Friday, November 27, 2009

Chinois Tea at the Willard Hotel


D.C. has gone Chinoiserie mad with the opening last week of the Terra Cotta Warriors Exhibition at the National Geographic, its last stop in the U.S. Many hotels and restaurants are having Chinoiserie themed menus and events as well. I was excited to attend an Afternoon Tea "Chinois" at the Willard Hotel. They have transformed their tea area called Peacock Alley into a Chinoiserie wonderland. Here are photos I took showing the beautiful floral arrangements, silk panels and pillows, and lanterns they used to dramatically decorate the space. Visually the place is stunning. Unfortunately, the food was mediocre, the tea lukewarm, the service perfunctory at best, and the noise deafening from a wedding in the same area. Peacock Alley is not a separate dining room, but the main corridor of the hotel with the gift shop and banquet halls. You can sip tea as tourists wandering the corridor gawk at you while you listen to terrible wedding music right out of the Wedding Singer for $49 a person before tax and tip. Take it from me and walk through the Willard for free and partake of the beautiful Chinoiserie display, then head to Chinatown or elsewhere for real hot tea and dim sum. Two favorites of mine for a fraction of the price and much better tea, food, and service are Mark's Duck House in Falls Church and Ching Ching Cha in Georgetown.














14 comments:

  1. It's a beautiful venue, but they should have had you stage and decorate it! Nice bag, BTW! xo kitty

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  2. I agree with Kitty. You would have made this place sing in Chinese! You look smashing, by the way. Great color for you. On of my home-groan jokes: Did you hear about the couple from out of town who went to a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco and ordered everything on the menu and dim sum? Oh what I do to keep my brain on alert! Happy weekend.

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  3. I love your blog, but I can't subscribe it and I don't know why... so I give you my blog link:
    http://imartandliving.blogspot.com/

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  4. Sorry about the tea but your dress is smashing!

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  5. Kitty-I definitely would have done a better job. The bag is Marc Jacobs-thanks!

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  6. Home Before Dark-A while ago we took two out of town guests for dim sum. I noticed that while the rest of us were choosing many plates, the husband was not eating much. When we asked for the check at the end, his eyes about bugged out of his head. He thought that dim sum was just the appetizer.

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  7. Well....the flowers and artifacts were lovely! So sorry the food was dull. Kitty is right...NICE BAG! LOL!

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  8. Diego-You can subscribe by RSS at the bottom of the right column. Thanks for stopping by.

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  9. Michele-Thanks-hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

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  10. Oooh - I'll have to check this out. You're 100% right about Peacock alley. It's always absurdly loud - but fun to visit.

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  11. The terra cotta warriors just left Houston, actually. I'd kept intending to make it to the HMNS, but never did....ah well, it was a VERY busy fall.

    (And that red screen is truly stunning!)

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  12. Theresa-The key is to always look good-LOL.

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  13. SF-Rock concerts should be absurdly loud-not high tea.

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