The Afternoon Series: Boston Tea Party

Going a little off-road with this post, as there isn't a Boston Tea Party in Wales.

However, through living in Exeter for University, and frequently visiting Bristol, I am well acquainted with the South-West chain of cafe-come-brunch bars. 

In fact it's fair to say that I'm a big fan -their range of cakes and treats are broad and delicious. Their vegetarian and gluten free options are great. Their prices are reasonable, and they are always in quirky buildings, each with a slightly different aesthetic to offer. 

Their Afternoon Tea costs £9.95 per person (min. 2) and is served daily from 2pm from memory.

Their tiered stands contain four types of sandwiches (the standard offering of smoked salmon and cream cheese, cucumber and cream cheese, ham and mustard and egg mayonnaise).

A GIANT scone is served with strawberry jam and clotted cream. It is freshly warmed and delicious. 

Finally, there is a random selection of four cakes, cut into small slices. 

It is HUGE! The first time I had it, I ended up taking about 2 napkins stuffed with cake home with me. For me, this is no bad thing - afternoon tea is meant to be dinky and refined but I'd much rather too much than walk away peckish. 

Tea is really high quality, served loose leaf in quaint tin teapots - there is a choice of English Breakfast, Assam and Earl Grey.

For me, the highlight is certainly the cakes. The selection of cakes will vary each time, and they're all - without exception - stunning. Even better, the friendly staff are often open to suggestion if there's a certain treat you have your eye on for the stand (I recommend the coconut chocolate flapjack and the Bosco cheesecakes)

On the downside, the bread of the sandwhiches have (on occasion) tasted dry, as if they've been sat around.

Also, the mustard in the ham and mustard actually blew my head off and made me sneeze - watch out if you're sensitive to this!

One final negative is the lack of a refined experience. The cafe is self-serve, you are given standard issue mugs; no quaint tea cups or saucers. 

However it's delicious, and if you're after a silver service experience you should expect to be paying at least 50% more.

Boston Tea Party's are great places with tasty grub and a welcoming atmosphere. If you venture Bristol-way, there are several worth checking out! 

Coconut Crazy: Co-Operative Chocolate and Coconut Flavour Bombes

Much like a magpie to a bejewelled necklace or a moth to a flame, it seems there is something inherent that draws me to anything coconut flavour.
Whether its in curries or cakes, rest assured I will find and devour it.

Disappointly, then, is Britain's lack of coconut products on the shelves of our supermarkets. Despite the increasing popularity of coconut oil and milk, for their acclaimed health benefits as 'good fats' and uses in Dairy Free products, there are simply still not enough coconutty foods about, for my liking.

Meandering through the aisles of my local Co-Operative Food, I stumbled upon a box of these chocolatey beauties. Wide-eyed and near dribbling, I of course promptly purchased them and headed home to enjoy them with a cup of tea and a couple of willing reviewer friends.

They are priced at £2 for 4, each of which contains 233 calories.
They consist of chocolate cake, topped with a coconut butter cream and enrobed in a layer of milk chocolate, drizzled with white chocolate.

Our Thoughts:

Tasty outer layer of chocolate, nice and thick. No complaints here.

The chocolate cake middle that dominates these 'bombes' did not blow us away (pardon the pun),
It is really quite dry. One pal commented that he 'got bored' of eating, whilst waiting for the coconut buttercream.

The coconut buttercream is, by all accounts, the star of the show. Creamy, rich, and coconutty, it provides a lovely companion, moistening the lack-lustre sponge and complimenting the chocolate flavour very well.
However, there is simply not enough of this stuff. As you can see from the image, there is a rather measly cone of buttercream, so you only end up with heavenly mouthfuls when you reach the middle of the bombe.

Another friend commented that she rated the product a 6/10 - but would have given the coconut buttercream alone a solid 8/10.

Concluding Thoughts:

Definitely pleasant, and I would have it again.
But, it would be so much better if the buttercream was evenly distributed, more plentiful - or better yet - the sponge was improved.

