Time for Tea.....Biddy's Tea Room Norwich

Hello Folks - our friends have been travelling again, sampling tearooms further afield than London! This time Sheree and her hubby Graham sampled the delights of Biddy's Tea Room when in Norwich. Luckily for us they have reported back their afternoon tea adventures in this fab guest post......

On entering Biddy's Tea Room in Norwich there is an array of cakes and treats on show and a large display of pretty bone china tea sets which people can buy or hire for events. The decor is uber vintage with bunting strewn across the tea room, vintage wares are displayed on every available surface and tables are decorated with vintage home wares including vintage lamps and flowers in glass bottle vases. There is plentiful seating on two levels.

The Biddy's Tea Room menu offers afternoon tea and cream teas, as well as standard lunches, including soup of the day. Hubby and I were of course tempted by the tea for two option! Afternoon tea costs £8.95 for one or £16.95 for two and offers finger sandwiches from a menu, with either a slice of cake (a fine choice ranging from Victoria sandwich to salted caramel) or a giant scone, with cream and jam, plus your choice of tea.

 

There is an extensive choice of tea, from traditional black teas, to decaf varieties and fruit teas. The afternoon tea was presented on a traditional three tier cake stand, while tea cups and saucers and teapots were pretty and charmingly mismatched. I had the beef and horseradish sandwich while Hubby had the Norfolk ham, chilli jam and brie sandwich, which were stuffed full, fresh and tasty. Sandwiches were crustless and cut into fingers, which allowed for sharing! The side salad and crisps were a bonus!

Now onto the cake - I opted for the Victoria sandwich while Hubby went for the scone. Although a decent size and tempting, I felt the Victoria sandwich could have been more moist and, to my dismay, it was missing the layer of jam. I wondered if the cake was dry as it had been left uncovered. The huge scone came with two cute jars of strawberry jam and cream and was fresh and warm, so Hubby was happy. Unfortunately we questioned whether the cream was clotted cream as it didn't taste quite right. Even so, only crumbs were left on the plate!



Ladies & Gents - please note that Graham has been questioned thoroughly about his use of jam before cream when dressing this scone!!


Overall we would say that the savoury part of tea was better than the sweet, but this wouldn't stop me going back. I've heard that the Bakewell tart is a good option!

 

Sounds like they had a wonderful time doesn't it? Although I think Lorna will have some strong words for Graham when she sees him next - who knew he was a "jam first" kinda guy!!

 

Thanks for popping by today, we hope you've enjoyed this blog post...if you've been to Biddy's why not let us know what you thought by leaving a comment....

 

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea......With Lorna & Rachel!

Hello there!

On Sunday Lorna and I hosted our own afternoon tea in honour of our friend's Birthday. We throw tea parties for our friends a couple of times a year....baking our own goodies and serving everything on vintage china from Lorna's fab collection.

We keep it simple and avoid menus...but we always set the table properly and we always use china....each one of us having a different pretty tea cup. Sometimes we theme our teas (Halloween is a popular afternoon tea), but other times....like this one....we have a more traditional affair.

 

Lorna and I have very set roles in our afternoon teas....Lorna makes amazing scones and is rather nifty with the sandwiches, while I provide any other sweet treats whether that be in the form of cakes or biscuits...or anything else that takes our fancy. Of course we do swap roles...Lorna makes some mean meringue kisses and I can whip up a batch of mini quiches when I fancy it!

 

On this occasion we had ten people enjoying tea (including ourselves), and so we had two tables full of sweet cakes and sandwiches....

 

 

Our sandwich fillings included egg mayonnaise (Anika the Birthday girl is rather obsessed with egg mayo!), ham, cucumber and cheese - all crustless of course! We had a mixed group joining us for tea on Sunday...ranging from the young to the slightly older and so we decided to keep the sandwich choice quite conservative on this occasion. On other occasions we've featured open sandwiches with chorizo and tomato or coronation chicken, whatever takes our fancy really! Although we do always make egg mayonnaise and cucumber as these are both very popular in our group of friends!

 

By request of Sheree I also made some mini quiche Lorraines....always a popular addition to the afternoon tea table and so simple to make.

 

Lorna made her wonderfully scrummy scones, a selection of plain and fruit. These were served with cream and homemade jam (yes we discussed the great scone debate again!). Mum provided a jar of her scrummy strawberry jam and I had a jar of freshly made blackberry jam.

