When my colleague/friend heard that in the end I never got to go afternoon tea for my birthday, she immediately offered to take me out instead. We used the website www.afternoontea.co.uk to try find one with a good deal and decent reviews. Out of 3 places short-listed we settled upon the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Victoria which had 40% off their afternoon tea! We had to book a table but there was no deposit needed so a few weeks later we were on our way. The hotel is literally 3 minutes walk away from Victoria Station and it does not have the most appealing exterior for a hotel but at least you can not miss it.
We walked in and asked the first person we saw (a bellboy I think) where we was suppose to go and he directed us to the restaurant, just on the right where his colleague all smiles was waiting to greet us. W.H gave her name and we were given a choice on where we wanted to sit down. We chose a big table on the side and shortly after we were given the menu. Doubletree Victoria have 2 afternoon tea options, the 'Traditional Afternoon Tea' for £20.50 and the 'Gourment Afternoon Tea', which in addition you get a glass of champagne, crumpets and strawberry cupcakes for £34.00. The pig in me, guess which I picked..
The choice of teas was not great most of them were the usual fare such as breakfast, camomile and peppermint tea. The only unusual ones were raspberry and chilli; lemongrass, ginger and citrus fruit; and wild sweet orange. W.H wanted the lemongrass but unfortunately it was sold out so she settled for the peppermint and I got the wild sweet orange. The food arrived in what looked like a mini shelf which was certainly different however the overall colours was very dull, there was just too much brown going on.
We started with the crumpets which were already buttered but it was unbelievably dry, W.H suggested that they should have put more butter on it. Next were the 4 sandwiches; salmon, egg mayonnaise, prawn and ham, which were okay. The scones did not look appetizing at all, they reminded me of the ones my mum buys at the supermarket which can be super dry but these were surprisingly moist and still warm. I actually can not remember what the little cakes were but the passionfruit drizzle on top was amazing. I do not know if my readers remember my last afternoon tea but the dreaded coffee slice dessert made its way back into my life again. I knew at first glance that it was the same one but for the sake of it I ate some anyway, at least W.H got to enjoy my disgusted expression. At this point as you can imagine, we were both quite full already but we had one last dessert left and that was the strawberry cupcakes with the cute heart sprinkles. The icing thankfully was not too sweet and the sponge was nice and soft.
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| Coconut macaron, coffee slice and toffee macaron. |
The bill came up to £40.80 which is very decent for afternoon tea and for the amount that we had as well, however both me and W.H agreed that we would not be coming back here. The service was good but the actual afternoon tea was not the best that we have had, to say the very least. Although we had fun and it was nice to catch up again outside of work so thank you W.H!
