One of my favourite, and yet equally, most frustration-inducing parts
of living in London, is without a doubt how essential the camera of my much
dropped, truly battered phone is to my daily life. And most of all, a
fundamental part of almost every meal time...
Much to my boyfriend's despair (he doesn’t even know how to
pronounce instagram, let alone use it...) said phone is whipped out before
anything passes my lips; breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, cake, midnight
snack- Whatever the food stuff, it must be greeted with a filter, blur and
hashtag before it vanishes into my hungry, not so patiently waiting mouth. It is just so damn
tempting. And, it is not just me. Irresistible to many a foodie
that is spied rearranging candles, artfully ruffling napkins and standing on
chairs to get the perfect aerial view of their rapidly cooling food before they
can even contemplate building that first forkful. In our world, a flat battery
before the food arrives is what disasters are made of.
Yup, this is an obsession that has the capacity to become a
serious problem; we halt conversation midway to snap our partners panacotta,
grabbing their menu to get the perfect table shot before they have even read
through the bread and olives section, all with a slighty crazed look in our eye and an evil glare just waiting for anyone who even dares to knock our elbow mid-photo. Yes, our obsession with instagramming our
plates is not only pushing the boundaries of acceptable dinner-time behaviour, but
a sure-fire way to wind up dining partners until you have to start asking for a
table for one. No wonder some restaurants across the Atlantic have started
banning this phone-foolery for ‘ruining the ambience’. But stop I will not, this is an addiction from which I don't want to be freed...
A couple of weeks ago, resisting all temptation to keep my phone in my handbag and see things with my eyes rather than the lens; I had one of the most photogenic days in a long time (since the speckled eggs and glistening hot cross buns of Easter, as you can read here). The phone was in more demand than ever; snapping bacon and
cheese smothered burgers and strawberry shortcake concretes at Shakeshack, stormy
skies and billboards in Covent Garden and a pop-art hued Miley swinging from a
wrecking ball on a wall in Hammersmith; it just seemed to be that every which way I
turned offered another photo opportunity.
But one of the most coveted photos of the day had to be the
red and white stripped cake stand that graced the shiny glass table-top in
the overwhelmingly cute, cartoon-kitch Biscuiteers shop and tea-room in Notting
Hill. Adorned with perfect, razor sharp triangles of smoked salmon sandwich with lemon and dill
cream cheese, the brightest raspberry and blueberry macarons and topped off with the amazingly
decorated, intricate biscuits for which this place is famous; I would challenge
anyone not to whip out their camera. Even if only for the fact that Adele
(yup, the actual one) was sat on the table next to us icing a gingerbread man.
But enough about that (and yes, I did resist the snap-happy temptation on this occasion...) what I am really interested in is, of
course the food. The super-cute tea has a decidedly British theme, with crisp, black
pepper specked cucumber sandwiches cosying up to perfect squares of Battenburg
and delicious, lemon scented angel cakes. Brownies crowned with iced
underground biscuits, a bright red phone-box gingerbread and those crisp, fruity macarons; all washed down with
as much English breakfast tea as you can handle, this was one sugar-rush I
could most definitely justify.
Usually going for £40 for two, the tea was included in the
Emerald Street Afternoon Tea deal; an absolute snip for half the standard
price. Perfect, and with enough to spare for a little black and white box
illustrated with the super-cute shop front full of leftover treats, it is well
worth a trip, even just to ogle at the iced bacon rashers and yellow yolked sunny-side
up eggs in the English breakfast biscuit selection, or to wait out for Adele...
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