Applewood Country Gifts, Tea Room & Bakery

Restaurant: Applewood Country Gifts, Tearoom & Bakery
Cuisine: Brunch/Lunch/Teatime/Bakery

Last visited: August 30, 09

Area: Delta, BC

#112 - 6345 120th Street

Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very Good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: Sweet: 4 Savoury: 2

Service: 2

Ambiance: 6

Overall: 4

Additional comments:

• Very quaint, very cute, traditional country style tearoom
• Offers high tea - $20/person (Reservations required)
  
• Homemade foods, freshly baked goods
• Really "just like Grandma's..." kind of place
• Popular to locals, and female seniors
• Local/hidden gem (tucked away location)
• Baked goods really good, savoury items - pretty bad
  
• Homemade fudge
• Savoury and sweet items available to go
• Few savoury items seem to be made daily
• Everything is homemade, but also premade and sits there until ordered
  
• Child-like tea party feel
• Feels like you're in a movie
• Reservations recommended for high tea - gets busy
  

**Recommendation: Scones with devonshire cream and homemade jam, Cloverleaf buns, Rhubarb upside down cake, chocolate brownies

This is a local gem. It's tucked away in a corner and definitely gets it's business through word-of-mouth and supportive locals...majority retired. when you walk in here, you feel like you've entered the set of Gilmore Girls or some little girl's tea party somewhere in the country. It is a really cute place, with laundry on the walls, fine China, and a homemade bakery counter featuring homemade baked goods. Almost all items are homemade, but that doesn't mean made daily. The only things that are made daily are probably the cloverleaf rolls and maybe the scones. The savoury items sit pre-made in the counter and are microwaved upon order. I know the crepes are pre-made, because when they're out they're out. Nobody makes more of anything because everything is pre-made and simply reheated.

I've been here at least 10 times, more for the experience and especially for their scones. My last visit there was incredibly disappointing though, and may keep my away for a while until I can get over it. I try and stay focused on the food, but let me quickly note I had really poor service. the quaint decor is overwhelming that they even included it in my food...I ordered chicken and mushroom crepes and it came with 4 long strands of I think blanket lint? You know when wool blanket pill and you get long strands? Yes, it was really strange and really gross. I've never had a problem here until that day...I showed them and sent it back and ordered something else. To compensate for their mistake they gave me my SCONE for free. My SCONE!??! I ordered a $10 main + a scone, and they gave me a free scone? How does that work? They could and should have resolved the issue better - even by just sending out the owner to apologize. I recommend people to still check it out, but I'm very bitter about my last experience there. Before that time I advertised for it all the time.

On the table:

• **Scones "The Works" with Devonshire Cream and Jam 6/6
• Seasonal fruit and cheese scones available $2 to go $4.25 w/butter & jam $5.50 w/"the works"
  
• They offer around 3-4 flavours that change often: raspberry, blueberry, blackberry, cheese, rhubarb pecan (rare), raisin, strawberry etc.
• These scones are delicious. I honestly can't think of another place that can beat their scones. Their fresh and baked daily.
• They have really perfected their recipe for a great scone. They're nice and big and full of fruit. It's kind of cake-like, but not too cakey because there's surprisingly not that sweet. They sure look sweet, but they aren't, they must use less sugar. It tastes more biscuit-like, but has the texture of cake/bread rather than biscuit. It's not that crumbly kind of flaky scone, it's more soft and moist. The texture is great and they warm it up upon serving. It's their best baked good for sure.
• Make sure you order the scones with "the works" which means it includes jam and devonshire cream. It's hands down the best way to experience them!
  

• Devonshire cream: also know as clotted cream - it's heated up unpasteurized milk until it's thick and creamy and pale yellow in colour. The devonshire cream at Applewood is a quick imitation of the real thing. The texture isn't as thick as the real thing. It tastes like whipped cream mixed with mascarpone and I bet you this is what they did. The texture is too runny, but it still tastes good - it's just when you know what the real thing is, you can tell this one is a quick fix. It tastes like a slightly tangy whipped cream.

