Where is the best afternoon tea in Norfolk?
Afternoon tea in Norwich, Norfolk
The popularity of the traditional afternoon tea has risen over the past few years, despite its origins being in the 1800s, it's something that has never gone away, and for good reason. Traditionally served late afternoon it's a meal consisting of either tea or coffee and a selection of sandwiches and cakes. The classic being a cucumber sandwich! It's normal to have a selection of different sandwiches such as cucumber, smoked salmon, egg, cheese with pickle and beef with horseradish. Sweet desserts are normally sweet scones as well as miniature brownies and Panna Cotta. It's not that unheard of to have a savoury scone as well. It's usually finished off with fresh strawberries and garnished with salad leaves.
Afternoon tea is getting more and more popular in Norfolk, but where is the best? With more and more places offering it and trying to stand out from the crowd I have put a list together of some of the restaurants and cafes that offer amazing cakes local to me in Norwich. Most places offer upgrades of champagne etc. A lot of places are now catering for gluten-free options and other dietary requirements.
I am on a quest to find the best cakes and selections on offer. Please feel free to comment on this blog with your own recommendations. I am happy to add them! This blog is very much a working project I will come back to it and tweak it from time to time. The prices of these afternoon tea options are of Summer 2017 the time of posting this blog.
List of restaurants and cafes offering Afternoon tea and cakes in Norfolk. The prices I have included are for full Afternoon tea not including extras such as champagne etc.
Price list- 2017
Assembly House in Norwich city £19.95 each person
Barnham Broom in Norfolk £15.95 each
Bidddy's tea rooms - £13.95 each
Byfords Holt £14.95
Cafe Britannia £11.95 each. I adore the idea of this cafe. It's run by offenders from the prison making them less likely to re-offend when they are released.
Dunston Hall £20 each
Harriets Cafe Tearooms £19.95
Imagine Spa at Blofield - Read my personal review here - Divine Afternoon tea at Imagine Spa £16.95 each
Number 17 in Norwich
Patisserie Valerie - Norwich city centre
Sprowston Manor
Afternoon tea at the divine Imagine Spa
Imagine Spa, located in the Norfolk countryside, isn't just a spa it has a lovely restaurant within their grounds. It's only 20 minutes drive from Norwich city centre, but feels a million mile away. The chefs are extremely passionate about creating great food for their customers and go out of their way to make the whole experience perfect. You have the choice of eating outside or in their cafe area. The kitchen is open to the cafe and the chefs are extremely attentive to customers, regularly checking f you need a refill and everything is OK.
Imagine spa is a small day spa, so I have never felt overcrowded here or rushed. They limit it to only 16 people using the spa facilities. However, you are more than welcome to book just to have afternoon tea. The cafe only has 3-4 tables, so it's a lovely personal atmosphere.
On arriving at the spa we were greeted straight away by the head of the house at the reception and taken to the garden as we were lucky to have a lovely clear sky. The garden is absolutely lovely including a pond, scented garden and a couple of relaxation pods. We had the afternoon tea option with a pot of coffee or tea. Several options for coffee were available, latte, Americano etc. Our afternoon tea came out on a three-tier plate with sandwiches on the bottom tier, middle and top tier were a lovely selection of sweet desserts and cakes. The brownie with honeycomb on top was particularly tasty, the brownie melted in your mouth, unlike some I have had in the past which have been dry. You can tell the chefs have spent their time perfecting the recipes. This afternoon tea at the time of writing is £16.95, which I am personally very happy to pay.
Imagine spa will cater for hen do parties. At £100 each for 10 guests you can have the whole place exclude to yourself and your guests. If you are getting married soon I definitely recommend calling them for more information on their hen do packages.
Afternoon tea at Imagine Spa - Norfolk
Bioglan - SuperFoods Raw Cacao
We had a voucher to try Bioglan Raw Cacao powder from the Tesco Orchard Program, the first thing we tried with it, was mixing it with just water as directed on the back of the packaging. It was disgusting! Would probably make good hot chocolate with milk, but we both hated it just mixed with water.
We decided we'd give it a go in the Cacao Bites recipe also on the back of the packaging, which included a mixture of nuts, dates and coconut oil, these were delicious! Although, a little bit too more-ish, so they didn't last long!
