Cost – £19.95 (July 2015)
Background – Frost’s Garden Centre is a large garden centre in Woburn Sands, not far from Milton Keynes. The garden centre has a large restaurant area plus some smaller rooms for special events. Frost’s occasionally put on a special event afternoon tea for which pre booking is essential. In this case it was to celebrate Wimbledon tennis fortnight.
Contents – 4 quarter square sandwiches (two each of egg mayonnaise and ham with piccalilli), a half of a wrap (brie and cranberry pinwheel), half of a cheese scone topped with cream cheese and smoked salmon, a good sized fruit scone, a dish of strawberry jam, and a dish of clotted cream, a finger of Wimbledon Victoria sponge, a mini cream meringue, a small lemon and lavender cup cake and a small Pimm’s jelly dessert topped with a tiny chocolate tennis racket and ball.. The tea was made with teabags in a large teapot and was refillable. There was no choice of teas.
Comments – This was a Wimbledon themed afternoon tea. The tea took place in a small function room near the main restaurant, which was decorated with a Wimbledon theme. There were tennis rackets, tennis balls and strawberries everywhere plus bunting made of artificial grass.
The table was set with a pretty blue and white patterned tea set. There were four of us enjoying this Afternoon Tea.
The Afternoon Tea was served in two stages. The sandwiches, pin wheels and cheese scones were served first on a three tier cake stand, with the tea arriving at the same time in a matching patterned teapot.
The cakes and fruit scones followed when we had finished the savoury items. It was also served on a three tier cake stand with matching blue and white patterned plates.
The sandwiches were of a good size, fresh and were well filled. There was a lot of cream cheese on the scone – too much for me.
The scones were of a good size and were fresh and tasty. The jam and cream were on separate small dishes. There was enough cream on this occasion as one of the party didn’t eat cream but there was not enough jam and we had to acquire some more.
Finally the cakes were all fresh and moist. The little jelly was nicely done but was not very well set though it was still tasty. The finger of sponge cake was particularly good.
The tea was of the right strength and was re-filed when we asked. Service was a reasonably attentive and pleasant. The surroundings were well decorated to give a fun atmosphere to the room.
| Sandwiches | 1.5 |
| Scone | 1.5 |
| Jam | 1.5 |
| Cream | 1.5 |
| Cake (variety) | 1.5 |
| Cake (quality) | 2.0 |
| Tea | 1.5 |
| Presentation | 1.5 |
| Service | 1.5 |
| Value | 1.0 |
| Total | 15.0 |
Sarnies Scones and Cakes 