Dottie's English Tea Room used to be a small Eden of a cafe where one could have an actual tea party straight out of a Victorian novel and not feel even a little bit guilty about it. Unfortunately for many of us who couldn't get a taste of it, it closed down a while back.
We're happy to inform you that they're back in business. Sure, it doesn't necessarily have the whole room or tea aspect of it, but, at least we have the option of getting the caked parts. Now all you need is a fancy set of China and a flask of tea, and you're good to go.
Where?
Dottie's Bakery doesn't have a physical space they occupy as Dottie's Tea Room. Instead, they take up a side of a showcase at the cafe in Good Market, inside Lakpahana. You'll be able to tell which ones are from Dottie's thanks to the little pink ribbons on top on the name tags.
Don't worry, they do have a seating space. Sure, it doesn't have any resemblance to anything Victorian or British, but at least you've got a couple of tables to sit down and get your cake on.
Dottie's Bakery
Owing to the fact that they only occupy a small space of the showcase in Milk c& Honey Cafe, in terms of choice, you're not going to be greeted with leaps and bounds of cake/pastry options. That being said, they do have around 6-7 items.
This is the Cheese Leek and Mushroom Quiche. Predominantly leeky, this happened to come up to a whopping Rs. 600. Creamy with a hard tart shell, this was wonderfully light and all in all great in what you're looking for is something not too filling.
Quiche in Colombo is hard to find. And a good one is close to impossible. This happened to fall into that tiny per cent of circumstances where one finds a quiche that's good. With a level of spice that limited itself to a bit of pepper, it stuck to its first intention of being light and we thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Next up we have the Almond Raspberry Cake (Rs.500). Hefty, but in a good way and dense in texture, this piece of cake was the perfect excuse to get cake whilst not feeling too guilty about the fact that it's cake.
With bits of dried up raspberries embedded here and there, this was not altogether too sweet and had a lovely burnt taste from being one of the corner slices. But, it didn't cut up to be our preferred form of confection for the day.
This did. The Coffee and Date Walnut Cake was similar to the Raspberry and Almond in terms of being hefty. But, the only difference this had was the fact that this was a lot richer than the prior – in a very good way.
With a layer of a jam that seemed to be made of ginger and topped with crushed walnuts, it was brilliant. Particularly if you like the concept of date cake. It had lots of date pieces to go around and enough ginger to kick it up a notch, it's one of the nicest date cakes we've had. However, no traces of coffee were found anywhere. We're not really sure why.
The last items on our list are the Dark Chocolate Brownie (Rs. 350) and the Beetroot Bliss Ball (Rs. 150).
The Chocolate Brownie was a wonderfully dark affair. Dense and incredibly chocolatey to the point of being almost completely chocolate and barely any batter, this felt like something that would come out of an outrageous chocolate lovers dream. That being said, as a brownie, the amount of chocolate could be a tad too much to handle for some.
The Beetroot Bliss Ball was not our favourite. Hard and not really tasting like anything of significance, save a tinge of chocolate and coconut, it was alright at best.
Drinks
Owing to a lack of tea to wash everything down, we turned towards the juices at the Milk & Honey Cafe. Thus winding up with two hulking glasses of Ambarella Juice (Rs. 260) off their Medicinal Juice section and a Watermelon Juice (Rs. 260) off their regular list of things.
Sweet, cold and positively one of the most refreshing things around, the watermelon juice was lovely. They seemed to have added some sugar to the drink, but, it wasn't overpoweringly sweet.
However, the Ambarella Juice was brilliant! With a thick layer of foamy blended up bits of various parts of the fruit including the peel, we loved this one. Not too sweet but beautifully sour, this went gorgeously with the cake. A definite recommend.
Service
Aye, service. Here's where things get iffy. After placing our order, the staff took around 5 – 10 minutes to bring our food to the table – which is fine! But, they kept forgetting some of the stuff we had ordered. Apart from that, they were lovely.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we liked our experience here. The cakes were great and somehow carries a lot less guilt than a regular cake shop. Plus, it's really good to have Dottie's goodies at arm's reach.
