I started writing this review as a three star, but as I worked my way through it, I don't think it…read morewas "hey yay a'ok!", I was miffed about quite a lot of the visit.
This place is little and cute, it's not in any way a huge garden centre, almost just a little courtyard with a few varied plants and a surprisingly large array of the sorts of garden ornaments that I just don't understand but I know so many people buy.
On hearing that this had become number one on trip advisor, we decided to check this place out.
The tea rooms have a cute setting, in, I guess a sort of converted glasshouse/barn with the counter up to the left when you walk in. You can get soups, pies, roasts, some bits are pricey, but others reasonable. There's also a couple of reasonable looking gluten free options.
Our order to the (kind of grumpy) lady at the counter amounted to a cappuccino, lemon cake, chocolate cake and, being the fiend for them I am, a "special" milkshake. Totting up to around £15. You can also get afternoon tea at £12.99 or £16.99 per person.
We took our order to a table on a tray, and waited about five minutes for the milkshake, which kind of made me expect the thick, creamy goodness I always crave.
I understand part is personal preference, (If you check out the management responses on trip advisor to negative reviews, prepare to feel very uncomfortable! I know we don't like criticism, but surely it's not the best thing to passive aggressively tell customers that they're wrong?), but you kind of expect "a milkshake made with ice cream" to be made with ice cream, not just have a scoop of ice cream in flavoured milk. It was quite false-banana tasting (yes, I know, management, personal preference), there was a good splurge of squirt cream (UHT, not fresh) on top which was good, but the sweets that were on top seemed a really odd choice- a blue lace, an inch cut of a rainbow lace, some silver dragees, star sprinkles and a a couple of chewy bottles and a couple of mini marshmallows, yes, personal preference blah blah, but they were definitely a bit on the "I wonder if people order these very often because these marshmallows and laces are solid!" side. That being said, my companion thought her coffee was fine enough.
To the cake! You pay £3.99 a slice, which simultaneously seems expensive and not, I know it isn't really, I don't know, I'm confused... The portions, are decent, they are good, deep cakes and they do hand out a reasonable slab- but, I feel like the reviews must be people being excited about portions, the lemon cake was a lovely flavour, but a little dry, and the chocolate cake was more dry, and tasted overly powdery-cocoa-y. Everything kind of had the homemade to look like factory feel- I think it was quantity over quality. The place has potential, it's a lovely setting, and probably not a bad place to take your Nanna, but I don't think I would personally go again. I really don't understand how this can be number one on trip advisor, even though thinking that makes me feel like a bit of a k**b.