July 2024
The Dandelion Pub 124 S 18th St, Philadelphia, PA 19103, United States
A British pub in Philly puts on a note worthy tea spread.
The good, the bad, the ugly, and the yummy of afternoon tea Dandelion Pub Philadelphia edition.
Our second Philadelphia afternoon tea was at Dandelion Pub which offers afternoon tea Mon-Fri from 3pm to 5pm. You may be surprised by my rating at the end
starting with The Good
The reason I was drawn to this afternoon tea was actually the menu. I liked lion logo holding the tiered plate ; he was a dandy lion. see what i did there?
and the description of the tea tier options. "Down the rabbit hole" and "Who stole the tarts"? I mean come on, how cute is that? when I didn't see scones listed I messaged them on Instagram to make sure scones would be served before I booked. I also knew my husband would be comfortable having tea with me at a bar, is another reason i wanted to come here!
the 'royal occasion tea" is meant for two ppl and came with one tea pot, we chose earl grey and my husband ordered a beer.... we were in a pub afterall! the tea brand is called "tea pigs" which tasted okay to me.
Besides the cute menu, I would also say the overall, the food here was the good aspect. let me tell u about it.
each guest received 6 finger sandwiches. salmon, egg salad, country ham, cheese and red pepper, coronation chicken salad, and cucumber. substitutions were not permitted but i tried them all except the salmon, of course. 6 sandwiches per person is quite generous. It was unfortunate that they were all on the same types of breads so there wasn't variety there BUT They tasted good and that bread was fresh so I won't complain. I liked the coronation chicken salad best.
we each got one scone - mine was pretty fresh but my husband's was definitely a day old scone b/c it was super crumbly and very dry. the scones were served with a shared pot of house-made cream and fruit coulis or a very thin compote. we also asked for butter which was very cold but we made it work. my fresher scone tasted good. It was a cakey scone but also buttery so I was happy with mine. I wish they had both been fresh scones b/c my husbands was definitely not the same experience, unfortunately. the cream tasted fine but not likely authentic clotted cream b/c it was slightly sweet. The fruit coulis tasted sweet and tart but was very watery.
moving back to the tiers, we each got 7 sweets - seven! - which took up two teirs of the plate. The sweets maybe lacked colour but the shapes and textured were varied so that was nice. the sweets included:
a small crispy crumble bite like an oat cake, A softer crumble bite, a shortbread cookie, a lemon square, a plain cheesecake (darn, i wish we had saved the fruit coulis for putting atop the cheesecake) and a spiced cupcake with a cream cheese frosting, and a moist chocolate cake. They all tasted quite fine - certainly the quantity of sweet bites was very generous - we both liked the chocolate cake most. Clearly you can see that the food here was good.
moving on to The Bad
Nothing was overly bad here but the service definitely wasn't the best. Picture having afternoon tea in a busy English pub.... that's the level of service here. also, one of our scones was stale, as mentioned, which was certainly BAD. also, this is a multi level building so there are stairs everywhere making it inaccessible for some folks.
for The Ugly
Nothing here is ugly but again, this is afternoon tea in a pub with all the sights and loud sounds of a pub - so it's not your quaint quiet garden tea. so set your expectations accordingly.
and lastly The Yummy
the food here was good overall as mentioned and i already noted my favourite bites from each course.
This afternoon tea costs $60 USD for all that the food we received, which is meant for 2ppl. the beer was $7 so our total before tip was $72.50
this tea then is $30 per person is priced very fairly when you look at it that way.
The food here was ample and generally good but the atmosphere is definitely a pub not the classic tea room vibe we are more commonly used to here in north America when taking tea time.
On the whole, all things considered,
My “Queen of Afternoon Tea” rating is 4 out of 5 stars.
