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2015-10-14
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This is my first visit to Earle Swensen's, situated at Vivocity, unit #02-117. The name Earle Swensen's was actually the name of the founder and was also the same giant behind F & B group, Swensen's. The whole restaurant here at VivoCity was very spacious and also halal certified.Meats, Pastas, Burgers and desserts are the main focus here but they do have a huge salad bar too, with quite a number of greens varieties to choose from.My main purpose today (7th Oct) was to attend the tea appreciatio
This is my first visit to Earle Swensen's, situated at Vivocity, unit #02-117. The name Earle Swensen's was actually the name of the founder and was also the same giant behind F & B group, Swensen's. The whole restaurant here at VivoCity was very spacious and also halal certified.
Meats, Pastas, Burgers and desserts are the main focus here but they do have a huge salad bar too, with quite a number of greens varieties to choose from.
My main purpose today (7th Oct) was to attend the tea appreciation workshop organized by Openrice Singapore & Dilmah Tea Singapore. There are around 20 of us attending. We were first greeted by Dilmah representative, Ms Patricia. Thereafter followed by Ms Patricia telling us the history of tea way back from 2737 B.C and understanding the progress of tea leaves making till the finished products we had today, through PowerPoint slides shown on projector.
First 02 types of Dilmah tea served to us after the presentation was the Dilmah Exceptional English Breakfast and Pure Peppermint tea. We are told to pair them with the chips & slaw sandwiches provided for us. My personal preference is to pair the sandwiches with Dilmah Exceptional English Breakfast tea rather than Peppermint. The latter choice was way to strong to go with the sandwiches as the minty taste totally overtakes the taste of the sandwiches.
As for the Chips & Slaw Sandwiches, they was made up of toast, chilled coleslaw and potato chips. The buttery toasts' texture was crispy and toasted to a beautiful golden brown. I'm rather new to this combination of chips and coleslaw as fillings in my sandwiches but I'm quite surprised it did work well together even though it's meatless.
After the wiches, we were each served with a slice of Classic ice cream cake by Earle Swensen's. It was the 3 layers' strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream cake which i had it umpteen times when I was younger so it wasn't new to me. It still tastes as good as before, only the serving size was smaller now.
For this round of dessert, we are pairing it with Dilmah Exceptional Elegant Earle Grey and Ceylon Green Tea. We were taught the right way of brewing our tea bags in our glass for a duration of only 3-5mins and not exceeding 5mins, to get the perfect taste. Ms Patricia also explained why the purpose of triangular cone shaped tea bags rather than the common flat ones is to allow the tea leaves in the bag to have the space to open up fully.
Ceylon Green tea tasted very light and refreshing but when you taste it together with the ice cream cake, it was too light to distinct. But ironically, while the Earle Grey tea tastes too spiced for my liking, it pairs better with the ice cream cake. Ice cream seems to neutralize the spice level of the Earle Grey tea and made it taste more enjoyable down my throat.
Other than these 4 types of Dilmah tea we tried, there were also other different varieties of Dilmah tea on display for us to see. There are much more infusions now.
Pictures taken at this event were already posted on my Opensnap "jellylovesfood" page. The overall experience at this tea appreciation workshop was pleasant, short and simple, although I expected more. I initially thought we will have hands-on activities like seeing, touching, smelling of real raw tea leaves or different varieties of ready processed tea leaves, rather than only taste them from tea bags only.
As for Earle Swensen's, I have to return again to try the mains before I could make more precise comments about this restaurant.
The last but not the least, thank you Openrice Singapore & Dilmah tea for having us
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