Malaya Tea Room

Tea: ☕️ ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕
Food: 🍰 🍰 🍰
Ambiance: 🌸🌸🌸🌸
Overall rating: 💖 💖 💖 💖
Tags: modern, formal, english, malaysian

Green vines snake over dark wood. Full tea services, complete with biscuits, are affixed to the walls. Bamboo-patterned demitasse forks add a touch of whimsy to gold-rimmed china. A mix of music from Wong Kar-Wai films contributes to the mood of Asian elegance.

At Malaya Tea Room in Alameda, the tropical atmosphere of Southeast Asia meets the formality of British afternoon tea. The owner, Leena Lim, wanted to create an experience that evoked her childhood memories of Malaysia. If the sold-out seating when we visited is any indication, the tea-goers of Alameda like her vision. As do we. Fabulous tea, solid food, and beautiful surroundings make this an afternoon tea we highly recommend. (Bonus points to Malaya for a menu that not only calls it “afternoon tea,” but explains the difference between “afternoon tea” and “high tea.”)

Teagoers can choose between a Traditional British Tea and a Traditional Malaya Tea. We ordered both, and were surprised to find that they didn’t differ in much except the choice of sandwiches. They included the same savories: vegetables with red pepper hummus, and mini crab tarts. They featured the same scones (too dense and biscuit-like for our taste) with lemon curd and clotted cream (truly clotted, though with an unusual texture due to the inclusion of — we think — lemon zest). The sweets plate differed only slightly; both services included a mini fruit tart, a macaron (a big hit!), and a pudding cup (white with the British tea; vibrant green with the Malaya tea). The British tea also included dried pineapple, while the Malaya tea instead featured a crumbly cookie.

The sandwiches were highly variable, but the good ones were very good indeed. The meat eaters raved about the ham-and-brie (which also included a tasty touch of fig jam) and the curry chicken, and the pescatarians were pleased by the smoked salmon and the sardines in tomato sauce. Less popular were the sweet, bland coconut jelly and the dry, scantily-filled fish roe. Opinion was divided on the cucumber (some of us would have preferred it with cream cheese, not butter) and the marmalade (which was intensely bitter). This does mean that the Malaya Tea Room is unlikely to be satisfying for vegetarians or vegans, though their website suggests they hope to offer more vegetarian options soon.

The highlight of the Malaya experience was the tea itself. It was presented in mostly distinct teapots, with removable tea leaf bins to prevent oversteeping. (Only two of our five pots were identical, and we did indeed get those teas mixed up.) We had three black and two green teas. Among the greens, the Clouds and Mist was fine but ordinary, and the Mao Jian was super grassy, which appealed to some tastes but not others. But we could all agree that all three black teas were excellent, from the passionfruit and mango notes of the № 24 blend to the deep, buttery caramel of the № 54. The venue’s signature “black monkey” tea boasted rich, crisp flavor and endless drinkability.

Malaya Tea Room opened earlier this fall and is already doing good business, even at its early 11:30am seating. We were also pleased to see that the restaurant is Asian-owned and had a largely Asian-American clientele, which helped alleviate our worries about going to a tearoom that seemed like it might be celebrating the period of British colonialism in Malaysia. (It’s therefore a fundamentally different situation from San Francisco’s white-owned, French Indochina-themed Le Colonial, recently the subject of a much-talked-about review from Soleil Ho.) The servers were extremely sweet and welcoming, but due to the busy day, refills of our “bottomless tea” came slowly and only at our request. Still, we didn’t much mind; we got to drink our fill over the course of the two-hour seating, and the people-watching (inside) and dog-watching (through the window) added to the joy. We particularly appreciated the two young girls at the table next to us in perfectly matched white dresses and tiaras. We did our best to add to the festive atmosphere as well — after all, it was just days after Halloween!

Date attended: November 3, 2019
Attendees: Tom, Marissa, Erica, Ilana, & Karen

Price/seat: $30/person
Location: 970 Central Avenue, Alameda
More information: https://malayatearoom.com