Fancy Lolita Tea Time - Royal York's Champagne Afternoon Tea

For October's Lolita meet we decided to go back to the Royal York's Library Bar since the majority of the group did not attend the previous meet up there in April. I found my previous experience there was very enjoyable and their accommodations were very good. 

While looking up the Library Bar's information to make the reservation, I noticed that October and November had a special featured 'Royal' menu to celebrate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's visit to Canada this year. Below is the menu~

Royal York's Library Bar

In celebration of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's visit to Canada, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts will launch a special A Royal Champagne Afternoon Tea series for the months of October and November.  In collaboration with Chef Darren McGrady of Eating Royally, visitors to select Fairmont locations, including Fairmont Royal York, will have the opportunity to experience a menu fit for a Queen, including favourites of Prince William and the reigning monarch 

Royal Afternoon Tea

Sandwiches

Smoked Scottish Salmon Gravadlax with Suèdoise Sauce

Sage Derby with Tomato

Coronation Chicken with Mayonnaise Bridge Rolls

Roast Beef with Golden Beetroot and Horseradish Crème Fraîche

Potted Shrimp with Warm Melba Toast

Jam Pennies

Additional Sandwiches

Selection of Pastries

Warm Scones with Clotted Cream and Fraise des Bois Compote

Vanilla Bean Shortbread

Raspberry Tartlets with Lemon Cheese

Earl Grey Fruitcake

Chocolate Biscuit Cake

Caramel Banana Cake

Battenberg Cake

Some of the savory and sweet items for afternoon tea.

The day that we all met up, because it was an overcast day and the table was set up in the middle of the room, the lighting was not ideal for taking pictures. We don't have very many pictures of the food or us in the restaurant due to the poor lighting. 

I quite liked the savory items in the menu and did not eat too many of the sweets. Unfortunately, the Royal York forgot my dietary requests that I initially provided in my e-mails, but our waiter was quite accommodating and found me some fruits and sorbet to substitute for the chocolate items. 

Since they lost my request, they also missed my special request to celebrate my birthday during our afternoon tea. I wasn't that disappointed since I did not want to make a fuss about it, but their lack of organization this time around was a bit odd.

Tour of the hotel

Part of the afternoon tea experience at the Royal York comes with a tour and we all opted to join it, I was more curious to see what new areas we would see or not see in the tour. This time around we did not visit the kitchen galleys or the executive suite levels, but got I see more of the large dining rooms and the ballroom. I didn't know that the film, Red, was filmed in locations inside the hotel. We also were allowed to go into the "smallest bar in Toronto", the York Station, that is run by one staff member named Alina. 

Our tour guide mentioned that they only do tours of the roof garden during the spring and summer months. 

Overall, it was a good experience at the Royal York. I prefer the standard afternoon tea menu rather than this special one since I found that all the desserts tasted very similar and sweet. There were some mishaps with the dietary requests and the restaurant lighting but the food was still very delicious and they provided great hospitality. For future reference, I will have to email them a few days prior to confirm my reservation and any special requests so that this does not happen again. 

For this month's Lolita meet, I wore Alice and the Pirates' End of Immortal Eden.

All photos are courtesy of Kimi.  

Until next time, 
stay fancy!

Fancy Lolita Tea Time - Ritz Carlton

This month's meet was pretty exciting, since we finally managed to get the majority of the group to have afternoon tea at the DEQ restaurant located inside the Ritz Carlton hotel. I had to book quite early in advance to secure the booking for a party of 11. They were very accommodating with my requests as I initially booked for 8 people but asked if we could change it to 11 people about 2 weeks prior to the date. I think partially because the manager e-mailed me asking me if I could change our reservation time from 12pm to 2pm because there was a private event happening and they could not set up in time for afternoon tea. If anything, it worked out for most of us, as it gave us more time to get ready!

Photo credit: Ritz Carlton

The nice thing about the Ritz is that their afternoon tea menu changes every month or two. The theme for the month of August was Japanese high tea. I know previously in May, it was maple themed and I just saw that for September and October, it's a Gatsby themed tea set. It's nice that you can return and have something unique every time you go. 

