Afternoon Tea at the Alvear Palace

We have a tradition in my family that every year on my birthday we go and have traditional afternoon tea in a London hotel, as I adore tea . This year I spent most of my birthday on planes and waiting in airports, as we were flying out to Argentina to visit my sister who lives in Buenos Aries. This meant that tea in London was out of the question, and I don't know of one airport that has a tearoom. Airports need tearooms!! :) So I wasn't able to stuff myself with cakes and scones on my birthday, but the next day we all went to have a traditional English afternoon tea in an Argentinian hotel. :) It was a bizarre but fabulous experience. The hotel in question was the Alvear Palace Hotel. It was built in 1932 and is considered by many to be the grandest hotel (in a traditional/historic sense) in the city, so of course I had to go there :).

Part of the Reception Hall

The inner part of the Orangery where you can eat tea. We had ours in the main part.

Sitting at our table looking towards the inner part of the room.

A few tables in the Orangery

The window at the back of the Orangery

The Menu

I loved the china. :)

I was intrigued by the fact that they had all the forks laid face down.

The delicious food - it wasn't completely English, (which is understandable as we weren't in England!! :) lol ). There was a mini bagel and some other little buns which contained some unusual ingredients, but most of the food was fabulous. 

The cakes/puddings. They were more pudding-like then cakes but the hotel called them cakes. You could choose three from a whole trolley of them. :)

Strawberry cheesecake :)

A dulce de leche millefeuille. Dulce de Leche is an overly sweet, caramel/toffee type sauce which the Argentinians adore. They put it in everything from ice creams to biscuits and cakes, and they also have it on toast for breakfast. I love sweet things :) but I can't eat more then an alfajore's (an Argentinian sandwich-type biscuit the has dulce de leche as its filling, and it is usually covered with icing sugar or chocolate)  worth of the stuff, I then start to hate the taste as it is too sickly. The rest of my family adore it so they happily tucked into the millefeuille whilst I only had a mouthful.

Overall we had a fabulous time. Most of the food was delicious, the setting was lovely and the staff were wonderful - so friendly and polite. It was one of the best birthday teas I have ever had. :)