With so many hotels in Okinawa, I often go to one for afternoon tea.
Today’s stop is the sweets buffet at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Naha Shuri Castle.
During the usual afternoon-tea hours of 3–5 p.m., the lounge was also offering four curries for a limited summer period, August 27–September 19, so we went to try it.
The dates are unusual—not even a full September month.
The event takes place at Grand Castle Café & Dining on the hotel’s first floor.
While waiting, we look over the desserts.
An adorable whale-shark dessert.
How are we supposed to eat something this cute?
Plenty of other desserts look tempting, too.
Strawberry shortcake.
There are lots of strawberries underneath. It looks delicious.
As we browse near the entrance, 3 p.m. arrives and we enter the lounge.
The bright room combines window-side and interior seating, with the buffet in the middle.
Desserts Almost Too Pretty to Eat
They really are so attractive that many guests are taking photographs.
Fruit Danish pastries piled with mango, perfectly suited to tropical Okinawa.
Hawaiian malasadas, reminiscent of Okinawa’s much-loved sata andagi doughnuts.
Shikuwasa rare-cheese cake combines Okinawa’s tart shikuwasa citrus with a soft, unbaked cheesecake. The original loosely compares the citrus to calamansi, but they are not interchangeable names.
On the lower tier is ‘Chantilly fruits de saison.’
The author roughly translates it as ‘cream and seasonal-fruit cake.’
With tropical fruit piled on top and cream and fruit inside, it creates the feeling of a tropical resort.
There are more cakes alongside it.
The hotel’s signature ‘Black-Sugar Roll Cake with Dancing Bees.’
The pastry chef makes the little bees by hand, too.
They are chocolate, incidentally.
A beautiful jelly cocktail called Mizore.
Mizore means sleet; perhaps the jelly on top is meant to represent it.
A banana tart made with Okinawa’s island bananas.
Mango Paris-Brest topped with tropical fruit.
There is plenty of mango cream inside.
How could that go wrong?
Now for today’s main attraction: the curry buffet.
A curry classic: butter chicken, combining buttery richness and savory chicken.
Vegetable-filled green curry and beef-tendon curry.
Keema curry is available as well.
There is naan as well as rice.
Naan and curry are a natural pairing.
Drinks include coffee, black tea, shikuwasa water and water labeled ‘detox water.’ That last name is a menu label, not a verified health effect.
A little of each soon becomes a generous spread.
Just looking at it is filling. Everything looks good.
The green curry has just enough heat to be especially enjoyable.
Beef-tendon curry.
It contains so much beef that ‘beef curry’ would be a fair description.
Turmeric rice suits the keema curry particularly well.
Its assertive spices make it hard for a curry lover to pass up.
The butter chicken is delicious with rice or scooped up with naan.
Finally, Dessert Time
The Hawaiian malasadas have a moist cream filling.
The hotel’s signature ‘Black-Sugar Roll Cake with Dancing Bees.’
Okinawa is known for black sugar, and it makes a delicious regional roll cake.
The chocolate bee is sweet, too.
The freshness of shikuwasa pairs beautifully with the sweet, soft rare-cheese cake.
An island-banana tart is my final dessert.
This DoubleTree Naha Shuri Castle buffet
was a lovely way to enjoy Okinawan ingredients and the atmosphere of a tropical resort. The limited event described here has ended.
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Naha Shuri Castle — Historical Dessert Buffet
Source-period hours: 3–5 p.m.
Source-period price: adults JPY 3,600; children ages 4–12 JPY 1,800
Historical offer: 15% off when booking through the official website
https://doubletree-shuri.hiltonjapan.co.jp/plans/restaurants/sweetsbuffet/grand-castle-2208-2
Historical official-site offer: special price for the weekend-only Curry × Summer Sweets Buffet, with four curr… [Original linked title is truncated.]
The historical linked description invites guests to enjoy colorful Okinawan-fruit sweets and four curries in an ‘endless loop of sweet and spicy,’ including the hotel’s tender beef-tendon curr… [Original excerpt is truncated.]
doubletree-shuri.hiltonjapan.co.jp