Shabab lunch deal

Gev let me know about this one; Shabab underneath the rail station offers a £4.50 lunch deal. For this you get '3 courses' i.e an onion bhaji and poppadom with yogurt dip, a curry from a choice of chicken, meat or veg and a vegetable side dish, rice and a small pudding, in our case, a dish of whippy ice cream.

You cant see into the restaurant from the street and that is what had put me off in the past, as it doesn't look like much from the outside.

The interior of the restaurant is surprisingly spacious, with an Arabic theme to the decor.

The food portions were not huge but was plenty for lunch and for the price, and the lamb and chickpea curries were both really tasty, all nicely presented on a tray. A large glass of coke was another £1.90 but I hardly begrudged that when I had paid so little for the meal.

I have heard mixed things about the main menu dishes and the discrepancy in quality between the two branches. I cant comment on this- I just know that on this occasion (and the previous time Gev has visited) the lunch deal has been really good.

Shabab
*Surprisingly nice interior
*Fantastic value lunch deal

1 Bishopgate Street
Leeds
LS1 5DY
0113 242 7012

Website

Mill Farm Nursery Tea Gardens

I was today treated to a trip to the Tea Gardens at Mill Farm Nursery in South Milford.

The entrance is up a little lane from the centre of the village, its a little bit hard to find as it it isn't very clearly signed. You approach the cottage containing the tea room through a lovely country garden. Even at the start of December it looked pretty, in the summer I bet this place is amazing.

As it was freezing cold we got a table inside. The tea room decor is total frippery. There are ribbons tied to the chairs and menus, mismatched vases and tea-light holders, twee pictures and ornaments and proper willow pattern teacups and saucers.

On the menu there is a choice of salads, jacket potatoes and plough mans lunches, but we had gone for the afternoon tea and that only!

The price is £12 (or £10 each if 2 of you order). For this you get bottomless tea or coffee, a selection of sandwiches, a scone with jam and cream and a piece of fruitcake and cheese.

The food was served on a proper tiered stand. Seeing this galvanised my feeling that tea served any other way is fundamentally just a little bit wrong.

We got extra sandwiches for free as it was fairly quiet and the waitress said we may as well have them to save them from going to waste. Bonus!

Sandwiches contained tuna, cream cheese and cucumber, roast chicken and ham. All really nice.

The scones were huge and came in a choice of plain, fruit or chocolate (controversial I know). James had the chocolate scone just to prove how good it was. It contained lumps of milk chocolate in place of the fruit and chocolate spread in place of the jam. To be fair it was bloomin delicious! The fruit scone was PERFECT and the jam tasted home made.

The were no fancy little cakes, instead a big slice of home made fruit cake topped with cheese. This I actually couldn't finish as there was so much food!

The service was really friendly and quite attentive.

This to me epitomises what afternoon tea should be: frivolous, quaint and completely lovely.

As you may have seen in the previous post, I have developed a new score for rating afternoon tea... the 'T factor':

                                                    Score out of 20/Price in £

The scores:
Ambiance: Frivolous and delightful (although apparently often very busy)5/5
Service: Very good 4/5
Presentation: 5/5
Food quality: Generally lovely with a perfect scone 5/5
Price £10 each (with 2 eating)

                                                  Total = 19 % 10 = T factor of 1.9
The Tea Gardens
(I love this address)
Off High Street,
Off Woodlands Lane,
Behind the Post Office,
South Milford
LS25 5AF

01977 682979

Website