The Crazy Bear Dim Sum Afternoon Tea – Quirky tea, great surroundings !

The Crazy Bear
26-28 Whitfield Street
Fitzrovia, London W1T 2RG

 
I have long wanted to go to one of the Crazy Bear restaurants as have heard really good things about them – I love dim sum and the Amazon local offer seemed too good a chance pass up on – tea, a cocktail AND dim sum for 2 people for £39– what's not to like ?!
So to celebrate the oncoming Easter Weekend, six of us set off to enjoy ! The restaurant is quite unremarkable from outside – we nearly missed it, but a charming hostess at the door immediately said "Six for afternoon tea?" showed us to the bar where our little snug area was all set up. Inside it's a feast for the eyes (once you adjust to the low lighting - difficult to take photos too) beautiful ambience and lovely staircase leading down to the bar area with leather seats and our little padded cubicle.

photo from http://designmynight.com/

We were served our raspberry ripple cocktails in clear glass mini teapots with cream on the side– vanilla vodka, Chambord and raspberry puree with cream served on the side for you to drizzle in - that brought a chorus off oooohhhs and cameras flashing immediately from the ladies ! 

It was quite delicious and set us up beautifully for our feast to come, which consisted of Pork buns, Vension puffs, Pork and Prawn Shuimai, Diver Scallop shuimai, Crystal Har gau dumplings and sweet buns.  
We had  3 non pork eaters in our party - they had said they wanted fish but only got vegetarian options. There was no explanation of what they were eating  so we weren't entirely sure what was different for them other than spring rolls but they enjoyed them. That could be something to think about for choices with this tea- after all vegetarian is not the same as non pork eating !  We were able to swap about some of the venison puffs. 

We didn't get the food on a 3 tier plate as illustrated  on the website but in the little steaming baskets – which we were pleased about as everything kept warm. I think the only issue was serving that way we didn't know until we bit into the dumplings which were sweet and which were savoury but it didn't matter, we gave them all a good go!

photo from http://www.crazybeargroup.co.uk

I Ioved them all except the sweet custard one … I especially enjoyed the venison puffs and the Diver Scallop Shuimai.

We ordered another round of the raspberry cocktails. The waitress was very helpful recommending an alternative for one lady who had found the raspberry one a bit too sweet and although there was only a very small beer selection it included the rather good Meantime wheat beer for one of the ladies who is a reluctant traditional afternoon tea attendee or sweet cocktail drinker ! 
At the end we were offered our choice of teas, I went for the Margaret's Hope Darjeeling Second flush (as it sounded fun) which was again served in lovely clear glass teapots and glass cups. 

I have decided I must have one -see below ... 

Just to finish off some of us had one last round of cocktails – 3 porn star martinis (which has been officially declared a new favourite drink by one of the afternoon tea ladies ! ) and a Manhattan which was perfect in its dryness and delivered a masculine whisky kick. 

Porn Star Martini 

The service is just right, not overbearing, but easy to attract attention if needed and very helpful about menus and drinks and so on .
An special mention must go to the bathroom , once you found your way in as it was through a hidden door. Really lush - glass and smoky mirrors and Molton Brown handwash and hand cream and a sink which is shared with the men's room next door – caused me to shriek very loudly when some hairy hands appeared out what I thought was the mirror !!

The Shared Sink ....

It's certainly not a traditional afternoon tea – not a scone or a sandwich in sight and the tea was served at the end , so certainly not for the Afternoon tea purists , but we had a great ladies afternoon, and I would certainly go back for a proper meal in the restaurant.

The cocktail list is quite extensive – I've told him indoors we need to come back for a dinner and cocktails sometime, it's a very romantic setting.
the bar looks like the perfect place to sit at to enjoy some pre dinner cocktails. 

Value for money ? Hard to say as we had the two for one  offer , so for us it certainly was. On balance the full price £39.50 is not bad for what you get and being in central London, in such opulent surroundings with an alcoholic cocktail… the quantities of food were just about right – not stuffed but enough to not eat dinner in the evening.

 
So well done Crazy Bear!
I'm quite keen to try some other quirky afternoon teas that aren't really tea now – any suggestions anyone ?

PS have decided to treat myself to a glass teapot from Argos (9.99) to drink my amazing herbal green teas I bought recently from tplus drinks   http://www.tplusdrinks.com/.