#TriedForLess
#SuperPoweredYouRead more
Tesco Orchard - chocolate salted caramel pudding
For our Orchard Tesco this month we got Tesco's finest desserts- chocolate salted caramel pudding. It was amazing! Just 10 mins in the oven and it came out soft on the inside and crispy on the top. It was in the meal deal section, so great to have as part of a treat. I would definitely recommend this as a date night for a treat.
Food review for Tesco - #triedforless #foodblogger
Christmas dinner at a burger bar?
If you asked me before yesterday if I wanted a Chirstmas dinner at a Norwich American burger restaurant... I can tell you my answer would definitely be no.
Actually I probably would have just laughed. In my experience chain burger places have always been pre-heated nasty food with staff clearly not caring. However after visiting Coast to coast America dinner in Norwich last night on their Christmas meal preview night as a guest blogger I can safety say all the staff clearly cared a lot about their food and extremely passionate about giving their best customer care. To be honest when the coast to coast in Norwich said the event was going to be all bloggers I remember thinking that is really brave. 8 people reviewing a busy chain restaurant. It definitely reflects how confident they are in their food and cocktail list. Tonight was the only time a bunch of 8 people can be on their phones and taking pictures on their camera and tweeting and hash tagging and no one saying anything about it! #c2cmoments
The night began with warm cider, which was divine and actually did instantly start to get me feeling a little Christmassy in October! Me and my husband Andy Dane photography quickly got chatting to the 6 other guest bloggers at this blogger event based at Coast to coast Norwich branch. It was really lovely to chat to other local bloggers.
The first part of the planned event was held by Andy Pearson a professional mixologist. From just talking to Andy for a short time you can tell that Coast to Coast have the right person for the job. Andy was extremely passionate about his career. I think he would of happily chatted about the art of mixing the perfect blend of alcohol all night. Coast to coast have long discussion groups about creating new menu and their Christmas cocktail menu clearly well thought out. They have a cocktail from the start of the day right until the end! My favourite cocktail was the mid day treat of a chocolate 'not Terry's chocolate orange ;-), (unbranded) cocktail. It really was like liquid chocolate orange and instantly took me back to past memories of Christmas day. Andy went on to chat about many many other cocktails and how he created the idea etc. All really interesting and amazing to get an insight of how much they really do care at Coast to coast. Normally I can say that if me and my husband planned a night out if would be at a small independent restaurant. I think we have definitely been missing out here!
The food was to follow. We got to try 2 starters, 2 mains and 2 desserts! We were all stuffed and very happy by the end of the night. Radek the chef who has been with coast to coast restaurant from the start was just as much in love with his job as Andy the mixoloist. Radek talked in great depth about how they create and plan a new menu at C2C. He prides himself and the restaurant in making 80% of the food fresh. This really surprised me as having been to other chain restaurants like Wetherspoons or similar, coast to coast was on a completely different level. I can honestly say I believe Radek would throw down this chef's hat if he was asked to deep fry the roast potatoes! Sadly yes I have had deep fried potatoes for my roast dinner in Norwich before and they do taste as disguising as they sound!
Radek talked about how they soak the bacon and the burger in maple syrup to give it that Christmas feeling. It tasted great and brought a regular burger into the Christmas menu well. The Christmas roast dinner was by far the best bit for me. Carrots were cooked to perfection. Why do so many restaurants boil them for 45 minutes in Norwich? These were still lovely and slightly crisp. Gravy was just right too. The whole roast dinner was perfect and I normally do have something to moan about! You can ask my friends ;-)
The night finished off with me behind the bar making a Christmas snowman cocktail whose eyes and nose slowly started sinking into the drink! Andy's cocktails however were like all the others he made, perfect. However I have been informed that they do have some shifts next week, so my cocktail skills can't be as bad as I imagined them to be.
Based on Coast to Coast staff, food, hygiene and general atmosphere. I can give them 5*, which I never imagined I would!
Norwich | Coast to Coast American Restaurant & Bar - Christmas preview menu 2014
The Orchard at Tesco - product review
This month I got asked to product review for Tesco and lucky for us we got fruit and veg. After a quick registration on their website I soon got our first vouchers in the post to purchase the food. Tesco sent us £5. My husband Andy got them from Tesco on my behalf and easily located which ones the vouchers were for. We got potatoes, carrots, pears and parsnips. All three of the items lasted really well in the fridge. The pears were really delicious and full of flavour. Well presented and packed well. The carrots and potatoes were used by Andy to make a lovely roast dinner and my daughter and I enjoyed the pears. None of the fruit or veg had any signs of bruising.