress who took our order didn't explain if we could order different types of tea and how many times when she took our order, but other waitresses were saying to others they could get as many as they wanted.

So I think it totally depends who takes your order.
I wish everyone had been trained the same way and following manuals so that all the customer can expect some certain level of the service and explanation.


Fee: 3,500 JPY (tax included) + 10% service charge = 3,850 JPY

*They don't take reservations on weekends and holidays, so if you'd like to get a table, please go to Le Jardin early and ask waiter/waitress there.
*土日祝は予約不可。早い時間に行き、係りの人に尋ねるのがお勧め。ちなみにテラス席は6席限定。

Le Jardin in Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo / ホテル椿山荘東京「ル・ジャルダン」
Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo 3F,
2-10-8 Sekiguchi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo

東京都文京区2-10-8 ホテル椿山荘東京3F

Afternoon tea / アフタヌーンティー
Open: 12:00PM - 6:30PM

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