What does high tea remind you of? For me, it's a very specific memory. No posh dressing up, no outdoorsy event - rather, a warm, laughter filled event as family and friends gathered to celebrate whoever's birthday it was at the time, with the smell of lovely samosas in the background and the guarantee of a mouthwatering, homemade black forest cake.
I'm rather pleased that the trend of high tea has caught on in Nairobi - obviously, a very different kind of high tea from the one I encountered in my childhood, but one I can get behind nonetheless.
When one of my favourite joints in Nairobi, Urban Eatery, rolled out a high tea option and invited me to try the same, I definitely couldn't refuse! You need to call in advance to make sure they have everything ready for you. What I liked about Urban's high tea is that, true to their character, even their high tea consisted of a blend of different cuisines. What would I change? Add even more cuisines! Samosas, anyone?
To start off, we were given some tea (duh!) but the weird thing is that there was no sugar on the table. Luckily, right now I'm in a no-sugar-in-my-tea stage, but not so for my friend.
However, when the goodies came out, I soon forgot all about this because the display was absolutely AMAZING!
The top layer had cupcakes, vanilla and chocolate eclairs, a variety of cookies, nut cake and dark chocolate cake.
The middle later had scones with whipped cream and homemade strawberry jam.
The bottom later had somakito, Philadelphia rolls, summer rolls, salmon open sandwiches, mayo and cheese sandwiches, and egg sandwiches.
Top layer
Let's start off with the top layer, shall we? The butterjam cookie was soft and crunchy at the same time! The cookie with icing was a perfect treat - melt in your mouth good!
The nut cake was very light, almost Snickers-ish. I'm not a Snickers fan (I know, I know), but I actually really liked this!
The chocolate eclair was perfect and light - however, a little on the sweeter side for me so I couldn't have the whole thing! The vanilla eclair had all the great qualities of its chocolate cousin - but was just better!
What I didn't like about this layer, however, was the dark chocolate cake. It was on the dry side, and slightly bitter - definite room for improvement here!
Middle layer
While the scones were hard, maybe overbaked - hear me out - I actually really liked them! They were hard on the outside, but a lovely texture, soft and sweet, on the inside, and I could have definitely kept eating them.
I feel like I need a whole other blog post to wax poetic about the homemade strawberry jam...
OH. MY. GOODNESS. This was absolutely DIVINE. Tart and sweet, heavenly and fresh, I'm sure this will inspire many a love song. Goodness. Even if the rest of the high tea hadn't been wonderful, I would definitely return just for this.
Top layer
Now we get to the savoury layer - I'll admit, I wasn't sure how the transition would go, but I was pleasantly surprised!
Containers for soy sauce weren't provided here, but this was easily rectified.
The egg salad sandwiches' bread was a little dry - as it is, egg salad is far from my favourite, so I didn't eat much of this. However, my friend loved it, especially how creamy it was!
The summer roll was very refreshing, healthy, and perfectly complemented the sweet chilli sauce (which was great!).
The Philadephia roll was good - not as great as the summer roll though!
The sushi in general was amazing, I'd love this again!
I finished this plate off with the mayo and cheese sandwich - however, I didn't see much cheese or mayo... On the other hand, the sandwich did have mango, black pepper and cucumber - and they went together really well! The bread on this was also softer.
For a grand finale, we went back to the top layer for the cupcakes. These were lovely and dainty and oh-so-good! Please oh please Urban, add these to your regular menu.
Overall verdict? Definitely loved my experience there, and will definitely go back - who's with me? This time, I hope to see even more variety on their plate!
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