Afternoon Tea at the Balmoral, Edinburgh

For the Other Half's birthday (which was in October) one of her presents was Afternoon Tea at the Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh and because I'm nice I splashed out on the Champagne Afternoon Tea.
Afternoon tea at the Balmoral is served in the hotel's Bollinger bar, a rather nice champagne bar (as the name suggests) with its own harpist who plays from an overhead balcony.

We were warmly greeted upon arrival and our coats were taken to be hung up, we were given the menus to look through containing a quite extensive tea menu of which I opted for a Silver Needle white tea, a very delicately flavoured and fragrant tea. First to arrive on the table was little circles of shortbread followed by a quite impressive tower of sandwiches, scones and patisserie.

Sandwiches
Fresh Salmon and cucumber
Honey roast ham
Egg mayonnaise and pepper
Tomato, basil and brie
Beef and red onion marmalade

Scones
Fruit, Heather honey and cinnamon scones served with jam and clotted cream

Patisserie
Blueberry cheesecake
Mini Bakewell tart
Sponge cake
Tiffin



All the food was superb and there was plenty of it as well with both of us very full and sleepy afterwards, my personal favourite was the Tiffin and the heather honey scones which I plan to make at some point. Service as you would expect was excellent, the Other Half couldn't manage to eat all her scones and requested to take them home, this request was willingly met and the takeaway box was topped up with more shortbread, a lovely touch.

Excellent food and service, a lovely extravagant way to spend an afternoon.