I was in Greenwich yesterday with a couple of friends. One of them was from out of town, but she had been doing her homework and had spotted a write up in the Times (I think) for a cafe in the area which did a good afternnon tea. So off we went to Greenwich....toiled round the shops and the market....spent shed loads of money (it was hellish! ;o) )
About 2pm my friend dragged this bit of paper out of her bag and proceeded to point us in the direction of refreshment. Well, what a hidden gem it was when we eventually found it!
Royal Teas is a tiny little cafe off the beaten track. Quite unprepossessing from the outside. There's couple of plastic tables with chairs outside, and inside the furniture is a hotch potch of thing that have seen better days. The menu is small, but everything sounded delicious. It says they make everything on the premises, and I believe it. The prices are reasonable, and the tea was real leaf tea, in a pot, with a strainer....and china cups and saucers!!
We all settled for the afternoon tea, which was a smoked salmon, cucumber and cream cheese sandwich, a warm scone with jam and clotted cream, a piece of cake and tea. the waiter was lovely and very patient while we made adjustments to what was wanted....the vegetarian said could she just have the cucumber and cream cheese in her sandwich.....said that was fine would she like avocado instead. The coffee drinker said coffee instead tea, and she doesn't "do" cream, so she just wanted the cake and not the scone! Personally I was going the whole hog!! (He liked me for b eing "normal"....we all laughed at that....he doesn;t know me!!)
After the scones, myother friend and I decided we probably couldn't manage a piece of cake as well , after seeing the size of the slices going past, so we had a piece between us, and again the waiter couldn't have been more helpful. We had refills of tea and coffee, and the bill was adjusted accordingly for what we hadn't had, and it all came to the princely sum of £5.50 each!! We were very impressed! We all said it was the best afternoon tea we could remember having. The other customers seemed to be local people, we even spotted a couple of actors, but middle aged, no brain cells women that we are we couldn't remember either of their name!! But we decided that this was indeed a very good find, and definitely on the itinerary for future visits to Greenwich....especially if you go there first and have breakfast before hitting the shopsor the sights!
