That time of year…

It was that time of the year again when my ex-student, Julia, would be home from the UK for a few days…and like what we did last year, we arranged to meet one afternoon for tea. When it comes to afternoon tea, there are not many choices here in Sibu and we did not want to go back to the same place again and Julia decided to give this one a try since she had not been here before.

She thought the blueberry cheesecake (RM8.90)…

…was good but she would have liked the green tea taste/fragrance to be stronger in the frappe (RM9.90)…

…that she had. I had the long black (RM5.00) which was all right by me and I asked for a slice of their turkey ham quiche (RM7.50)…

It certainly looked like they took the trouble to put in some effort and make it more presentable when they served it – I had expected it to come in a saucer or a small plate…

…and as far as the taste was concerned, I thought the chicken mushroom one that we had sometime ago when it was a franchise place was much nicer…but this one was o.k. too.

I must say that I loved the place though – it was not crowded and noisy and we could sit as long as we liked, chatting away and catching up with what each of us had been up to since a year ago. This certainly is a good choice for doing that. I particularly enjoyed talking about Plymouth where Julia is based at the moment and things way back in 1994 and are still around now, twenty years later in 2014, though I am very sure the city has changed a great deal and is no longer like what I knew it to be way back then. She stays around the Barbican/Plymouth Hoe or the harbour area and she knows the Church of Christ the King that I used to go to there

During my time, there were only two supermarkets…or at least, I only knew of two – Asda…and Tesco in the city centre. They have more now including Sainsbury’s which has come out with a very nice Christmas commercial for 2014…

With the theme – Christmas is for sharing, it commemorates 100 years since WW1 in 1914 and all profits (50p per bar) from the chocolate bar, available now at Sainsbury’s, will go to The Royal British Legion and will benefit the armed forces and their families, past and present. Personally, I feel it is like some epic war movie with a very meaningful message but I did not think it moved me as much as the John Lewis’ one did, plus it did not have a song…which I, being musically-inclined, would consider essential if it were to touch more hearts. In Shakespeare’s words, “If music be the food of love, play on!”

Anyway, going back to the place where Julia and I met for tea, I noticed that they had come out with some Christmas goodies for sale including these chocolate chip cookies…

…and these gingerbread men…

Oops!!! Some had cracked, it seemed – they could have taken out those to let people try the bits as samples. At those prices, I  would expect them to be really very good and I certainly would not buy without having tried and confirming that it is really that good and worth forking out all that money for.

Anyhow, I already had these to enjoy…

…all from Marks & Spencer. Thank you so much, Julia – I love their All Butter Viennese ones in the orange packs, my favourite, but I had never seen, much less tried, these blue ones before. Well, I had sampled a few pieces and I would say they were very very nice though I would very much prefer them without the chocolate coating on one side. My girl was so thrilled to see the all butter mintoes – she loves those a lot and of course, I let her take some back to her school after the weekend home. At the time of writing, the box of Belgian triple chocolate cookies has yet to be opened. Slowly does it! LOL!!!

It sure was nice seeing you again, Julia – too bad I had something on over the weekend when Judy would be back or I would have loved to get together one more time before you left town. That will have to wait till next year then…