• Homemade jam: They're homemade jam is fabulous! You can buy it to take home as well. It's really fresh, but also quite sweet. It goes perfect with the scones because the scones themselves are not that sweet.
• 

• 

• Ham & Broccoli Quiche 2/6
• All the meals come with a side salad and their popular cloverleaf roll. The portion is pretty small and it's quite pricey at $10.

• Quiche is the best savoury item you can get there. Trust me I've tried almost all of them. It's homemade with a lot of ingredients. It's not even THAT good, but everything else is just really not good that this stands out.

• It's a bit overcooked and can come off a bit rubbery. Sure it's made in house, but doesn't mean it hasn't been sitting around for a while. I feel like they refrigerate it, and when someone orders it they simply throw it in the microwave. The ingredients are also really chunky so you feel like you're eating an omelette rather than a quiche.
• The Salad & Homemade dressings
• Just plain old pre-watched mixed greens from the grocery store.
  
• They have 2 options for the dressing. A raspberry vinaigrette and a lemon poppy seed dressing. The lemon poppy seed is much better, I think there's a touch of honey in it which rounds out all the flavours. Both dressings are homemade and you can buy them to go as well. The raspberry is a big tangy, and not really a vinaigrette - it's a bit thicker and creamier than a vinaigrette. They definitely used some sort of binder.
• **Cloverleaf Roll 6/6
  
• I really love these. It's the only thing I can almost guarantee they make fresh everyday. I am a little skeptical if all their other baked goods are - doesn't taste like it and they don't have the volume to make them daily.

• The cloverleaf roll is 3 types of buns combined to make one bun. The bun has 3 flavours - 1/3 multigrain, 1/3 cheese, 1/3 plain. They come warm with butter. The texture is amazing. Really good bread! It's really soft; my favourite side is the multigrain side.
• Mac n' Cheese 1/6
• Not good. It looks really really good, I know...which made it even more disappointing. It was flavourless and dry. It wasn't stringy or cheesy or anything. No cheese flavour at all. It has definitely been sitting there for a while because the top layer was really dry. I could make a better one at home for sure. The breadcrumb crust wasn't even flavourful. This was the most disappointing, because you expect a place like this to have really good mac n' cheese.
• Chicken and Mushroom Crepes
  
• Didn't try it because I found blanket lint in it...see above for the story if you haven't read it.
  
• Chicken Pot Pie 2/6
  
• Nothing special here. Just chicken pot pie, the Costco ones might be better. Again, these taste like they're frozen, put in the fridge to thaw, and then warmed in the microwave when ordered. It's a small round single serving (the size of those single serving frozen ones) and this meal costs $10 with the cloverleaf roll and side salad. Again, quite expensive.
• Spinach and Feta roll 2/6
  
• Pretty standard recipe, but again a bit dry. I didn't order it on this occasion and probably won't order it again.
  

  

• Almond Slice 2/6
  
• Looks better than it tastes. It's pretty small and costs $2.75.
  
• The pastry was really dense and not very flaky but really crumbly. Like a hard cookie or hard pie crust. It was also flavorless and really dry. The custard part was pretty good, and the icing was way too sweet and grainy in texture. There wasn't enough custard either. The ratio was off, too little custard, too much icing (too swet), too much crust (too dry). Too bad, because I love almond slices and almond desserts.
  
• Lemon Love Note
  
• Sweet and tart at the same time. More sweet than tart though. I ordered this because you can't really find it everywhere. It's one of those traditional classic desserts that people forget about. It was pretty good, but then again I can't really compare it to anywhere else because it's rarely on the menu.
• **Brownies
• Not the best brownie you've had in your life. But still really good, and very "grandma-like recipe". It's a traditional homestyle brownie, not a gourmet one. Rich, moist and chocolaty. People like to order them in multiples.
  
• The Tea
  
• They have a large variety of teas, but the quality isn't the best. The brand is not bad, and I guess for the price you pay it's reasonable. Not premium teas, but still good.
  
• Small pot: $2.50 Large pot: $5
• The table sugar is coloured - mix of regular sugar with some pastel pink, blue, and yellow sugar crystals. Really cute touch!
• The Fudge
  
• Complimentary sample that comes with your bill and you can buy it to go as well.
• I've had better fudge. These ones are a bit sugary for my liking and the flavours are too artificial.