Afternoon champagne – errm, tea – at the Amstel Hotel
Anyone who’s known me over the past 15 years has probably had to endure one of my anti-marriage speeches. I won’t go into the details but, while I’m absolutely sure of my views, my principles do have their downsides. One of which is that I’ll never have a hen do. Still, being female and imaginative, it’s not like I haven’t planned the whole hypothetical weekend in my head anyway… And it would probably involve afternoon tea.
For my 30th birthday, however, my wonderful friend Nicola had the genius idea of treating me to afternoon tea at the Amstel Hotel. And ‘lo, yet another reason why marriage is entirely unnecessary! Only Nicola doesn’t really like tea, and we all know I’m partial to a little afternoon tipple, so we ordered a bottle of champagne to go with it.
Curiously, some chocolates were also on the table when we arrived, although the meal proper began with some savoury bread concoctions. But chocolate’s chocolate, so we gobbled those up before making a start on the ossenworst and mackerel rolls, and the various sandwiches filled with egg, smoked salmon, ham and cucumber. They were quaintly presented within a hollowed-out cottage loaf, but nonetheless the infamous Dutch broodje is still a little lacking in the creativity department. The Dutch-ness continued with some curried beef sausage rolls (?!) and beef croquettes, which were like elongated bitterballen. I preferred the rather more French salmon tartlets to be honest – I’m not so sure that Dutch bar snacks should form part of the tea table.
On the sweet side, we had scones with butter cream, pistachio financiers, something like a cross between a caramel doughnut and a Danish pastry, and little gooey butterscotch-topped chocolate sponge thingies. We also had two delicious tartlets filled with frangipane and topped with raspberry and passionfruit mousses respectively. Yum.
The teas (which I did manage to fit in between glasses of champagne) were extremely high in quality, although all but the jasmine were probably lost on me, not being much of a tea connoisseur. I fear they were also rather higher in caffeine than I thought possible – I developed heart palpitations after the fourth cup!
Since it was a present, I have no idea what our afternoon tea cost, so I’m relying on Nicola to help me judge our meal in terms of its value for money. As the warm summer rain pelted into the Amstel outside our riverside window, we felt ludicrously sophisticated and decadent. For the experience alone, it was worth the pretty penny I have no doubt she paid. But when it comes to tea, scones, clotted cream and cucumber sandwiches, no one can beat the Brits…
