Cost – £15.95 (Oct 2017)
Background – The Cambridge Hallmark Hotel is to be found outside Cambridge in the village of Bar Hill. It is a fairly big modern hotel with a golf course attached.
There is nothing particularly attractive about the hotel, it is just another modern corporate hotel. However, as they offer an Afternoon Tea, we felt it was our duty to go and test it out. Well, someone has to!
It was quite a cold day when we went, which was a shame as there was a nice upstairs outside area overlooking the golf course that we could have used if it had been a warmer day. Though this area does suffer a bit from traffic noise coming from the busy nearby A14.
Contents – Nine finger sandwiches between the two of us (three each of egg mayonnaise, ham and tomato and chicken). A medium sized fruit scone, small pots of butter, strawberry jam and of clotted cream. A small chocolate covered éclair, a mini chocolate sponge cake and a mini carrot cake. The tea was made with tea bags.
Comments – We were told our Afternoon Tea would be served upstairs in the lounge bar area. This was a large modern open area with a choice of sofas and low tables or comfy chairs and normal height tables. We chose one of the higher tables. There was a big screen showing football on but the volume was low and we were able to avoid that area.
We were served as soon as we arrived and asked what we would like to drink. As usual, we both chose tea. This arrived quite quickly in individual chunky white teapots with a jug of milk between us.
The rest of the Afternoon Tea took some twenty-five minutes to arrive. This was bearing in mind that we had booked for afternoon tea in advance the day before.
When it did arrive, the Tea was presented on an interesting stand that was a bit like a small piece of shelving with a handle! It did look unusual and quite attractive.
There was a mix of both a malted brown and a white bread used for the sandwiches, with two on brown and one (egg) on white. There were all adequately filled and the bread was fresh. Our favourite was the chicken which was made with large chunks of chicken breast. We enjoyed the sandwiches but unfortunately my husband’s ham and tomato sandwich contained some hard rind pieces which he found very unpleasant.
The scone had been warmed up and cut in half. Luckily it had not dried out on the cut surface. There was a nice lot of fruit in the scones.
There was only just enough of both jam and clotted cream. The jam was of a catering type – smooth and jelly like. Butter was available in small packets but we did not use it.
The cakes were all very tasty but were rather small. The carrot cake was my favourite. It was moist, with a hint of cinnamon.
The tea was rather strong for both of us. We both needed a refill, as we had emptied the first teapots before the Afternoon Tea had arrived. We both removed the two teabags from our teapots when the second pots arrived but it was still too strong.
The service was reasonably good but the Tea took a long time to arrive after being served with the tea to drink.
| Sandwiches | 1.5 |
| Scone | 1.5 |
| Jam | 1.0 |
| Cream | 1.5 |
| Cake (variety) | 1.5 |
| Cake (quality) | 1.5 |
| Tea | 1.5 |
| Presentation | 1.5 |
| Service | 1.0 |
| Value | 1.5 |
| Total | 14.0 |
Sarnies Scones and Cakes 