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

the return of "chicago rib house" ....@ gurney plaza

Wow.. The surprised look on our faces would’ve have been a real Kodak moment. We had just finished our "activities" in gurney plaza last tuesday when we accidentally stumbled upon on Chicago rib house.. .. We ate at Chicago ribs in auto City back in Sept 2008.. The 2nd time we went back and it was already closed. So imagine the surprise on our faces, when lo and behold, there it was, right in front of us. it was about 200pm and so it was not really packed. the lunch crowd was waning and we took a table beside the bar.

i ordered the full rack and elpea ordered the 1/2 rack. we wanted to order the soup/appetizer but remembered that the portions were huge the last time around so we voted against it. for drinks, we both took the bottomless fruit juices , i had cranberry (which was very unlike me but i wanted something sour this time rather plain old boring coke) and elpeas had the mango.

hehehe.. remember we didn't order any appetizer, right? well, you get a free bowl of deep fried battered mushrooms when you order 2 mains. i was also surprised that the free bowl was so huge.

the mushrooms were fresh and not overly battered, meaning more mushroom than batter and it tasted really good...and we really liked the honey mustard that came with it.

My order of the Full rack of St Louis hot ribs with fresh veggies and mash potato. fresh vegetables = broccoli :-) i must say that when order came, i was "a bit" dissapointed as i thought it would be a bigger portion but after the 1st bite it didnt matter any more.

as usual, the succulent meat practically fell of the bone and was really tender. they were very nicely marinated though i could not really feel the "heat".. it WAS supposed to be "hot".. i could only sense a "tinge" of spiciness/chili. i really enjoyed the mash potatoes as well and liked the chopped spring onions. and the fresh veggies..? well, broccoli is broccoli, so if you hate broccoli, don't order it,.. :-D i liked it.

elpea's order of original 1/2 rack of ribs with coleslaw and french fries. the original flavoured ribs tasted excellent as well and it was so good she started using her hands.... hehehe.. well, i did too.. you really didnt need the forks and knives. elpea loved the fries and coleslaw as well but I'm not one for coleslaw though.

the aftermath. savages.... :-) well it was a very satisfying meal and the freeflow of fruit juices was nice as well, so, i definitely recommend ordering that. 2 mains and 2 juices came up to a grand total of rm97. a bit pricey but i thought it was worth it.

Ambiance: similar to tgif or chillis concept. the servers were really helpful and the overall service was very good. oh yea.. they have free wi-fi as well so if you have a smartphone you'll be having fun being "connected" as well.

Would I go back again: Hell, yea..!! Ribs nice.... fathers day is coming.. :-D

Overall 4.5/5, ( -0.5 because I remembered that the full rack i had in auto city was bigger.)

Note: if you look at the pix on my previous post, you'll notice that we ordered practically the same meals... hahaha... how predictable we're become... http://chiak3.blogspot.com/2008/09/chicago-ribs-autocity.html and the portions were bigger leh..