 

 

For the sweet treats we had a vanilla cupcakes topped with buttercream icing and blackberries, lemon cupcakes topped with blueberries and scrummy black forest cupcakes topped with a dollop of cream (I got a bit carried away with the cupcakes!!). I also made some Viennese fingers, dipped in dark chocolate. Mum also baked for us...bringing along chocolate tray bake and the cutest shortbread topped with fresh cream and summer berries. It really was a feast of sweet treats and we were all spoilt for choice!

 

 

I also made one other sweet treat for this tea that I haven't attempted before.....but I was so pleased that I did as it was a really simple, but popular addition to the table.....

 

 

I made pink lemonade!

 

I found the wonderful vintage glass R.Whites bottle in a local antique shop and it looked brilliant with the pretty pink liquid in. I served my lemonade in mini milk bottles with super cute striped straws! The lemonade was a hit with everyone who tried it...I will definitely be making it again!

 

This of course was all washed down with copious amounts of tea! We enjoyed pots of traditional breakfast tea, ceylon tea and green tea.

 

Thank you for popping by today - we hope you've enjoyed our own afternoon tea blog post...pop back later this week for a behind the scenes blog post and some recipes!

 

If  you've popped by today please leave us a comment to let us know you've popped by!

 

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea....Vintage Cake House

Hello there, I hope you are well.

Yesterday, Sheree visited me in Farnham and we decided to catch up over a spot of afternoon tea at a local tea room called The Vintage Cake House.

The Vintage Cake House opened in Farnham in June 2012 and I have to say I really love it! It's run by a group of young ladies and hits the spot in so many ways....the interior is styled well in shabby chic without being too clichéd, they play wonderful music all day long, the service is friendly and the food is scrummy! Top marks all around!

On this particular visit it was a Saturday lunch time and as usual it was very busy, but we managed to squeeze in and I'm pleased we did. We opted for the Vintage Tea....



Sheree waiting patiently for her tea!
 

We are asked by the friendly waitress a number of questions when we ordered....including what type of sandwich we wanted (there is a choice of bread and several different fillings), whether we wanted a plain or a fruit scone, which cake we wanted (cake of the day was victoria sponge or chocolate cake) and finally what tea we wanted to wash it all down with! This really feels like a personal afternoon tea, with a lot of choice.

 

The sandwiches are all made to order and are extremely fresh...you can have white, brown or granary bread. Both Sheree and I opted for the egg mayonnaise sandwiches on granary bread, but there are several different fillings to pick from. We each received four perfectly cut finger sandwiches served at the bottom of the pretty cake stand.

 

 

Next came the scones.....I requested a fruit scone and Sheree said she didn't mind which we had (and so the waitress gave her a plain scone so we had one of each). They were rather large scones....in fact we shared just one in the end! They were served with cream and strawberry jam (which we added to our scones in the appropriate order!!).

 

Finally we had the sweet treats....we had plumped for the victoria sponge cake, but when the waitress got back to the counter nearly all the sponge was gone. So we were given a smaller slice of victoria sponge each plus a piece of rocky road cake each which was a lovely compromise!

 

 

I have to say this was one of the best victoria sponge cakes that I've eaten in a while. There wasn't too much jam or cream and it was extremely moist. The cake also had a mild almond taste, which was ever so scrummy! The rocky road cake was lovely too, although after all the other sweet treats it was a little bit rich (I think if I had eaten it on its own with a cup of coffee it would have been wonderful).

 

 

Everything is served on mismatched vintage china...we had teacups and side plates and our food was served on a wonderful cake stand. All around the tearoom are displayed yet more teacups....I thoroughly enjoyed trying to spot any of my collection!

 

All in all we really enjoyed our afternoon tea....and at £9.95 each we felt it was very good value for money. The service is wonderful and the food very tasty. If you happen to find yourself in the Farnham area in Surrey I'd definitely recommend a visit!

 

Thanks for popping by today,

we hope you have enjoyed this afternoon tea blog post

 

Rachel

The Votes Are In!

Hello there,

So you may have noticed that we've been talking a lot recently about scones and how you should eat them. To be hones this has been a really interesting debate....with lots of people very passionate about how they dress their scones!

Our poll has now closed and we'd like to thank the 38 people who voted. The balance changed a couple of times over the last three weeks.....but in the end the majority vote was 57% of people who dollop cream onto their scone before the cream! Interestingly one voter said they put on whatever was closest to them...sometimes cream, sometimes jam!

As the poll was open on our blog we also asked our lovely Twitter and Facebook friends what they thought about this....and it was during one of these wonderful debates that we discovered a whole new group of people who have butter as well as cream and jam on their scones! This opened up a whole new debate which I think Lorna doesn't approve of!

