Sunday, March 25, 2012

High Tea or is it now really a case of pastries and spaghetti and porkies?



I was recently invited to High Tea for a family celebration, where my cousin who is currently in Switzerland was in town with her twin daughters and we had an early first birthday for them, as the real one was to be April 2nd being one with Hans Christian Anderson of fairy tale fame. So the cake shown here was an exquisite tea pot. Don’t they make fabulous cakes in Sri Lanka? I have never seen more amazing creations anywhere else.

High Tea at the Galle Face of all places must include the traditional British finger sandwiches as well as scons, jams and clotted cream but it could not be further. It was of course a full meal if anyone cared to eat that much at 4pm, but I was most disappointed with the tea as it was make yourself a teabag job. That for high tea is just a no no. I have had this at the Ritz and the Dorchester and the tea proper was part of the big deal.

They should just serve a real pot of tea and give three flavors. Using spring water, proper service, and tea leaves. I guess it is all too much for the Galle Face, faced with a severe shortage of experienced servers, who really understand service, so they have to rely on yet another buffet style help yourself operation. It seems to be their way of maximizing the bottom line and minimizing the experience!

The high light of course was the family gathering, the fellowship and meeting some after a long while. One photo above shows my friend and the hostesses friend, Morgan from France with one of the twins, whilst their mother is carrying Edgar, Morgan’s third son whose birthday happened to fall on the day of the event, so he also had a jolly first birthday with many strangers for company!!


The other photos comprise a gaggle of nieces including the twins, the rest are now all sorry the twins have left our shores. Their Dad is from Japan, where they will return in about a year once he finishes his studies in Switzerland.


I used to take photos in days gone by, and now it is all on digital format. We rarely see real photos anymore, and that is only when we take the trouble to get some prints of the favorite digital photos. I presume people will have fewer photo albums excluding the electronic ones, and fewer photos adorning their homes. I have in the meantime decided to dispose of most of my photos to the people who are on the photos, as they are most likely to appreciate them more, and I will be relieved to part with shoe boxes of photos, I have not even looked at in a long while. In a way we now have blogs to share some of our photos with strangers and I am therefore sharing a little of my world with you.







4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I recently had High Tea at Galle Face Hotel and it was fabulous! There were finger sandwiches, scones, pots of jam and golden syrup and toast. They were sort of hidden among the more popular items preferred by Sri Lankans I guess. There weren't any cucumber sandwiches and yes, I was sad about that too :(

We got tea poured into our cups from a teapot by the server. Not hot water and tea bags. I like regular black tea so didn't feel the need for other flavors.

If you think Galle Face Hotel's High Tea was not up to your expectations then do not go to Cinnamon Grand's High Tea. Serious lack of proper fare for it to be even called a High Tea.

ShJo said...

interesting review... m soon gonna try this place wen i have d time! wat time does it start nd end?

Unknown said...

hey rala, I was seaching for high tea and found your blog. Whats brewing? have you clobbered Rauff yet?

Nitin said...

Not bad for the price (arnd 10 dollars)