To end with another terrible pun: we weren't nuts about it.....

Kaspa's Desserts

As this is my third-consecutive sweet-food themed blog post, it does not perhaps need to be clarified that I'm a total dessert person.

I have often mused, whilst pondering a restaurant menu, that I'd rather skip straight for dessert - or better - choose three sweet courses.
Imagine my delight, then, to hear of the opening of Kaspa's Desserts on Cardiff's City Road.

The place seems perpetually busy and its Instagram-worthy waffles are the talk of the town. I visited to see what all the fuss was about, and four visits later, I thought I'd share my thoughts about the place.

Firstly, it is a chain with branches popping up at lightening speed. In fact, a Kaspa's is currently being fitted out on Cardiff's St Mary Street - a far more central location that I'd be more likely to visit.
Finding out that Kaspa's is one of many makes the place a little less special for me, as I generally prefer to support local business'.

That being said, there are very few dessert restaurants, fewer still that stay open late. In this sense, Kaspa's is definitely filling a gap in the market; the almost guaranteed wait for tables is testament to this. Families, teens looking for a place to hang out of an evening, and dates seem to populate Kaspa's.

The interior is pretty funny - the first descriptor that comes to mind upon entering, if I'm honest, is 'stripclub'. The hot pink and black colour scheme, glittery walls and thumping R'N'B music genuinely make me think of some sleazy nightclub.
Ultimately, though, I'm there for the desserts and don't let the tacky aesthetic faze me.

The eye-popping menu is a treasure-trove of treats; colossal ice-cream sundaes laced with rainbow bright syrups, milkshakes made with every candy-bar imaginable, hot cookie-doughs, and crepes and waffles loaded with toppings.
The counter is also home to various cakes, pies and cheesecakes.

The prices are reasonable for the sizes; a giant waffle or crepe with a couple of toppings will set you back £5.

Personally I'm not crazy about this place - their syrups are cheap tasting, the ice-cream served with the waffles is soft-serve out of a machine, the crepes can be rather rubbery, and I'm fairly sure they buy most of their cakes in (the luminous blue 'bubblegum cake' looks very suspect).

BUT, when my stomach's inner-child calls, and I have an oreo-topped-waffle shaped hole to fill, this place really hits the spot. More to the point, it is the only place around of its kind (as far as I am aware).

Their hot cookie-dough - available in Smarties, Milk or White Chocolate Chip and served with ice-cream - is my top recommendation. It's stodgy, sweet and the ultimate in comfort food.
My most recent visit  surprised me with a delicious pecan pie; I can definitely see myself returning for another slice of it.

Kaspa's isn't upmarket, it isn't high-quality, but nor does it pretend to be.
Actually, I think it does exactly what it sets out to do: providing inexpensive, generously-portioned sugar-feasts whenever kids (or big kids like myself) should desire them.

The Afternoon Tea Series: The Quarter Penny Cafe, Cowbridge

Despite living in Cowbridge for nearly all of my 21 years upon this planet, I was somehow unaware that I needn't travel far to get my scone fix, when I can find a great little Afternoon Tea here in Cowbridge!

So, needless to say that upon discovering that the ever-popular Quarter Penny Cafe serve Afternoon Tea, I recruited a sweet-toothed friend and headed straight down into town.

It's a great little place, buzzy atmosphere, cosy low ceilings and a first rate selection of cakes and desserts - their pavlova is legendary. 

Be sure to sit in the garden if there's a hint of sunshine, as it's a total suntrap.

The price of their Afternoon Tea is impressive. As opposed to the likes of the Hilton and Pettigrew who charge around £15 per head, The Quarter Penny charge £7.95, which is super good value.

This price includes a pot of tea or coffee, four kinds of sandwiches, a fruit scone each (with clotted cream and jam, duh!) and a slice of carrot cake.

Unlike Pettigrew, however, you are unable to choose your sandwich fillings or kind of scone. 

