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

Cream tea on a bucket list.

Bucket lists are everywhere these days. I have made several over the years and I am a sucker for a book telling what I must see, do or experience before I quit this mortal coil.

Today it was the turn of 'Waitrose Weekend' the free newspaper published each week by Waitrose. Who had a list that was advertised as 'The Foodie Bucket List!'

Well number '15' was their attempt at a cream tea.

All I can say is how disappointing the attempt was. 

'Smother Cornish clotted cream on a fruit scone - there's no finer taste.'

Even as a lover of clotted cream I would be hard pushed to claim that a scone and cream was the pinnacle of fine taste.

Where is the jam!

Please Waitrose you are talking about a CREAM TEA! 

It's scone, cream and JAM!

Oh well back to planning that trip around the world to see that 1001 places I am missing out on.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to this new blog dedicated to that great English tradition of the Cream Tea.

Be it Kentish, Devon, Cornish, Old English or Olde English, whatever county or other adjective the provider choses to use. The Cream Tea is one of the great traditions of food in England.

This blog will be a chronicle of the cream teas that we sample in our travels around the country.