I am a lover of Afternoon tea, and here we have the perfect occasion and setting to try theirs at The Fife Arms. Unfortunately, the timing was strange and slow- All the savoury came out first, (Which took forever) and then an hour later the sweets followed, it was verging on 7pm! “Is anybody coming? It has been a long time” my guest proclaimed. “I have literally no idea” I replied. As we sat there in deep conversation, we passed the time away, yet waiting, which seemed like an eternity for our food… This has never happened before with an afternoon tea, everything normally comes out at the same time, you certainly don’t need to chase for the scones. Nobody came to ask if we wanted a fresh tea within this time, so we just sat there with the tea getting cold with a non-existent service- The sequence and flow practically ruined the whole thing. Service was with a smile, (when there was somebody there to serve us) but we were left to our own devices, almost forgotten about.
It was getting closer to dinner, having waited hours for the tea to really start. (So much for our afternoon treats), so we requested to keep them for another time, a shame not to have tried them fresh. This was not what we had in mind when we organised this. I can’t tell you what the pastries tasted like because unfortunately the waiters killed the moment, and we did not have the opportunity to go back to them. What we did manage to eat was ok- The sandwiches typical in the style and fillings, with the crusts cut off and I enjoyed the pork and haggis sausage roll.
“Well, we tried” I sighed. I was annoyed as this was supposed to be an important rendezvous, and it didn’t go to plan as I would have liked. We could put it down to an off day or this is the pace and how it is generally. We will never know… And for another sitting, I am not willing to find out.