This was our menu for our experience at the Ritz.

YUZU CURED SALMON
Wasabi mayo, pickled radish, romaine, flaky croissant

CRAB SALAD BOUCHE
Pineapple, cucumber, mirin cured raisins, micro greens

TONKATSU SLIDER
Panko crusted chicken, candied plum relish, avocado, citrus mayo, sesame sliders

GRILLED FLATBREAD
Roasted red peppers, spiced Japanese eggplant, crispy shallots

Broccoli and cheddar quiche

Pistachio Strawberry shortcake
Yuzu lemon tart
Matcha sables
Mango crème choux
Sweet plum pound cake
Freshly Baked Raisin Scones
Devonshire cream
Preserves

Tea or Coffee

Our group had a nice alcove to ourselves in the restaurant and there was a fireplace where we were sitting. It provided great ambience but having the warmth of the fire in mid August was a bit odd. I think most of the girls were not deterred by this fact since the air conditioning was abundant and we got lucky with the some cooler weather that day. 

Tea selection

The Ritz serves Sloane tea for their tea sets and if I recall correctly, they had swapped out a Darjeeling for a Japanese Sencha for the month since it was more appropriate for the theme. Sloane tea is a Toronto based tea company and it's nice to know that they're supporting local businesses.

There was no time limit to our seating at the Ritz, it seemed that they normally allotted 3 hours for each seating, but they never mentioned a time limit to me when I made the reservation and there was never a sense that they wanted to rush us.

Each person was given their one pot of tea and the table was covered in teapots. Be mindful that the teapots are quite large and heavy. The tables had milk and sugar packets for your tea and a small jars of honey, jam and Devonshire cream for the scones.

We were served quiches that were served on a plate and they brought out the savory items on the tiered stands. It was hard to photograph the items on the stands and I hoped that they would give us the thinner frame stand for our food. I noticed that the Ritz has a variety of stands and some are quite unique looking. The table of two that was near us had a stand comprised of stacked cubes.

My favourite savory item was the smoked salmon croissant with the wasabi mayo. I wish I could have eaten more! A lot of locations in the United Kingdom offer refills of savory or sweet items, however it doesn't seem to be commonplace here in Toronto. I would have ate more of those croissants and taken home some of my sweet items.

Sweets time!

They served the dessert tiers after we were done with the savory and mine was brought out on a separate plate for my chocolate allergy request. There weren't too many differences with mine and the food items that everyone else had except that the chocolate topping pieces were either taken away or substituted with fruit.

One of the things that was brought to my attention was the large amount of sugar on the matcha cookies, I barely noticed it on mine since there was not much sugar, but Whitefrosty was scrapping the sugar off and she had a small mountain on her plate when I looked over.

I enjoyed the yuzu tart the most and I learned that it was less sweet compared to the version with the white chocolate topping. My sister said that she could taste the yuzu better in my tart when I let her try a bit of mine.

The normal desserts and my special non-chocolate versions of them. 

The raisin scones had a dense cake texture to them and were very filling. They weren't very large but eating one was definitely enough to send you into a food coma. I prefer my scones to be fluffy and lighter.

Overall I had a really pleasant experience at the Ritz for afternoon tea. The food was very good and we were provided with excellent service. They took into consideration all the accommodation requests that I asked for. I wish that we could have been seated at a normal table rather than the coffee tables that were in our alcove. I found that it was harder to eat and the couches were too comfortable. I think a few of us had started to melt into the couches after we finished eating since we were so full!

If you're looking to come here with a larger group of 8, it is best to book at least 3-4 weeks in advance, especially during the summer season. For a large group you will be sent an email and form to fill out with your personal and credit card information. It is a disclaimer and also a contract to advise you if you were to cancel within however many hours notice how much the Ritz would charge you for cancellation fees. As long as you contact them prior to that, any cancellation will not incur you any charges or fees.

