Afternoon tea at the Mad Hatters, London

During my first part of the Summer vacation, where I spend some days in London, before participating in jam making course at WI, I managed to visit various museums, went on gin distillery tour and fill up my suitcase with various shopping,

When I am in London I always book afternoon tea at different places, and this time I booked aftenoon tea at Mad Hatters. The weather was lovely, so the afternoon tea could be enjoyed in the hotel court yard, which was full of flamingos as a way of celebrating the 50 years "birthday" of Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé.

The afternoon tea menu consist of:

Savoury part:

• Smoked salmon Scotch quails egg with caviar and cream cheese
• Stack of King of Hearts ham and parmesan croque-monsieur
• Cornish crab brioche roll with spiced avocado and coriander
• White Rabbit cucumber and cream cheese sandwich on pesto bread

Sweet part:

• Queen of Hearts rose and strawberry Jammy Dodger
• Mocha chessboard gateau
• Tweedle Dee lemon curd financier
• Mad March Hare vanilla pocket watch macaroon
• Chocolate and pistachio Blue Caterpillar
• Wonderland marshmallow magic mushrooms
• Mad Hatters lost carrot and fennel meringue
• Alice’s exotic fruits “ Drink Me” potion
• Sanderson’s warm scones served with Cornish clotted cream and fruit preserve 

The afternoon teat costed 75 £ including a glass of champagne and you could get re-fills of the tea. It was not exceptional, and in my opinion the afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason was a better experience. The service of the waiters is good, but for me the taste and texture was average without any wauw effect. The names in the menu raise the expectation, which the actual food cannot fulfill, so I will give this afternoon tea experience a total of 3 stars.

Little green vase from Decorate

It has been some time since I last shared a post about a new addition of a green ceramic vase with you :-) so it is time today !!!

This time is another smaller ceramic in my favourite colour of green (big surprise !!!!), I have found this vase in decorate, which is one of my favourite shops in Vejle. This vase cost 118 DKK (15.50 €), and it was already found it place in my green vase collection.

Visit at Beefeater, London

In connection with my first part of the Summer vacation, which I spend some days in London, before participating in jam making course at WI. Here I besides from visiting museums, drinking afternoon tea and filling up my suitcase with various shopping, I also found that it was also possible to visit the Beefeater Distillery. So I took my walking shoes on and went by feet to the distillery for a tour. The tour starts on the gin shop with different types of bottles of Beefeater Gin and various merchandise.

The people in shop are very informative about the difference between the different gins. This shop is also the only place, where you can buy the gin called London Garden (guess what a bottle of this gin found it´s way into my suitcase).

The tour starts with tour of the gin museum, which explain both the bad and good part of the gin history. One part is this gin cat, where you would put a coin in the cat´s mouth and when gin would be poured out of the tap at the cats leg, which way you could break the restrictions on gin sale !!!

After the museum part a guide will explain how gin is created and what types of botanicals is used for gin. Juniper is one botanical, but in the plain Beefeater Gin 10 different botanicals is added.

Afterwards the guide will take you to heart of the distillery, where you can the different pot for distillation from quiet small to large pots. The small pots are for the smaller gin types such as Burrough´s Reserve and London Garden.

The final destination is off cause the bar, where you will be served a classic gin tonic with a slice of orange. According to the tour guide the master distiller Desmond Payne had approved the use of either lemon or orange for the classic gin tonic. But the bar was not allowed to use a slice of lime in the gin tonic. The master distiller was not around, so I could tell him, that I am a big fan of gin tonic with lime.

The next time I am in London I will book a visit to another gin distillery.

Food shopping in Alsace

Good that my car has been upgraded from Peugeot 206 to 208, so more wine bottles could be transported back to Denmark after my Summer vacation in Alsace. I went more or less directly from the first part of my Summer vacation directly to Alsace. Well, I did empty my suitcase after my shopping spree in England, so I could bring back "goodies" from Alsace.

Last year my mother and I were bringing back approx 40 bottles of Alsace wine in the small lion car, however this year I managed to get 55 bottles of wine, cooling box full of French cheese, two cushions and a flower in a hanging basket squeezed into the lion car incl. our luggage. My mother stated, that the flower would not be able to make the trip from France to Denmark due to the higher temperature, but she did not consider, that the new lion has climate control, so now she is envious about my big Summer flower !!!

Again I did some refilling of great tasting tea in form of three teas from

Tea and gin shopping in England

 

In mid June I had my first part of the Summer vacation, which I spend partly in England and partly in Alsace. My trip to England was a combination of some days in London, where I among other things enjoyed both a visit to a gindistillery, an afternoon tea and visits to various museums. The other part of my trip to England was another course at Denman on jam making.

However, I still had time for some shopping such as buying different tea and some new cooking books. This time the tea I brought was refills for my empty tea tins from previous previous tea shopping in London in form of Rose Pouchong from Fortnum & Mason and English Rose and Earl Grey from Whittard. AT Whittard I also found two instant tea in form of Turkish Apple and Cranberry & Raspberry, which taste great cold after brewing.

New bottles of gin also found their way to my suitcase. This also includes a hibiscus salt, which can be used for adding some red/pink colour strips into clear drinks such as gin tonics ! So my good friends in Horsens please consider yourselves warned about strange looking tin tonics, the next time you visit me in Vejle. 

The selection of gin in Billund Airport is actually quiet broad and divers compared to the gins available in Copenhagen Airport.Very often I find some new interesting gins, when I travel from Billund Airport. This time it was a rhunbarb & ginger gin from Whitley Neill, which taste great on it's own. The secon gin was the gin London Garden by Beefeater, which only can be brought at the the Beefeater Distillery in London. 

Celebrating 50 years birthday with lady lunch

Besides from celebrating my 50 years birthday with an open house for neighboors and local friends from the area I also invited my good friends from birthday lunch a few days later on.

As part of the table decoration I used some of my ceramic vases from my green ceramic vase collection.

As supplement for the dessert, which was a part of the buffet lunch menu I had as well ordered a day in two layer from Vanilla (the best cake shop in Vejle), with the taste of raspberry and white chocolate. 

As well for my birthday I got some great birthday gifts in form of gin, sparkling wine, ceramic glazing tops and 4 tea cups from Royal Copenhagen. So now I can serve afternoon tea in real China tea cups :-)

It was was another great day in the company of some great friends :-)

Celebrating 50 years birthday with open house

Mid May I celebrated my 50 years birthday, and it was a fantastic day. The day started at work, where I arrived to my work desk, which was covered with flags, birthday cards and birthday gifts from various of my good work colleagues.

After work I went home for some birthday celebration, where I have invited my neighboroughs and friends living in the Vejle area for open house.

The "menu" for the open house was birthday cake and macaroons from Vanilla (the best cake shop in Vejle). The macaroons was a birthday gift from my mother :-) The birthday cake was a eclair cake as bottom layer, which when was decorated with candy and marzipan. Plenty of my guests were saying, that this birthday cake was one of the best birthday cakes, which they had ever tasted :-)

Despite the invitation for the open house stated, that people should only bring them selves and good mood, at the end of my birthday I ended up with this table full of birthday gifts and some great birthday card greeting :-)

So all in all I had a fantastic birthday full of celebration in the company of work colleagues, some great friends and good neighboor.