Skys Diner, St Ives.

It was a foggy day and it's a very long and twisty drive on the coast road from Sennen to St Ives. The result was, that the Passenger was not in the mood for a cream tea when we stopped off in St Ives. Well not a cream tea to herself, but a quarter share of the drivers tea and a bottle of Elderflower Presse which had her revived enough for a later paddle.

Anyway we are getting ahead of ourselves. In the end we found a place to park the car, after witnessing the aftermath of possibly the worst car park crash ever. A wall and a transit van demolished by a Jeep.

The choice of eateries in St Ives is vast with many an offer of fish and chips, pizza and cornish pasties. Less shops were offering cream teas, and of those that did the look was not inviting. In the end we found Skys Diner

It had seats free it looked clean and it sold cream teas, in other words it ticked all the boxes. We wandered in found a seat near the window and looked at the menu.

Apart from the inconsistent use of capitol letters it looked good so tea was ordered.

As mentioned before the passenger was not in the mood for a cream tea but shared a scone with a bottle of fizz. The driver had english breakfast, which arrived in a mug!
Now for me mugs are for coffee and chocolate. Tea should be served in a cup and saucer, from a pot with a pot of hot water on the side. I also think that it is value for money as a tea bag is good fort more than a single mug full.

To compound the irritation with this tea the scones were dusted in sugar, were large and strangely shaped and the jam and clotted cream were too small for the scones.

The problem with misshaped scones is how to cut them. They are impossible to cut so so as to give an even depth of scone. They all end up wedge shaped with too much scone on one for the jam and cream. Here the last bite was almost all scone with little jam and cream. Also the scones were a bit dry and very sweet with the sugar coating on the top.

Overall the the cream tea was OK nothing great but perhaps they know their market.

Ambiance and Presentation:- 3 room was clean but not much atmosphere.
Jam and Cream:- 3 small portion in relation to the scone size.
Scones:- 2 dry and sweet
Tea:- 2 Mug and no pot
Service:- 3 Staff friendly

Overall:- 13/25

Lanhydrock House cream room.

The Driver and the Passenger visited Lanhydrock house on the way back from their honeymoon many years ago.  Lanhydrock house near Bodmin in Cornwall has one of the most impressive sets of kitchens of any National Trust house we have visited. The Kitchens had been remodelled in the late Victorian era, after the house had been almost completely burnt to the ground.

It has kitchens for almost all the different needs of the house. A bread bakery, a meat preparation room, game larder a dairy and something I had never seen before, a clotted cream room.

It was laid out with broad shallow bowls sitting over a heat source, with the cream scoops and cream jugs beside.

It was a nice little insight into the backstage areas of a grand victorian country house.

Lamorna Pottery and the perfect scones.

Near where we were staying in Cornwall was the Lamorna Pottery, which has a tea shop attached. Both the Driver and the Passenger have visited here in the past. Previous visits had been prior to meeting each other and then later, together and then later still with children. So it is true we have a long history with this tea shop.

On arrival it was clear that little had changed since the last visit nearly twenty years ago.

Inside the tea room is small bright and clean with tables in the garden. The pottery is no longer a production pottery but they sell lots of different gifts.

Our memories of the teas here were of wonderful teas with generous portions. The menu confirmed that they still did cream teas.

Not cheap but we hoped they would be as good as they were. We ordered 2 cream teas, with Earl Grey for the Passenger and Ceylon for the Driver.

When they arrived we were not disappointed. The only problem was that the teapots had two bags in each and as the passenger likes her tea on the weak side of weak, it was a bit of rush to remove the bags before the tea got too strong.  Hot water was given without asking.

The portions were as we remembered. The portion of cream was gigantic and the jam was of a similar size. The jam was strawberry and there was no choice but the quality was fantastic. It tasted of strawberries and there were large chucks of fruit in the jam.

The scones were warm. When opened they had a wonderful texture. We assembled our teas and tucked in.

The first bite was accompanied by groans of pleasure. The scones were absolutely wonderful, light and they just melted in the mouth. We both agreed that the scones were the best we had tasted in years. It would be fair to say that it would be hard to think of anything that could have improved on these scones.

We scored the tea:-

Ambiance and Presentation:- 4 A clean room with a nice atmosphere.
Jam and Cream:- 5 Quality and portion size
Scones:- 5 To dream about.
Tea:- 4 reasonable choice and hot water given without asking.
Service:- 4 Friendly counter Staff.

Overall:- 22/25