The Mandarin Oriental trying to re-invent the sandwich, why?

Finger sandwiches form an integral part of an English afternoon tea (together with scones and clotted cream, cakes and of course tea). Most hotels in Hong Kong would do a half decent afternoon tea. The Clipper Lounge at the Mandarin Oriental has been offering afternoon tea for decades.

I was meeting up with some out of town friends in Hong Kong and I thought tea at the Mandarin would be lovely. We sat down. We ordered afternoon tea. The food, as usual, came in a multi-tier contraption as well as a basket of piping hot scones. What intrigued me first were the boxy objects on the top tier (see picture below) - what were they?

Then I realised they were sandwiches! Except the Mandarin has done a "california maki roll" job by wrapping the bread with the filling: so the oily smoked salmon covered the bread, the Parma ham wrapped around the bread, not to mention thin cucumber slices went around buttered white bread. The whole point of a sandwich is that the bread forms a barrier to the oily, wet and pungent fillings (made popular by the Fourth Earl of Sandwich). So by inverting the layout, one gets greasy, fishy, smelly fingers! Please, can we go back to good old finger sandwiches?

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Porgy and Bess, English National Opera

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Where was the BALLET???

The set design had modern lines and shades - a Parisien c…

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