afternoon tea @ the suffolk house aka "a slow food afternoon"

It was a pleasant weekday afternoon and it was just nice for English tea. eating sandwiches, pastries, pies, scones and sipping a cuppa tea.

it was a real "slow food" afternoon for me, sitting in the shade of an olde english mansion enjoying the cool breeze as we savour the flavours of the food.

welcome to the Suffolk house,

tucked away behind the hustle and bustle of busy jalan dato keramat, right behind the noisy Methodist boys school.

we arrived there around 300pm and it was raining. by the way, you cant drive in, you have to park outside and walk in about 100meters to the mansion.

it was a weekday so there wasn't much people around, we were part of 3 tables that were occupied for afternoon tea.

the afternoon tea menu...

a normal set is for 2pax but since we were 5, we took 2 1/2.

the set comes with a pot of tea and set of pastries and sandwiches etc. you can choose from an assortment of teas available.

we chose 3 types of teas, the "earl grey", which is what capt picard drinks :) , the "morgentau" and the "mint and fresh".

the first tea to arrive was the "mint and fresh". i do not drink minty drinks so this was a no-no. my sis and the rest found it refreshing. I'll take their word for it.

the morgentau had a fruity flavour, which did not appeal to me. the rest of them liked it though.. yes, i know, i'm picky... (heeey, i drink iced lemon tea, right...? :-) uncultured swine....)

the morgentau comes in a much smaller tea pot, but we refilled it with hot water..

hey, its tea maah..

aah, finally, the earl grey..

the assorted pastries... raisin biscuit - its a raisin biscuit laah ( but i must admit you could taste the richness)

almond biscuit - its an almond biscuit laah (same comment on the richness) chocolate cake - it was so sweet, it was bitter. not sure it if was intended that way. hated it.

apple crumble tarts - these were good. bite sized and topped with a slice of strawberry

the accompaniments for the scones: pineapple jam - my favourite.

tomato jam - eem not so favourite.. c'mon, its tomato...!! ok, i exaggerate, it was not so bad. apple jam - another yummy choice.

strawberry jam -was good as well.

butter - skipped this.

clotted cream - i skipped because i thought it was bland. reminded me of yogurt and i hate it.

one thing to note is that the jams had pieces of the actual fruit in them. how cool is that? i found that to be really nice touch.

the other thing to note (which i failed to remember) was that the jams were actually "fusion" of fruit and spice.. if i remember correctly, it was apple and chili, pineapple and ginger...and sadly i cant remember the other 2. but the thing was the fruit+spice fusion worked very well together.

you get an explosion of flavours in your mouth when you bite into that scone and that bit of jam.

the "mains" were made up of sandwiches, scones and pies.

cucumber sandwiches - it was ok.. tasted so-so . salmon sandwiches - this one was very nice and tasty.

the really lovely scones, crispy on the outside but soft on the inside.

we ate these really slowly and spooned the various jams on with every bite. i enjoyed all the jams except for the butter and cream. the cream tasted bland to me and i preferred a "sweet" taste rather than buttery taste when eating the scones.

we underestimated the scones. they looked small but were actually quite filling as well. we struggled to finish them. really scrumptious, i say again.

the chicken and mushroom pies.. they were quite filling and bursting with meat and flavour

my "cuppa tea" pose with my pinky extended... earl grey of course... "make it so"

this is the back part of the mansion which was where we had our tea. there's actually a river behind the mansion. those colonials really like mansions next to rivers.

i think once in a while we just need to take a step back and look at the world with "slower" lenses.

things pass us by so fast these days that we hardly take the time to appreciate things or even to "taste".

i think i will come back for afternoon English tea one of these days and i'll bring elpea with me...

fyi on some history of the mansion, if you're interested..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_House,_Penang