Cost – £14.50 (July 2017)
Comments – The Suffolk town of Lavenham is full of beautiful ancient buildings. There are lots of buildings from the Tudor period, many of which are quite lopsided and wonky with age. The Crooked House is one of these lovely buildings.
It sits on the main street through Lavenham squeezed amongst other wonderful looking buildings of a similar age.
Inside you are welcome to go and see the upstairs of the house, though this is at your own risk.
The tea rooms occupy the main room at the bottom of the house with a bathroom and the kitchen to the rear of the building. It is a small cluttered tea room with only five tables seating between two and around six people.
Elsewhere in Lavenham there is a very large church and the ancient Guildhall to visit. Plus there are the many ancient buildings to look at, including the famous Swan Hotel, which I have also reviewed. There are several good shops and a large number of other places to eat!
Contents – Four triangular sandwiches each (your choice from a list of six on the menu. We chose cheese and red onion chutney and tuna, spring onion and cucumber). A large fruit scone, a bowl of raspberry jam, a bowl of clotted cream and a bowl of butter. Your choice of a large slice of cake from the display on the sideboard (9 different cakes, 3 different slices). We both chose chocolate cake. The tea was made with tea bags in a pretty china teapot.
Comments –We were served in the small tea room which had just five tables. Each table is laid with a tablecloth and pretty china. There is a tea cosy in the centre of each table.
The tea arrived quickly in a large pretty china teapot. The pot contained four tea bags and was rather too strong for our taste. We asked for a pot of water to water down the tea and removed most of the tea bags. There was plenty of tea and we were also offered refills.
The afternoon tea arrived ‘course’ by ‘course’. First of all we were brought the sandwiches on a large round plate with some flavoured crisps in the centre and some salad garnish around the plate. The sandwiches were large, very well filled and, as my husband put it, a bit agricultural! They were very tasty and there was plenty of them. We had been offered a choice of white or granary bread and had chosen white.
The scone was fresh and homemade. It was very large, warm and delicious and there was plenty of fruit inside. The jam was homemade raspberry and was delicious. There was a good amount of it, even given the size of the scones. There was also an appropriate amount of clotted cream for the large scones. In fact, we managed a good thick layer of cream on both scones. Butter was also provided but we didn’t use any.
By this time we were both well stuffed, so we were glad of a pause before the cake arrived. In fact, we were offered the option to take our cake home with us instead. We treated that as a challenge!!!
The cakes were made by a local supplier. They all looked really good and the portions were generous.
However, I think that in such a small tea room there was too much choice and as a result the cakes were taking too long to be eaten. They were all well covered by glass cake covers but our chocolate cake was a little on the dry side and tasted slightly like it had been ‘open’ for a while. This was a great shame as the cakes all looked lovely.
Service was quick and friendly. The two ladies working in the tea room were busy and helpful. The tea room was comfortable and a nice place to be in.
| Sandwiches | 2.0 |
| Scone | 2.0 |
| Jam | 2.0 |
| Cream | 2.0 |
| Cake (variety) | 2.0 |
| Cake (quality) | 1.0 |
| Tea | 1.5 |
| Presentation | 1.5 |
| Service | 2.0 |
| Value | 2.0 |
| Total | 18.0 |
Sarnies Scones and Cakes 