For this meet I wore Metamorphose's Swan Lake.

Some photos from this post are courtesy of Kimi and Archangeli. Thank you!

Until our next adventure~
Stay fancy!

~*~

Bonus:

That fireplace!

Fancy Lolita Tea Time - DT Bistro

We skipped having a meet in May since Anime North was happening and we had a lot of other things to do with Cafe Delish. By some random occurrence of the lolita gods, this meet up fell on the weekend after I was admitted into the hospital for appendicitis. Of course if it happened to be that weekend, I would've insisted that the other girls follow through with the plans and be fancy for me while I was feeling not so fashionable my in hospital smock. (Although I have to say, they are very comfortable...!)

DT Bistro

I had a week to mostly recover and come to June's summer lolita meet up. It was also to celebrate a belated International Lolita Day (summer edition) which usually falls on the first Saturday of June (the other being in December). This month, I chose for us to go to DT Bistro, located in downtown Toronto along Spadina and Harbord St. I came across it in pictures and was delighted to learn that they also serve afternoon tea on weekends from 2-5pm. 

The interior of the restaurant is very open, lots of natural light streaming in and they had set up our table for afternoon tea beforehand. They also have a brunch/lunch menu that you could order from, but I opted to tell them that our group was coming there for afternoon tea when they called me to confirm the reservation. 

They have a shorter tea list, which sometimes makes it easier to choose what kind of tea you would like. They have afternoon tea options, one being the normal one and the other being deluxe, which includes a DT Bistro special cocktail along with the pot of tea you would get in the normal tea option. 

Our waiter kept mixing up our tea orders and poor Keiko had her pot of tea replaced four times, and I still think it wasn't correct after the fouth try. They also ran out of mint tea for Tenshi, so she had to order camomile instead. Archangeli's genmaicha was missing the gen mai, it just tasted and smelled like regular green tea, with no puffy rice bits, so really she just ordered sencha. Their tea selection has some interesting choices, but I would stick to a tea you're familiar with before they mix it up with something else by accident. Our server was trying to convince me that my jasmine tea was chai when it clearly did not look like or smell like chai tea. You got to stand your ground for your tea especially when you know it's the right pot you have!

Afternoon tea

The savory plate was really appetizing, however the cornbread and tomato soup were a bit of an odd edition. There was this amazing braised beef with melted cheese, I would eat a whole plate of those, they were delicious! I was so stuffed I couldn't even eat my scone, not that I did not want to! I just find my stomach capacity to be less after surgery. I'm sure I'll be a food heathen soon enough again!

Each tier had a slightly different dessert plate on top. I actually forgot to mention I preferred no chocolate...so I just didn't eat any of the chocolate items, except for the fruit tart and one of the macarons.

DT Bistro has a lot of potential and it's great that they take reservations. Their afternoon tea sets start at $30, which I think is a very reasonable price point. If only they served sugar cubes instead of packs of sugar, it would definitely elevate the experience. They also did not have enough tea pots with infusers for our group, so half of us had tea bags in our pots, a slight detail I took notice of. 

Some of the patrons who were coming in for a drink were very enamored by our group, I think most of them have not seen lolita before? Lots of subtle smiles and curious glances were thrown our way. A lady on the street, rolled down her car window to yell, "You girls look adorable!" while Keiko and I were making our way to the streetcar. Gosh, I love Toronto. 

Photo credit: Archangeli

Photo credit: Archangeli

This was also Naoko's first lolita meet up! I didn't realize that she was interested in lolita until the month prior.  I invited her to come to this meet up to wear one of her only lolita items she purchased while in Japan. 

Naoko-chan! You're more than welcome to visit Machiko's Lolita Closet Rentals! 

Please don't get any tea or stains on rental items though. You will be subject to dry cleaning fees and eternal tears from Machiko if stains don't come out.  (>o<;;)

I opted to wear something with a high waist so it wouldn't bother the area that had been operated on. I definitely was not able to wear a petticoat. I will have to wear this print again sometime to give it some justice!

