May 23, 2007
The Orangery at Kensington Gardens
It was a beautiful day in London yesterday and it also happened that Umami was in London and so we met up at a cafe called The Orangery situated in the heart of Kensington Gardens.
It's situated in this building facing immaculately pruned lawns.
The white, refreshing interiors of the cafe mirrored the lovely weather outside.
Some lovely spring flowers to brighten the place!
I felt that I needed some greens just to keep a more healthy diet and decided to go for the tomato, feta and basil salad. This costs £3.95...I don't even want to think about it in Singapore dollars anymore, 'cos that just gets depressing!!! It tasted OK...I mean, there's nothing much to it anyway. I had a cup of lemon & ginger tea to go with my food too. What's afternoon tea without tea?
Umami ordered the Orangery Cake which had some icing at the top and some orange bits in within the sponge cake. I thought it was a little dry for me and didn't really like it that much when I tried a bit of it.
She also ordered the fruit scone which came with full cream and jam. We were rather disappointed with this scone as they had reheated it by microwaving it, and so it didn't taste very good (we were placing high hopes of having some good English scones here).
Seeing that it was such a gorgeous day, we decided we couldn't just sit in and that we had to do the weather justice by taking a walk in the park. After all, such weather doesn't come all that often in UK!
We came across many squirrels nibbling on their food and these squirrels are so used to humans that they have no qualms about coming right up and sitting next to people. They were all very adorable!
Many people were out boating on the Serpentine, a lake within Kensington Gardens. That just made me itch to paddle. I miss paddling!!! Hordes of people were also out sunbathing on the lawns. All that's missing is a beach which will never ever materialise here!
Meanwhile I've been exploring the neighbourhood and I must say it's really very nice and charming! Many small and pretty shops! But I can't buy anything at the moment so that's pretty useless to me now.
I've also discovered that my two pals, Joe & Keith are very good cooks. I need to hone my cooking skills now. I bought blueberries and strawberries from Sainsbury yesterday and so I'm enjoying these seasonal fruits!
Anyway, back to the Orangery. My verdict is that the place scores higher on ambience than its food. But I think I'd rather do a picnic in the open...bring some food, a book and just lie on the grass and enjoy the sunshine!
Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, London, W8 4PX
Tel: +44 (0)871 3327927