VanFoodies.com

For Mother’s Day, I took Mama Lam to afternoon tea at Origo Club. They offered a special menu for the weekend, but surprisingly, it was at its regular price of $45 per person. Good on them for not raising the price on this special day because many places do. The number of items was the same as usual but with a different line-up of desserts.

Food

Here is what we had for savoury items (starting from the left):

Tarte aux Épinards – tart shell, spinach, coppa, gruyère, egg. One of my favourite items in the line-up. The tart shell was buttery and there was a lot of spinach in the filling. The filling was well-seasoned too.

Canard à l’Orange – seared duck breast, orange coulis & segments. Another fave of mine. The duck breast was tender, smokey. I wish there were more pieces of this.

Chou au Foie Gras et à la Truffe – choux pastry, duck foie gras & truffle mousse. The puff was crispy and airy, and the mousse was tasty. You could smell and taste the truffle. However, the ratio of puff to mousse was a little off; I thought there was too little mousse.

Sandwiche au Saumon Sockeye – croissant, smoked sockeye salmon, capers, crème fraiche, chives. Standard affair here but it looks like their normal line-up uses white bread so I was glad we had croissant.

Scone Rhubarbe et Fraise – rhubarb & strawberry scone, butter & lemon cream. The scone had good texture, and it’s best enjoyed with the strawberry sauce and lemon cream together.

For desserts, as mentioned, a few items have changed from the regular menu, and here’s the line-up (from left):

Biscuit Sablé au Matcha – matcha shortbread cookie. Good crumbs on the sable cookie. In contrast this was not very sweet and I saved it till the end almost as a palate cleanser to all the sweets.

Gâteau au Fromage – vanilla cheesecake, fresh berries, raspberry powder. This, in comparison, was more a standard affair.

Coeur Noir – dark chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, hazelnut crunch, raspberry jelly. This was really good. I thought it would be super rich but it was just the right amount of richness and decadence. Love the texture of the hazelnut crunch and the tartness from the raspberry jelly.

Gelée à la Rose – rose tea jelly, white peach caviar, whipped cream. This was interesting. Not a lot of texture but a punch of rose tea flavour. I could barely taste the peach in the caviar, though.

Chou à la Fraise – choux pastry, strawberry mascarpone cream, strawberry chocolate glaze. It’s like an eclair. Good choux pastry and I really enjoyed the fruitiness in the strawberry flavour.

Gâteau Opéra – almond cake, chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream. I definitely tasted the coffee flavour in this and the slight bitterness was welcomed.

For tea we had Shanghai Rose (pictured below) and Cherry Blossom. Both were quite good but I especially liked the fragrant, floral Shanghai Rose. You could really taste the almost almond like cherry note in Cherry Blossom.

Service

I honestly don’t know how to describe the service here. Our server was very polite and asked all the right questions, but there’s some awkwardness in her approach. She always seemed/sounded hesitant. So while we received service, it did leave us wanting just a bit more warmth or enthusiasm.

One thing to note is the parking situation. There’s free parking in the building where Origo Club is located, but you need to display a parking pass on your dash. Be sure to ask your server for it when you arrive.

Final Thoughts

Afternoon tea in Vancouver is getting more and more expensive these days. $45 is almost a norm now, so for this price I got a taste of foie gras and duck breast, I was quite satisfied. I would come back again down the road when they change up the menu.

Origo Club
110 – 6888 River Road, Richmond
604-285-8889
origoclub.ca