For this meet, I wore Angelic Pretty's Dreaming Macaron.

Until our next meet, 

eat some more scones!

~*~

Bonus:

Derp lolita?

Hahaha!

Fancy Lolita Tea Time - Yuzu & Macaron Day

For this month's meet, the lolita gods were against me in helping me get a location for us to have afternoon tea. I think I called around 6 places and they had no space for us...and I learned from then on that I needed to book these places probably weeks in advance if we were going to try to get a reservation for a group of 6 or more.

Chirashi

In the end, we decided to go to a Japanese restaurant, Yuzu no Hana, to have lunch and then head over to Butter Avenue (Queen St. W) for Macaron Day.

Yuzu has lovely and elegant interior space. I think the workers there were amused that a group of girls in lolita showed up for lunch, but nonetheless, they were very polite and offered great service. I ordered the chirashi and it was lovely.

Onto the main attraction! Getting those macarons!

By mid afternoon our main group headed towards Butter Avenue and then Bosu and Yumi met us there in the downstairs seating area. Butter had organized a fabulous line up of 30 new flavours for Macaron day with 30% of the proceeds going to charity. So many flavours to choose from...but I can't eat them all!

Photo credit: Butter Avenue

Butter Ave.

Our group managed to hog a nook in the corner in the downstairs seating area and other patrons were kind enough to let us use their empty chairs so that we could sit together and not squish ourselves in the bench seating. I picked up an extra box of macarons for my friend's birthday which was coming up, but my box contained these flavours; Butterscotch Rum, Strawberry Basil, Guava Plum x 2, Toasted Sesame (which I ate and is not in the picture), and Iron Goddess. 

Delysees

By far my favourite flavour is guava plum. They had it the year before...and if they bring it back next year, I should just get a whole box of them. I love them!

We relaxed there with some tea and water for a bit until part of the group had to leave and venture off to different destinations. A few of us decided to go to Delysees to get some of their donut macarons! They were so cute looking and a bit small compared to a usual macaron, but they were very sweet and hard to eat more than two at once. 

Did you enjoy Macaron Day and head out to get some free macarons? Let me know in the comments or just tell me if you love macarons too! 

At this meet I wore Angelic Pretty's Day Dream Carnival (Twilight set). 

Photo credit: Bosu

Until next time!
Stay fancy~!

~~~

Bonus:

I spotted a yellow bird at Prairie Girl cupcakes. I want it... 

So cute and fluffy!!

Fancy Lolita Tea Time - AnnVita Tea Room

It's been quite time since I've blogged, my last post being in 2013, but I think it's time that I come back to this in order to record the things that happen in my life. So many things have changed in the past 3 years, so let's get blogging!

I find with lolita, you have ups and downs. You are passionate for the hobby and then after you're satisfied with your wardrobe, you decide take a break. I took a break and when I came back to it earlier this year, I saw many things I had missed in the past few years. I never stopped loving lolita fashion, but with other things happening in my life, I just didn't have a chance to wear it very often and lolita took a back seat.

My friend, Whitefrosty, kept suggesting that I organize some meet ups so that we could wear our outfits. Dust off the frills and be fancy! 

It was also a coincidence that one of my other friends, Hiroko, was interested in lolita...but had no lolita items, so I told her to come over and have fun with my wardrobe. I said, "Pick whatever print interests you and I'll dress you up!" 

 ~~~

Previous AnnVita visit with my friend.

My brunch!

I organized a meet up at AnnVita Tea Room since I knew they had a lovely ambience and had some very nice drink selections and offered two types of afternoon tea sets. It was also around the time of Whitefrosty and Keiko's birthdays, so I figured it would be fun to celebrate in lolita.

I had previously came here on casual dates with my girl friends and with Whitefrosty before. I'll try to find some pictures of the tea room. It's quite lovely. One side has lots of natural light that streams in, which can be harsh on your eyes depending on the time of day and the amount of sunlight, and there is another side near the entrance that is a bit more secluded. For our meet, we were seated behind the entrance wall partition, which provided a bit more privacy for our group.

