Afternoon Tea, Rubens at the Palace; London!

Tea is for Tourist and That's Good Enough for Me!

It's quite possible that I will never again drag Jason to an afternoon tea event. Having now tried the experience in various cities and venues, I can safely say that raising a pinky in London is the pinnacle of my completely random yet utterly obsessive years-long quest for the best of high tea.

As to how I chose this location as opposed to the 842 others that seemed to be available in London ... well, it was a combination of dress code: I refuse to ask Jay to wear a suit to tea; money: champagne with tea is lovely but not 200 Great Britain Pounds of lovely; and location: I'd have booked the Orangery at Kensington Palace if it hadn't been closed ... what is with the irrational bias against January travelers???

Afternoon tea was served in the Palace Lounge; Jay and I both selected the Queen's Afternoon tea, which ended up being a ridiculous amount of food, even for us. But it did come with a glass of Guy Cadel Champagne, so that was a huge thumbs up! And before anyone gets confused about my earlier comment about the expense of champagne tea, I was referring to the Dom Perignon Tea the hotel offers in its Champagne Bar aka The Leopard Bar. That tea includes a bottle of Dom and a really cranky, wizened bartender wearing a funny uniform.

Of note ... The Rubens is the closest hotel to Buckingham Palace and yet somehow Jay and I still managed not to actually see the Queen's digs. It takes a special kind of historic landmark indifference to pull off an epic fail like that. We did, however, have a front row seat staring at the Royal Mews (the Queen's horse hotel); unfortunately there was nothing to watch but tour buses.

Tableside Temptation


The Royal Mews


The Palace Lounge


The sign pretty much says it all


Nice kitty ... or is that a hyena?


bubbles!


Real china teapots ... just as it should be!


The meal started with an amuse, of sorts: Iced Sweetcorn Parfait with Polenta Sponge. This could have been amazing, but it was partially frozen and the polenta was more like day-old cornbread than a spongecake. I would like to take this opportunity to remind our British cousins that vegetables do not a dessert make, and sweet corn is not a confection!

Looks better than it tastes!


The big kahuna showed up shortly thereafter and included three levels of food for us to attack. Our tea sandwiches included ham and wholegrain mustard, cheese and tomato, egg and cress, smoked salmon, and chicken with almonds. There were two types of scones served with Devonshire clotted cream, strawberry preserves, and a chocolate spread. And the pastries included a coffee eclair, carrot cake, meringue with chocolate, shortbread, chocolate brownie, apple and cinnamon cupcake with butter icing, vanilla cheesecake, chocolate macaroon, and a fruit tartlet. All of this was quite tasty and we took our time enjoying the bounty while watching a parade of double decker tour buses drive past over and over and over again.

The Tower of Tea Food!!


Sandwedges


Scones


Pastry Sampler


You'd think this was enough, right? Not for us! So the next course arrived and it was actually one of the most delightful, decadent things I've had in a long time: Warm Chocolate and Chili Soup. It was a smooth, creamy chocolatey joy with just a hint of spicy heat.

A wee cup of bliss!


And how did they help us quench the chocolate fire before we left for the evening? Why, with a serving of elderflower sorbet! This was such a lovely palate cleanser - light and cool with just a hint of floral. I am going to try to re-create this sorbet here at home once the weather warrants alcoholic sorbet.

Elderflower Sorbet


The final verdict - this was a truly gluttonous tea with some interesting variations and we were very pleased with the overall experience. At 39 pounds per person it wasn't cheap, but we didn't have too many food splurges on this trip so we didn't let ourselves feel bad about the cost. The hotel was lovely and the service was friendly ... and we only snickered once at the pseudo-military uniforms the serving staff had to wear!

Let's Hang Out in the Train Station!

The Longest Champagne Bar in Europe? I Do Not Think This Means What You Think It Means.

One of the things I loved about London was the ease with which we could travel around the city via the Underground. It was so easy to get from one end of the city to the other within a 20-30 minute train ride that it posed no problem when we decided to wrap up our Sunday evening at Jamie Oliver's with a visit to St. Pancras International.

Jay and I wanted to scope the place out since we would be taking the Eurostar from the station for Paris in a few days, but I had another, much more selfish reason for wanting to visit. Our guidebooks and the station's website all waxed on and on about the St. Pancras Champagne Bar, which they touted as the longest in Europe. This of course led to much discussion about whether or not England is actually considered European in the first place. And this then led to discussion about how long a bar has to be in order to be the longest in Europe. All of which led to much thirst on our parts by the time we found the bar.

Now I know they use a different measurement standard in Europe, but this was so far past my level of expectation that I could only stand there with my mouth hanging open. I had pictured a bar the length of a passenger train, or perhaps running down the middle of the station along one of the rail lines. If the St. Pancras Champagne Bar is considered the longest in Europe then they must be using measurement standards provided by the Lollipop Guild.

The bar was a perfect cube.

While the bar's size was a letdown, the drinks were tasty and the setting was pretty cool. I found it very exotic since I have never traveled by train, let alone ever had a reason to go to a train station. Aside from a number of lovely bottles of bubbly for travelers to choose from they also offered several champagne cocktails. Two that we tried included a Classic Champagne Cocktail (gin, lemon, and champagne) and an Oriental Bellini (lychee liqueur, elderflower, and peach puree topped with champagne). There were also a couple of flutes of regular bubbly and all was right with the world.

While we wouldn't suggest that anyone go out of their way to find the champagne bar, it was an enjoyable adventure and provided some good laughs. And we're still trying to figure out what their definition of long is because it sure didn't jibe with ours!

Bubbles, yes; Long ... not so much


If you have to ask, you can't afford.


Upper level of the station ... getting ready to show the world it's O-Face


That's a Stinktown kinda crowd!


In retrospect perhaps a coffee bar would have been a better idea


A thing of beauty