Monday, September 22, 2014

Point Ellice House: Frustratingly disappointing experience

Super stoked about going to Victoria for a mini-vacation, I looked at several high tea places to visit and this one stuck out to me.

Point Ellice House - Open Seasonally on UrbanspoonRestaurant: Point Ellice House (visit their website here)
Location: 2616 Pleasant Street, Victoria
Cuisine: Coffee/Tea, High Tea
Price range: $10-$30+





Date of visit: August 9, 2014
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 3/5
Food variety: 1/5
Food quality: 2/5
Buck worthy? 1/5

To be very fair, they were super patient with me changing my reservation many times and answered all my questions via email promptly. When we arrived, it was quite sketchy as it was in an industrial area and the road was in terrible condition. I find there was lack of direction as we entered and overall we didn't feel welcomed. Had to look for seats ourselves and we weren't noticed until standing up and waving our hands at the waitress who was standing right next to me. WOW. Anyhow, since we only ordered two high tea sets, she made us order another two teas because sharing of tea wasn't allowed. So we paid for admission ($6.00) and tea and high tea. =.=

Either way, we eventually found a spot with some shade from the blistering sun and sat down to enjoy our four teas. The individual Tea ($4.00) was from the same list as high tea, meaning we chose 4 out of their approximately 10 teas. Not very happy. Nothing exceptional about the teas, besides the cute cups. My tea smelled a lot better than the taste, which made me a bit sad =(

First came a Carrot and Squash soup which the other waitress kindly help us split into four cups. It was decent, didn't taste like canned stuff and I could feel the carrot. However, nothing special about the flavors.

Here's our two High Tea Sets ($27.00 each) placed on the same tray. Sigh. No wonder it was so "cheap" compared to the other high tea places. The best part of it all was the slice of watermelon. The sandwiches were dry (like, the bread had been left out too long). The quiches were the ones you can get in a 48 pack from Costco. The brownie and banana bread were probably from a supermarket. The jam was good. Scone was also likely to be store-brought. Meh.

Overall I was super disappointed with what we had paid for. The website definitely dresses it up a lot more than what is actually presented. We had to tour the house ourselves, and the lack of directives to navigate our experience really irked me. Mind you there were friendly staff, just not helpful. I would definitely recommend going to other places for high tea in Victoria.

1 comment:

  1. Hello,

    I know this is a very old post, but we hope that you will come and try us out again. We have an entirely new restaurant, staff and menu this year. Hopefully you can give us another try. We would love to have you come in!

    -- The Point Ellice House Staff


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