Betty's Bites: The Tea Room

The Tea Room
Level 3, North End, QVB, 455 George Street, Sydney
Tel 02 9283 7279
Fax 02 9283 7276
qvbinfo@thetearoom.com.au

We headed out to the QVB because I felt a little left out that Miss Betty was going to high tea with all her girl friends. It's located on it's own little area within the QVB on the Northern end of Level 3. We rocked up in our slightly casual wear, although I was wearing shorts and were greeted by some very well dressed people.

They took us to a table on the far end of the room with a little window beside our table. There wasn't much of a view outside, but we could see the street through a slightly dirty window. The menu had a fairly large selections of Tea. I decided to have the Dragonwell tea while Betty decided to have the English Breakfast Tea.

So, we ordered the afternoon tea and had a little chat while we were waiting. The sugar cubes were so cute. I ate a few while we were waiting. I'd reckon the raw sugar has a natural sugar cane flavour without that excess sweetness you'd get with the white sugar cubes.

After a little while, our food and tea came out on the most adorable plates decorated with a floral pattern and edged with gold. Betty had ordered the gluten free afternoon tea whereas I ordered the standard one. They were almost identical apart from the type of bread used on the sandwich plate.

Each afternoon tea set was arranged on a three tiered "cage" with sandwiches on the top, sweets in the middle and pastries on the bottom. We started the meal with the sandwiches and weren't disappointed.

We hadn't had white bread for what seems to be an eternity. So when we ate it, it was like opening your eyes after a long long sleep. One was an egg and mayonnaise sandwich, that one was pretty normal tasting since there really can't be anything special about eggs and mayonnaise. The other sandwich on the other hand was an awesome combination of cream, smoked salmon, chives and some other unnamed ingredients. The bread melted in my mouth and the flavours, oh the flavours danced on my tongue like a stripper on a pole.

The gluten free bread however was still ok even though it was gluten free. The bread was crumbly but not too dry compared to most gluten free products i've eaten. The fillings were pretty much the same as the white bread so I won't go into detail. When we finished our sandwiches, there was this little egg pastry on the side of the dish so we broke that in half and shared it. It was fan-fucking-tastic. The pastry was light and fluffy and when mixed with the egg mixture it tasted so so creamy and bad all at the same time.

Next up we tackled the sweets, there was some sort of meringue, a little cake with almond flakes and more meringue on top, a chocolate brownie, some kind of sweet almond cracker with a strawberry and balsamic vinegar.The meringues were quite nice they weren't as sweet as I expected them to be but sweet enough to satisfy me, although i'm not much of a sweet tooth. The brownies were so rich with a really sweet icing on top, it wasn't dry at all, it was nice and moist as I'd expected. The almond cracker on the other hand was a bit of a strange one. It was a mix of sweet, sour and savoury. The almonds were crunchy with the balsamic vinegar soaked through the cracker although it was still slightly crunchy. It was quite a nice mix of flavours and the strawberry was a nice touch.

The second plate had two of the same (meringues and brownies) and two different sweet pastries. There was a passionfruit drizzled melting moment. It was THE BEST melting moment I've had in my entire life. Have you ever had a melting moment that didn't melt? Well this was completely opposite. It melted in my mouth with the passionfruit pulp / syrup mixing in with the sugary, buttery and creamy biscuit. It was so good I didn't share any with Betty :)

Onto the best part of the food! The pastries were on the bottom, there were spinach and cheese pastries and some savoury cupcakes with cream on top. I jizzed in my pants (hehe saturday night live!!) when i ate the cheese and spinach pastries. They were so savoury with the right balance of cheese and spinach without being overly salty. I could live off these things, fight a war eating them alone ha ha! The savoury cupcakes paled in comparison. The cream on top added the extra flavour they lacked though.

Lastly we had the bottom plate which had Scones and another cheese and spinach pastry. This pastry was flat and had extra pastry almost looking like a little roll. It was nowhere near as good as the other two pastries we had on the other plate although still quite nice. The scones were to die for. They were definately the best scones i've had since year two in primary school, but then again my perception of food back when I was a hungry little garbage disposal unit might somehow bias my opinion hehe. We had cream and strawberry jam with the scones. They were nice and warm with a slightly moist centre.