Anyway, we hope that you've enjoyed this debate as much as we have....thank you to everyone who has joined us! Lorna did keep her mind open and tried dressing her scone "the wrong way around"....and you probably won't be surprised that it didn't change her mind!

We'll be back with another poll soon.....in the meantime if you think of any topics you'd like to see debated....anything you are really passionate about....please leave us a comment below!

Thank you for popping by today,
Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea.....Oxo Tower

Hello there,

Ok, so yesterday Lorna and I went to the Oxo Tower in London to sample their Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Not Afternoon Tea....now that's not a typo on my part....it is indeed not an afternoon tea, and that is how its advertised.

I've taken my time before writing this post...thinking long and hard about our experience. When we first left the restaurant yesterday we were both very disappointed by our afternoon. One thing we learnt is that Lorna and I are quite traditional when it comes to afternoon tea. We don't mind the odd bit of theme here or there....but ultimately we want tea to be tea....and it should include some tea to drink!!

The Oxo Tower offers something slightly different....their Charlie and the Chocolate Factory experience is based on their Not Afternoon Tea dessert plates with some themed extras. So, from the beginning we knew that we weren't getting the normal afternoon tea experience....and we thought we were ok with this.

When having this experience you get to pick from one of four dessert plates on offer...each comes with a matching cocktail. There is Penny's Herb Garden, Chocolate Bubbles, Picnic Berries and All Iced Up. Lorna opted for the chocolately experience and I went with the picnic option.....

 

Now, to begin our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory experience we were presented with a Neapolitan Hot Shot each.....

 

 

These could either be slurped up with a straw or dipped into with small spoons. They were tasty and mousse like....and there is a little surprise in there for you.

 

You can then tuck into your dessert plate....

 

 

Lorna had the Chocolate Bubbles plate...containing some small macaroons, a dollop of honeycomb cream, sponge adorned with truffles and pavlova. The plate looked very pretty and was decorated with pieces of chocolate and honeycomb.

 

 

I had the Picnic Berries plate....which featured a chocolate and raspberry sandwich, strawberry and champagne mousse, popcorn ice cream with blueberry compote and a delightful piece of cheesecake. Oh and an odd little butterfly cake on the side of the plate! My favourite bit  was the popcorn ice cream which had a wonderful toasted flavour.

 

Now the desserts were ok (they looked amazing)....some bits were really lovely, but other bits were....a bit odd really. We didn't have a menu to refer, so a lot of the eating was guess work! Neither of us could have told you that Lorna had honeycomb cream on her plate!

 

After we'd finished these plates we were presented with our last Charlie and the Chocolate Factory treats....

 

 

The drink is a Snozberry slurp and quite frankly tasted like it looks (odd!). The candyfloss was nice...each a different flavour. But the marshmallow twirl was just weird...it had a pleasant enough flavour, but the texture was very soft and sticky.

 

In the little box are a selection of "Children Chocolates" to take home as a treat. Each chocolate is named after one of the children in the book.

 

Now as I said this was billed as a "Not Afternoon Tea" from the very beginning, so we cannot criticise the lack of sandwiches, scones or tea....but there were some other elements missing too. The setting of the Oxo Tower is very much like a canteen....it was incredibly loud in there with the clatter of plates and glasses and your fellow diners (who were sat very close to you!). Its not exactly the environment that Lorna and I usually enjoy. There was live music to entertain us....but it was so loud to drown out the sound of the chatter and plates that Lorna and I had to practically shout at each other once it started! In addition, unfortunately the service wasn't very good either...we sat around waiting an awful lot and no one explained the afternoon tea menu to us. It was a busy service....and this meant that the servers had little time for pleasantries.

 

Out of interest I asked the two ladies sat at the table next to us what they thought of their experience....the long pause before they answered said it all really! In the end they said they had enjoyed the dessert plates, but there was at least one thing on each plate that neither of them liked.

 

So the big lesson that Lorna and I learnt from this whole affair is that we like Afternoon Tea....proper afternoon tea complete with tea, sandwiches, scones, pastries, great service and atmosphere. Somewhere where we can chatter away without hearing the conversation from the people next to us.

 

If you want a fancy dessert plate that looks quite spectacular then this is definitely a good option for you. The basic "Not Afternoon Tea" costs £24.50 each (that's one plate of four desserts plus a cocktail), if you fancy opting for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory experience that is £42.50 each (which in our opinion is very expensive for what you actually get).

 

Thanks for popping by today, we hope to see you again soon.

 

Rachel & Lorna