Hello everyone, welcome to Episode 9 of Cafe Hopping with Eros & Fufy! For this episode, Fufy and I were joined by our friends Gerald and Sharmathi. The four of us tried out Botanica Mansion's Traditional Afternoon Tea Set on our last day of college.
Address
156, Jalan Sungai Air Putih, Botanica. CT, 11000, Balik Pulau, Penang.
Opening Hours:
Tuesday to Saturday: 11am to 10pm.
Closed on Mondays.
Contact:
012-4210933
+604 866 3399
A little backstory to how we found out about Botanica Mansion:
Fufy is currently working for a company called Venuescape which handles events and such. She was invited to the soft launch a few weeks back and she invited me as her plus one. The grounds were amazing, although it's located quite far from Georgetown.
*Snaps from the soft launch*
Botanica Mansion is a nestled inside Botanica CT, a housing area. The mansion was recently restored and now serves as a restaurant as well as a space for events.
Aside from that, Botanica Mansion also offers accommodation. They also restored the smoke house beside the mansion and it now consists of four rooms that are available for booking.
Attached to the accommodation is a pool and a gym area which I believe is open to residents of Botanica CT as well.
During the soft launch, we got to meet a few people and among them was the Dato (whom I believe was the owner or CEO of Botanica, I'm not sure) and his wife. While chatting with the wife, she mentioned that she was a big fan of scones and that it was really hard to find nice scones in Penang. She then found a chef whose scones she really liked and she urged us to try the afternoon tea set because they were included.
Of course, being the high tea lovers that we are, Fufy and I decided to arrange a second visit to Botanica Mansion to try out their traditional afternoon tea set.
Here's what the interior of the ground floor looks like:
The ground floor has three extra rooms available for events:
Here's what the upstairs balcony looks like:
And across the balcony is a drawing room connected to two side rooms and another balcony at the back:
And that was it for this mini tour of Botanic Mansion, on with the tea!
MENU
Aside from high tea, Botanica offers other items. I didn't take the whole menu, but here's some of what they offer:
On with the food porn shots!
Traditional Afternoon Tea | RM52.90
The Afternoon Tea Set cost RM53 for two people and consisted of:
2 Cream Puffs
2 Mini Chicken Pies
2 Cucumber Sandwiches
2 Smoked Salmon Sandwiches
1 Raisin Scone
1 Chocolate Chip Scone
2 Tarts of the Day
2 Cakes of the Day
*Served with cream, strawberry jam and butter*
Coffee or Tea available
The picture above is 2 x set for two. Contrary to other cafes and high tea places, Botanica Mansion doesn't have any ala carte cakes on display, which I'm not sure if it's because they only just opened.
The top tier of the tea set consisted of the cakes and tarts of the day. The chocolate cake was rich and sweet just like how like it, and the other sponge cake wasn't as sweet but was nice and fluffy. The tarts were okay~
The 2nd tier consisted of the scones, the puff and some unexpected cookies. I had high expectations for the scones and I'm glad to say I wasn't disappointed. The raisin scones were soft and delightful, especially when paired with the strawberry jam. It wasn't as buttery as I expected but it was heavenly all the same. The chocolate scone was a bit more crumby in comparison and wasn't as soft, although it was nice when paired with the butter.
I was expecting the cream puffs to be normal cream puffs but they turned out to be custard puffs! Cream puff have a special place in my heart and custard puffs ARE LIFE. They're like upgraded cream puffs to me. The pastry was light and airy and the custard WAS SO GOOD I CANNOT BRAIN. The cookies were okay. I'm not sure what cookies they were. I did like them but I'd have preferred another type of cookie because the salty taste didn't really match up with the other pastries for me.
The bottom tier consisted of the cucumber sandwiches, the smoked salmon sandwiches and the chicken pies. The cucumber sandwich was a simple filler and the chicken pie was nice and filling. The smoked salmon sandwich was okay too. I would have preferred it if the cucumber sandwiches were replaced with bruchetta like the ones they had on their soft launch instead.
The tea set for two comes with two pots of tea and they're refillable. The available flavours are English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Camomile, Pepermint and Green Tea, I had the camomile and it was so-so.
Overall for RM52.90, this is a decent afternoon tea set. You get quite the selection of treats and it comes with 2 pots of refillable tea.
I give this tea set a score of 4/5!
Creme Brulee | RM12.90
The creme brulee was okay for me. The custard was nice but I found the caramel a bit on the thin side.
I give this a 3.5/5.
As a side we also tried their cheesy nachos and veggie lover pizza:
Botanica Mansion is definitely a beautiful mansion with picturesque grounds, and I enjoyed my afternoon there (mostly because I got nice pictures while we were walking around the grounds haha)
That's it for this cafe hopping post! As always, if you'd like to read more of my cafe hopping posts, please click here!
As always, thanks for reading!
See you all in the next post!
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