Byfords Tea Room, Holt, Norfolk.

Cost – £20.95 for two (Oct 2013)

Background – Byfords is a busy Café and Delicatessen in the lovely Georgian town of Holt in North Norfolk. The town is easily reached from places such as Blakeney, Sheringham and Cromer which are situated on the nearby coast. Holt is one of our favourite places to visit when we are in the area.

Contents – 3 triangular sandwiches (smoked salmon, ham and mustard, cheese and pickle), 1 medium fruit scone, butter, your choice of three flavours of jam (served in ‘normal’ jam jars), clotted cream, a finger of chocolate fridge cake, a finger of flapjack, a quarter of an individual Bakewell tart and a large pot of tea for two of your choice (we chose breakfast).

Comments – We sat in a little side area of the café, which was very busy. We felt we were a bit squashed in (there were four of us on this occasion). There was no real ambience and we felt we were a bit in the way. The table was very sticky.

The afternoon tea was nicely served on a plain white three tier cake stand. The sandwiches were well filled, fresh and tasty.

The scones were of a reasonable size and were fresh. There was plenty of jam as we were given three open jam jars to serve ourselves from. Whilst I can see the advantages of serving the jam in this fashion for the café, I feel it is rather unhygienic. Previous customers could have used licked spoons to get the jam out, sneezed into the pots or have used spoons previously used for a different flavour. The clotted cream was very stiff and there was barely enough. Butter was served as well but we didn’t use it.

The pieces of cake that were served were very small. It was annoying to see full sized pieces of the same cakes available in the delicatessen (which you have to walk through to leave the café), where they were four times the size and cost £1.50 each. Being served a quarter of a small Bakewell Tart was ridiculous! despite the size of the pieces, the cakes were very tasty and fresh.

The tea was made with tea bags and was refillable.