A recurring theme in my jaunts is a decent afternoon tea. As a super easy option to give as a gift, a voucher for a tea is one of my favourite things to buy people. Case in point, my mum gets a voucher for afternoon tea on her birthday, Mother's Day and at Christmas. She isn't complaining. This month we visited the Apex Hotel on Glasgow's Bath Street with an Itison Voucher.
When booking my mum had advised that although she tries to eat a vegan diet, she would be happy to have a vegetarian option if that was suitable. We were assured that we'd be catered to with no problems. On the Sunday afternoon we arrived and were met with a very puzzled waitress. Apparently we were the only booking for the day and she had received a call that morning to cancel our table. As nobody knew all of the details this was very odd, the voucher was a gift from my brothers and me and as boys are, they had no idea where we were even going.
We didn't let this put us off and instead got stuck into the unlimited tea and coffee before the slick-looking three tier stand was delivered to our table.
Something I find really unusual at an afternoon tea is the sheer volume of tea and coffee you're able to consume without even noticing! There was a selection of teeny sandwiches and little rolls to start us off, with a mini quiche each and a haggis bon bon for me while the veggie option was a mini spring roll.
After this we moved on to the creme de la crème - the mighty scone. I could write a whole blog on scones, they're my absolute favourite. My most recent scone highlight was a white chocolate and raspberry from the Jenner's cafe at Lomond Shores. I digress.
My mum doesn't touch cream, so I always take advantage of this and totally thicken it onto my scone, but the million dollar question is do you put jam first or cream first. There really only is one answer, and though people are entitled to their own opinion, if you think cream first then unfortunately you're just wrong. I have similar thoughts on four-finger Kitkats.
Our fruit scones were lovely, I always prefer a plain scone but I'm not known for turning down cakes. Lastly we tackled the middle tier which offered a range of cakes cut into little chunks, to offer a selection without it being too much.
There was a cream tart with strawberry, a coconut cake, a chocolate-dipped meringue, possibly the most decadent chocolate brownie and a hunk of lemon drizzle cake. A palette cleanser, if you will. Along with our unlimited hot drinks we treated ourselves to a pink gin to get us in the mood for our plans for a couple of cocktails after our planned shopping.
I wanted to include a photo of my wee mam as we were out celebrating her birthday and she fought off a group of kids to get her photo taken with Oor Wullie. She's some woman!
Can I hear you say Sunday Funday..?