Afternoon Tea Diaries: The Tea Rooms at NGV

It's time for another entry in my irregular feature of the Afternoon Tea Diaries. We love a high tea. We don't do them all the time because they are a treat but whenever we do do a high tea I share them here. 

Whenever the National Gallery of Victoria (also known as the NGV) has a major exhibition then we will be there, and there is every chance that we will also visit the Tea Rooms for scones. Over the years we have seen some great exhibitions and had some fabulous scones! The last big exhibition we saw we went to the Friday night session for the Yayoi Kusama exhibition (so fabulous) where there was live music, bars, sitting outside in the warm evening air. It was very enjoyable, but we decided at that time that for the next exhibition we would do the afternoon tea.

It feels like the Tea Rooms are getting more and more well known. Years ago you could just turn up and find a table but these days you really do have to book in advance otherwise they will be booked out.

The current exhibition is the French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston exhibition which we visited a couple of weeks ago. I posted about the exhibition as part of Paris in July which you can read here, but today I thought I would post about the afternoon tea which we had after making our way through the exhibition.

We chose to have the Sparkling Afternoon Tea which included a glass of champagne and then a pot of tea.

The menu includes a selection of fresh sandwiches, some savoury bites, patisserie and then scones with jam and cream! That's a relatively standard menu so it comes down to how well it was done, and the answer is very well!

The sandwiches included

Chicken, tarragon mayonnaise

Free range egg, watercress, mayonnaise

Virginia Ham, Dijon mustard

Cucumber, cream cheese, dill (v)

I do love an egg mayonnaise sandwich but I never actually make them myself. I really should. 

The other sandwiches were also delicious, with options although I wouldn't rush out to have the cucumber sandwiches again. The sandwiches were so good that when I went to the NGV again a few days ago for a tour of the normal collection my friend and I shared a plate of sandwiches. Luckily she had the cucumber one!

The savoury bites were all fantastic. If I had to pick a favourite it would be the pot pie although the vol-au-vent was also something I haven't had for a while.

Chicken & leek pot pie

Pumpkin, leek & feta quiche

Prawn & Marie Rose vol-au-vent

The best course is always the patisserie which consisted of 

White chocolate & coconut cheesecake, blueberry jam 

Lemon basil mousse, almond sable 

Eclair, vanilla crème pâtissière 

Strawberry yoghurt macaron 

I didn't love the Lemon basil mousse but everything else was really lovely.

And then finishing off with tea and a freshly baked scone with jam, cream. The scones at the NGV never disappoint and this was no exception!

Years ago there was a special afternoon tea where part of it was a large iced biscuit that you could use edible paint and glue to be able to stick various treats on so that you could create your own masterpiece before you ate it. I think I was expecting something a little more artistic with this one too, but it wasn't. It was still delicious, just not as unusual as that earlier one was.  Despite that, I can see us doing another afternoon tea when we visit the next big exhibition. I am hopeful that the offerings change with each new exhibition but I guess we will find out.

We have our next high tea booked in for later in August. We are going with friends and we are really looking forward to it.

Weekly meals

Saturday - Chinese Chicken and Mushroom 
Sunday - Fried chicken, mash, broccoli and gravy
Monday - Creamy coconut prawns and rice
Tuesday - Steak, egg, chips, broccoli
Wednesday - Takeaway
Thursday - Prawn curry with roti
Friday - Takeaway

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