I have to admit that I'm more of a coffee drinker, but the rest of the family, Puan Anta and the two boys are tea people. Wierd! But my boys sure love their tea, but yesterday, it was just me and Puan Anita, and we sampled the tea salon at Starhill. Not just any tea salon, but THE Starhill Tea Salon.
We went there late afternoon - after we were done with Ampang Park. It was a spur of the moment thing when we decided to head for Bukit Bintang. The place was packed as usual for a Sunday afternoon, but that did not deter us. I had to buy some print inks anyway.
The utensils being lined up
I didn't bother with the tea. I had mint lemonade instead .... cheat!After the hustle and bustle, it was time for an afternoon drink. Then we remembered about the tea salon which we saw before but did not have time to check the place out. It was full - at least the best seats, so we decided to wait. After about 5 minutes, we got the seat which we wanted. It was buffet high tea on Sundays, but they mainly served dessert. We decided to order a la carte.
And that was a mistake since Puan Anita's pasta took a good half an hour to be ready. Luckily the drinks came first. Anita had some Assam Tea. I chickened out and had some minty lemonade - good for a hot Sunday afternoon.
The place was fantastic in terms of ambiance, and the staff there knew their tea. We actually had a conversation about which tea to order, and the taste was described pretty well. They had a separate smoking and non-smoking area, which was always a plus.
Everything about the presentation was quality and I was sure the patrons there would not have tolerated otherwise. The teapot was sturdy and the brew was perfect, at least to my untrained palate. Puan Anita approved of it as well.
The assam tea is finally brewed!We would definitely be back there in the future, but we would probably avoid Sunday. Why? Because they do not have a set tea with scones on Sunday. They had the buffet instead. How expensive was it. The tea, my mint drink, Puan Anita's pasta as well as my snack put me back around RM 150. Not cheap .......
If you were interested, the salon is located on the Ground Floor, straight through the lobby of Marriott, or through the entrance at the back of Sephora if you were coming from Pavilion or Bukit Bintang.
Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 7:01PM 
Double Standards
Singaporean had been feeling the heat of their general attitude of looking up to foreigners, especially from mainland China and of course the West. This was illustrated clearly during the recent 4 am accident involving a Ferrari driven by a Chinaman, and a local Singaporean cabby, resulting in multiple death. To everybody's disgust, the local media portrayed the culprit driving the Ferrari as a saint, and put the blame squarely on the cabby. The matter was put to bed when a video of the incident was released on YouTube a few days later. A rather stunning u-turn happened.
Now, I feel that this idolisation of these foreigners, especially Caucasian gwai loh must stop. I was on my day off today, and on two separate occasions, I was discriminated against.
The first was at IKEA this morning. It took me more than 10 minutes to get help despite the place was practically empty - the problem being the staff was occupied by a foreigner and staff from another department insisted on me waiting for her. The sad thing was, I was wanted to check on availability and to check on measurements. I was dead certain to splash RM2500 on all these goods.
The staff then disappeared, and I had to wait for a further 10 minutes. I was fuming! But I still had to go through this as I took the day off just to sort out my study, and I had no time to sulk.
The second episode happened in the late afternoon, at Marks and Spencer, Suria KLCC. Again, it was a challenge to get the attention of the salesperson. But I understood that it was rather busy. After picking up what I wanted, I went to the check-out, where to my surprise, my shoes were bundled into a green plastic bag, and I was sent my merry way. Then I saw a gwai loh actually had his shoes tucked nicely into a box. I turned around and asked the lady behind the counter, "Adis, kenapa Mat Salleh tu dapat kotak, tapi saya tak dapat?" Sigh! Maybe he paid twice the amount I paid for his shoes then.
The girl replied, "saya tak tahu Abang nak kotak sekali." Facepalm! That's it, we should propose that the government impose a 50% sales tax to foreigners. They can then enjoy a superior service to us poor locals 1Malaysians.