The sandwiches (tuna and cucumber, coronation chicken, smoked salmon and cream cheese, and egg mayonnaise) were all lovely and very generously filled! Further, there were two of each which made sharing easy. 

The scones, whilst perfectly nice, could have been better. Unlike some tearooms that bake their scones to order, ours had been baked that morning and were a little on the dry side. However the cream and Tiptree blackcurrant jam (my favourite jam!) made it enjoyable nonetheless. 

The staff kindly allowed me to swap my carrot cake for a generous slice of coffee and walnut, which was gorgeous!

Only other negative is the fact that I was served a rather cheap tea bag with no string. However for those who aren't fussed on having loose leaf or posh tea bags, there's no issue!

Though it's not the very best Afternoon Tea I've had, it is certainly a fabulous and plentiful treat for a bargain price. 

Definitely check the Quarter Penny Cafe out on your next visit to Cowbridge 

The Afternoon Tea Series: Pettigrew Tearooms, Cardiff

It must be said that one of my all-time favourite dining experiences is having Afternoon Tea; the sense of ritual, the refined presentation, the overwhelming British-ness of the whole thing has always appealed to me. Furthermore, I am an absolute cake fiend, so anything involving cake causes great excitement.

That being said, I'd quite like to write a series of posts about the various Afternoon Teas I find myself having too often!

First up is Pettigrew Tearooms! I feel this location needs little in the way of introduction - at least for any Cardiffian who knows their way around a pot of loose leaf. For the benefit of everyone else, suffice it to say that Pettigrew is somewhat of an institution.

In the grounds of Cardiff Castle and bordering Bute park, Pettigrew is a beautiful little Cafe in a stunning location.
The interior is of the the 'Grandma's front-room' aesthetic, in an authentic rather than kitsch way. In fact, my saucer was of the exact same Royal Doulton China that my own Grandmother uses! I can definitely see why this place is so popular with tourists; for its pure Britishness.

The Afternoon Tea is priced at £14.95 for one, or £26.95 for two sharing.
I'd say this is about average for an Afternoon Tea in Cardiff, and bearing in mind you will be so full that you won't want any dinner, it's great value.

Pettigrew will surely appeal to the tea fanatic among us. Fear no paltry bag of Twinings to accompany the food - instead their huge range of high-quality loose leaf teas take centre-stage, and put the TEA firmly back into Afternoon Tea.

The choice doesn't end there, you also select the sandwich fillings you would like - avoiding any nasty horseradish surprises in my case - and pick between a plain or fruity scone.

Oh, and did I mention they do an ENTIRELY GLUTEN FREE option!
I chose this, being as I try to eliminate gluten from my diet for health reasons, along with an Assam Tea (a strong black blend known for its slightly malty taste).

Our sandwiches (Ham and Mustard, Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese, and Egg Mayonnaise) were delicious. However watch out for the mustard, it's got a bloody kick to it!!
The only downside is that you get three of each sandwich filling, which according to my terrible maths is not divisible by two. Meaning, you either have to split the third of each, or decide which of you deserves more!

The scones were a generous size, and served warm with loovely clotted cream and strawberry jam. You'd never tell they were Gluten Free, either!

After you are finished with the sandwiches and scones, you pick a slice of cake from their mouthwatering display. Despite already feeling satisfied, I chose the GF Coconut and Raspberry.

Coconut is probably my favourite flavour, so needless to say I totally loved this cake, and even writing about it now is making me want to visit Pettigrew for another slice. Moist, rich, and generously filled; I couldn't have imagined a nicer cake.

I feel a special mention of the staff is certainly called for. Despite visiting on a busy Sunday without even booking, we were well looked-after by the staff. In particular, an American exchange student I can't remember the name of was a total delight. If the food wasn't enough alone, I'd say that the service makes Pettigrew a stand-out choice.


All in all, Pettigrew Tearoom offers a lovely, personalised Afternoon Tea experience that will leave you wanting more (albeit after the painful fullness subsides).

Head to http://www.pettigrew-tearooms.com/ for more details.