Scones!

When we arrived, they were serving brunch! I was really surprised...(and hungry). So the few of us who were there early decided to order some food while the rest of the group arrived.

I ordered the classic breakfast set for brunch and it was a generous portion and the price was quite reasonable. (I believe it was around $10-12?) I find with AnnVita, their tea and drink list is quite expensive, but the amount you are served is quite deceiving. The cheapest drink you can order is $11.99 if I recall. It looks like a little amount, but 4-5 cups later, you're bursting! On this occasion, I ordered the rose milk tea. It has lovely hints of rose and a creamy texture to it. It was served with a cute dessert...that none of us could figure out what flavour it was. Guava-mango?

Their afternoon tea sets are around $40 per person. One is the Victorian tea set and the other is the Jane Austen tea set. A few of us ordered the tea sets to try, but since I had brunch, I opted for an order of scones instead, they're small, but so filling!

Rose Milk Tea

Victoria Tea Set

If you're looking for a place to spend a comfortable afternoon at, AnnVita is a lovely choice. They take reservations and the staff are very friendly. They do not rush you or give you a time limit on your seating. I do prefer their teas and the a la carte menu for scones or biscuits. The tables are small so you have to be careful when moving your plates or pots around while in lolita.

At this meet, I wore a coordinate featuring Metamorphose's Happy Ending Story.

This is a first of a small series of group meet ups for tea time and wearing lolita.

Let's be fancy!

Until next time <3

~~~

All photos were taken by Archangeli.

 ~~~

Bonus:

 Welcome to the dark frilly side Hiroko... ;)

Happy Holidays!

It's been a busy week filled with lots of good times with friends, family and with work squashed into the mix! I hope everyone has been having a lovely day and a safe holiday!

*Merry Christmas and Happy New Year*!!

Sora shall share some festive spirit with you all!
I hope 2013 will be a great year for everyone, and I hope that I complete some of my goals and resolutions this year too. Here we come, 2013!

To another year filled with lots of good food, lolita fashion, dorkiness, friends, BJD, yellow birds and  whatever I missed! Hehe! @(*o*@)!!

♥

Birthday don't stop & October lolita and doll meet!

After I got over my severe cold and stopped being a hermit in the house, Keiko came by to sleep over for my birthday weekend and it ended up being a 3 day affair with cake and fun...which also stretched into the next week! Or maybe it should be that the Cake Doesn't Stop! Seems like I've been eating a lot of cake lately!

Fashion week!

Work it!

Keiko actually invited me to go to her friend's bridal fashion show, Paraezo, for Mastercard Fashion Week. It was a nice chance to dress up and bring out the designer bags and shoes! Since I'm not used to wearing heels...I almost died in my shoes, but thankfully I had brought along flats to change into. 

The show was beautiful and had some really lovely bridal dresses. The styling was very elegant and the designer had used fresh flowers to create head pieces. I wish I could have taken better pictures, but my camera isn't that great and we were sitting in the back row, so I didn't get a decent shot from the show. (>_<;)

Since we were all dressed up I asked Keiko if she wanted to walk along Bloor and maybe check out Holt Renfrew. I just wanted to visit the Shu Uemura counter to get some refills for my eyeliner since I had just run out that morning, but it would be fun to see all the shiny expensive stuff...and pretend we can afford it? (*o*-)'

After trying on some shoes and learning about the steep and insane prices of some purses...she asked me if we should eat a snack at the cafe. I didn't even know Holts had a cafe...! We decided to get some drinks and share dessert. Our waiter was super nice and I think, a bit bored since we ended being the only table at the cafe/lounge in the late afternoon. The result was that we have super service. I had a Holts Pumpkin Martini (Belevedere Vodka, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin) and Keiko had the Renfrew (Belvedere Vodka, strawberries and balsamic finessed with Veuve Cliquot Champagne.) We ordered a Pear Upside Down Cake caramel to share, and it was delicious! The desserts at Holts are fairly priced at $8 each, but their drinks range in prices depending on what you want. I believe their most expensive cocktail is $22. (Pricy!! >_<;)

Me in Twinkle Journey

After going back home and pretty much crashing for the night because we were both tired, we woke up bright and early to get ready for lolita! It was time for our monthly doll meet and it would be the first time that Keiko came along. Since I think it's always fun to dress up in lolita and go to doll meets, Keiko borrowed a waloli outfit from my closet to wear. Even though it was raining a little bit outside, water wasn't going to stop us from wearing lolita!

