An afternoon tea at The Portland in Ashington through Buyagift.

Just before Christmas I wrote a blog post about the fab experience days that Buyagift have to offer. In exchange for that blog post I was gifted an Afternoon Tea - Smartbox.

This afternoon tea treat is the perfect way to celebrate traditional British culture whilst spending some quality time with a loved one. With many wonderful UK locations available you’ll be spoilt for choice. 

When I chose I was glad to see there was somewhere locally which accepted the vouchers. 

The Portland Hotel here in Ashignton, Northumberland offers a winning afternoon tea. The classic tea includes various tea and coffee options and to eat, a range of fresh sandwiches, scones and jam as well as some delicious cakes to finish.

I didn't have a great start to booking our afternoon tea. I tried to contact them via their website, email an Facebook and didn't get any reply which annoyed me. Especially on Facebook as they had seen my message and ignored it. Hmmf. I ended up phoning and spoke to a lovely lady who booked us in for Thursday at 1pm.

We arrived and was greeted by the same lovely lady who I spoke to on the phone. She was expecting us and showed us to our table away from the main seating area in the pub. It felt very special and fancy.

We were offered various teas, coffee and juice. We could have had all three if we wanted. We chose tea which was brought to us and told we could have refills.

Shortly after the food was brought out and I was very impressed. There was the most amazing Blini's. Half topped with prawns and half topped with chorizo, sandwiches. Turkey & cranberry sauce and cheese savoury. Sausage rolls, pork pies, scones, cream, jam and some fancy looking chocolate desserts.

The food was so good. I could have quite happily eaten a hundred of the prawn blini's. They were so good. The ratio of everything was just right. I was a big fan of the turkey and cranberry sandwiches. I think I ate them all and left Stu with the cheesy one's and the sausage rolls and pork pies were good.

 We were told the scones were homemade especially for us and you could really tell. They were absolutely amazing! I would go as far to say better than my Aunty Jeans who makes the best scones. hehehe

The little chocolate mousse dessert things were lovely to finish off our meal with.

We didn't manage to eat everything and what we left was kindly boxed up for us to bring home which I thought was a lovely touch.

I am so picky when I eat out and I usually find something to complain about but everything was perfect! The woman serving us was lovely and attentive, we were sat in a quiet area of the pub, the food looked and tasted so good and I couldn't have asked for more for my first afternoon tea!

I have already said to Stu that we should go back for more afternoon teas. It was a lovely treat to do something just for us and I have finally ticked something off my bucket list.

I was gifted an Afternoon Tea - Smartbox in exchange for a previous blog post which I used for the afternoon tea.