Memories of the Mandarin

“Doesn’t it feel like you’ve come home?”

My tablemate posed me the question over lunch at Man Wah, a refined Cantonese restaurant on the 25th floor of Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong. Before polishing off a small platter of the best dim sum I’d eaten all year, I couldn’t help revealing my personal connection to the storied five-star hotel dubbed the MO. More than a decade ago, when this blog was still in its relative infancy, I worked at the bustling Mandarin Cake Shop for two months. Now, I had returned as an invited guest. It felt as though life had come full circle.

The original MO, which held its 60th anniversary celebrations just last month, is a downtown institution that has seen the surrounding area evolve and grow into a skyscraper-filled financial district of global importance. On a previous work trip a few months before, an American travel journalist and longtime local resident had told me the MO was her favorite hotel in town. “It has the best location, right in the middle of everything. And the place is an expression of Hong Kong’s heyday. At Café Causette you can see tables of elegant local women with perfectly coiffed hair — it’s like a throwback to the 1960s.”

Behind the polished and glamorous appearance of the MO lies an army of workers to keep things running like clockwork. My eyes grew wide when I stepped into the wonderland that was the pastry kitchen, whose racks were filled with Danishes and flaky croissants (the Mandarin’s almond croissants are absolutely divine). I recall looking on in awe at the cakes and pastries being carefully made from scratch. But with only a few months as a barista in a neighborhood Starbucks under my belt, I quickly realized I was out of my depth, especially since I had joined mere weeks before the year-end holidays. Which meant there was hardly any time to learn the ropes, except for quick tutorials on the rare occasions when my colleagues weren’t attending to guests or telephone orders. My inexperience, not to mention the 4:1 ratio of women to men at the Cake Shop, meant I was far more useful as manual labor, making deliveries from the pastry kitchen to the cake shop and bringing leftover lunch sandwiches on trays to the staff canteen, where they were instantly snapped up like hot cakes. I also wheeled out my fair share of Christmas and New Year hampers in tall black sacks to a container office hidden in the loading bay. To my relief, this meant far less time spent in front of demanding customers who were almost always in a great hurry.

That December, the hotel had converted several meeting rooms into a space for packing overseen by a caring and good-natured Nepalese lady named Dolma. I often helped Dolma assemble the hampers themselves, loading the deep compartments with stollen, Christmas pudding, Panettone, mince pies, boxes of homemade pralines and chocolates (some playfully shaped like nuts and bolts), the Cake Shop’s signature rose petal jam, premium cured meats and cheeses, and a bottle of fine French wine. Sometimes, heavy boxes of Christmas turkey needed to be brought from the main kitchen to the loading dock on trolleys, and I distinctly recall that someone living in a posh area on Hong Kong Island’s Southside (likely an American expat) had ordered Turducken. Perplexed at why anyone would request such a bizarre creation, one of the kitchen staff labeled it in bold black ink with the Chinese characters for “Strange Chicken.”

Because of the stressful nature of the work, I found myself latching onto small things that gave me joy: a genuine smile, a cheery anecdote or joke from the kinder coworkers, satisfying buffet lunches at the staff canteen, a flawless blue sky. My time at the Mandarin taught me that I just wasn’t cut out for hotel operations, nor the hospitality industry as a whole. And after more than a few brushes with difficult customers, I resolved to be as undemanding as possible as a future guest of any hotel, asking for things only when they were necessary and within reason.

Inside the retro-style lobby of the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong.

Seating areas in the lobby have retained much of their 1960s appeal.

A small platter of incredible dim sum at Michelin-starred Man Wah.

The spacious living room of my 10th-floor corner suite at the MO.

Overlooking the lawns of Statue Square and the Cenotaph, built in 1923.

Throughout my short stint at the MO, I was mentored by Clara, a motherly supervisor who liked me so much she jokingly proclaimed that I would someday be her son-in-law. Clara’s boisterous laughter matched the sparkle in her eyes: “Wait for my daughter to get a bit older… she’s only 12!” So during an in-depth tour after the lunch at Man Wah, I simply had to swing by the Cake Shop to see if my once-prospective mother-in-law was still around. Emerging from a back room, she was visibly older but no less jovial than I remembered. “Dai Gau!” It had been many years since I’d heard that less-than-flattering nickname Clara coined herself (in Cantonese, it roughly translates to “Chunky”). She recognized me instantly and said I hadn’t changed. “Are you married yet?” Clara asked mischievously. When I replied with an honest “not yet,” she lifted a hand to her mouth and chuckled. “My daughter still has a chance!”

Soon it was time for a mid-afternoon spa treatment. The MO had assigned me an experienced Filipina therapist named Imelda who had her own stories to tell. “I have massaged presidents, queens, and princes,” she said almost nonchalantly. The visit of one particular British royal, who politely called her “madam”, left a lasting impression. “I went up to his suite and his bodyguards were watching my every move. I was so nervous my hands were shaking!” When he stayed again at the MO, Imelda was no longer intimidated by his sharp-eyed security staff.

The topic of my own experiences came up too. Imelda told me she had joined just after Clara did, though she left for a year or two only to return to the hotel because she missed it. “We’ve been friends so long we call each other “honey”. And did you know Clara met her husband here? He used to be in the pastry kitchen.” I also learned that my favorite feature of the staff canteen, a self-service ice-cream machine, was long gone. Every day I would greedily take a bowl and fill it with a donut-shaped ring of ice-cold goodness, to which I often added spoonfuls of M&Ms, cookie crumble, and Oreo bits. No wonder Clara called me “Chunky”.

Aided by a high-tech massage gun, Imelda’s skillful strokes practically erased the tension and stiffness in my back and leg muscles. I floated out the spa and descended to my corner suite overlooking the fountains of Statue Square as the sun began to set over the city. Until earlier this year, I’d never actually stayed in a Hong Kong hotel; I never needed to when the convertible sofa in my parents’ living room was always available. But being a travel journalist had opened new doors. To see my hometown through the eyes of an MO guest was a privilege my much younger self — that novice employee at the Mandarin Cake Shop — could never have dreamed of. ◊

A bronzeware-inspired ice bucket in my suite; the 1963 lobby fresco by Irish-Chinese painter Gerard Henderson.

The view from the suite’s work desk; a mille-feuille with rum ice cream at the Mandarin Grill + Bar.

Inside the recently added Mandarin Club lounge on the 23rd floor.

I loved sleeping in the snug bedroom of my Harbour View suite.

A view of Statue Square and Hong Kong’s Central district after dark.