~ Curious Charlie ~

A Baker's High Tea @ The Providence Cafe @ Monday, May 11, 2015

Saturday 25th April

On Saturday afternoon we went for high tea, which I realize that all teas are called high teas, with the exception of staff morning teas which don't have fancy slices and cakes, and regular afternoon tea with scones and lemonade. While the high tea trend is on its tail end there are still plenty of places offering it, like the new Providence Cafe that opened late last year. They offer a monthly high tea with different themes, in a collaboration with local-ish bakers and creators. April was the Baker's Tea, featuring all baked sweets, though there were savories too.

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On arrival we had Honeycomb Milkshakes which was delicious! I only wished it was bigger :P It tastes like Big M Honeycomb but slightly different, it also didn't make me sick like Big M.

Tea and Scones are always an essential. Jas let me pick the tea, even though he's a tea person and I'm not. We went with the 'Jasmine Pearls' which I thought would have had those boba, popping pearls in it. It did not.

Scones - Providence

The scones were good but nothing amazing, served with butter and jam. It's either butter or cream. The butter was straight from the fridge and impossible to spread, and this time we didn't have a candle to warm the knife up with.

Each plate was served at a different time, rather than everything being served on the three tier tower at the same time. Hence we didn't get a picture of the complete three tiers. This was so because some of the dishes were served warm, unlike usual where everything except scones are served cold.

Mini Sheppard’s Pie & Bruschetta

After the scones the savories arrived, everything was very good. We started with the open extra thick light rye finger sandwich. Bread, brie with edge and salmon, topped with avocado and a plant. I've never paired salmon and brie, it's always bird of some sort and brie. But this was nice, the Salmon & Brie. (Pictured below).

I loved the Mini Sheppard’s Pie, I haven't had pie in so long. In puff pastery rather than your typical pie base, it was the perfect size and something I love in winter.

The 'Corned Beef and Potato Pan de Sal Bruschetta' looked different from how I thought it would, as it's normally on thing toast, rather than half a bun. I expected this to be meh, but it was very good!

A standout was the Tartlet Parmigiana, that's the one that looks like a meatball in a tart. It's a chicken meatball covered in cheese and deep fried in a crumb. Under it was sweet potato mash, and it was delicious!

I'd buy them all except the Deconstructed Beef Wellington (that's the one on the cracker), there wasn't anything wrong with that one, it just wasn't in the same legue as the others I felt.

The five savories were very filling! So much that my dessert stomach has vanished. And so I had to get desserts take-away. Jas finished 2/3 of them, as a matter of pride XD.

I bought the desserts home and my beau, claimed the chocolate crackle, which he said he sometimes had in his lunchbox as a child, and hasn't had since. Tastes just as good as he remembers. I'd love these in a mini size, sprinkled with rainbow sprinkles.

Honey cookie with sage butter cream - Jas didn't like this one, as a cook he uses sage with lamb and so there's that savory association. I liked it though, we ate it the next day, at room temperture and it was still yummy. The cookie wasn't soft or anything strange after spending the night in the fridge. I'd buy it.

Salted Caramel Apple Pie - Bakewell And Co

I love pie, and the way the apple was cut up in this one was perfect. Thinly sliced, just the way I like it. Meanwhile le beau loves it chuncky but in perfect uniform cubes. The apple pie was very good, but I didn't taste the salted caramel, and we ended up serving it with ice cream and Carmelizious's Salted Caramel Spread.

Even though there was only three desserts, compared to other high teas that have more, it was very good quality sweets. And rather large in size, and so three was perfect. I do like that the pie was a slice rather than a tart. It was something different.

I've been to a few high teas, from medium hotels next to the apartment, to the Hilton which was average, food court average (worst hotel food ever), the Windsor Buffet and independent ones. And this one at the Providence Cafe is the best one I've been to, in terms of price, value and taste.

The Providence Cafe does a monthly high tea for $40 (ok it's $38, but I'm in marketing and always round up). Most high teas that are decent are $50 or more in the case of the Windsor/Langham (both $75). So this one is actually good and reasonably priced.

Have you been to tea recently? What's your favourite treats?