This month's meet was at Marché. It's a nice location to go since there is an extensive amount of seating and every person gets to budget their own meal or drinks. We got there a bit late so a majority of everyone was already there. Oddly enough, besides the long table set up for 12, there was a smaller table to the side with 3 chairs. I kept saying it was discrimination since all the girls in lolita were sitting at the smaller table and we all happened to be resin collectors who brought resin dolls (to a Dollfie Dream/Vinyl doll meet.) LOL It was completely by accident, but it was still funny. ^__^'

I hope Alice doesn't get mad that I posted a picture of her! (*o*@)!! I really liked her gothic lolita dress. There was a lot of ruffles and lace and I wish I could have looked at it more closely. Keiko is wearing my Bodyline waloli coordinate I got a few years ago. Apparently, she's always wanted to wear waloli, and she got her chance! I decided to wear my Twinkle Journey JSK since I haven't worn it yet. I really so love the design and dress, the unicorn print is gorgeous.

I didn't take too many pictures at this meet, since we spent quite a lot of time socializing with everyone who came. Also, a lot of my pictures didn't turn out well because of the lighting. My camera just couldn't cope with it, so a lot of the pictures turned out very dark. 

We had quite an extensive amount of girls show up at this meet though! It was really awesome to see all the dolls. There were a few people who came in to sneak pictures of the dolls, which I thought was a bit odd because all they had to do was ask to take a picture. 

Some of the Dollfie Dream dolls at this month's meet

Our small resin BJD corner

Since it was a Halloween meet, I dressed up Lareine in a kimono and Sora went as a sheep! Alice had cute matching outfits for Yukio and Myles, a ladybug and bumblebee! And Keiko's Eliza is wearing a lovely classic lolita outfit. 

Takoyaki Couple!

Alice surprised me by getting me a small birthday/souvenir gift from Osaka, Japan! It's a cute keychain of a octopus (tako) and an octopus ball (takoyaki) that kiss! It's so amusing, I have them smooching on my desk right now. (^__^*)

After the meet ended, we decided to go back to my place for dinner, drinks and cake! Chanel also came by to join in on the cake fest! I picked up my cake the day before and although I paid a pretty steep price for it, it was totally worth it!

Pic credit: Archangeli

Birthday don't stop!

Cafe Michi's Matcha Red Bean cake is the best! I think if I could, I would have ate the whole cake by myself, but I think I would have gotten a severe stomach ache. I gave my co-worker a piece since I was talking to her about it and the next day she told me it was so good...she forgot her name when she ate it!! (*o*@)!!
My sister and I ended up going to Michi again the next week for some afternoon tea and cake. Their earl grey cake was very good and English trifle was scrumptious! Since my friends from high school were coming over and their birthdays just past in September and October, I got more cake to go! 

Back to my birthday weekend! We ended up staying up quite late, mostly because I was spamming Keiko with k-pop variety show programs. Then I showed her AKB0048 and she started to marathon all the episodes into the wee hours of the morning! The end result is that our group has converted another person into a fan of AKB and our cosplay group grows. We just need to make the costumes! (>__<;;)

The weekend concluded with a meal at Shisho Tree Cafe. I have never been before but I have been by it many times because I like to eat ramen at Niwatei (which is next door.) The food is Japanese and Italian fusion, and oddly enough, it works! We shared a dish of okonomiyaki fries and I got myself the okonomiyaki pasta.

Thanks to everyone who kept the party going and for making my birthday weekend an awesome one! 
♥