Finding The Best Afternoon Tea In London | Food Tours | Food Insider

Okay, so tea is a thing here. It is a thing. You guys were really into tea. The beverage and the afternoon tea as a meal. So afternoon tea is not just having tea, it's also a whole process of a meal and going to a really fancy place, such as this. Where are we, by the way? So this is the Hotel Café Royal. We are very central. We're just off Piccadilly Circus in London. It's one of the more historic and well-renowned afternoon tea venues and hotels in central London. Excited to see what they have on offer. Yeah, it's pretty nice. Have you seen The Shining? I actually haven't. Never mind. I never drink tea. I don't really like it. I don't hate it. I just think it's weak and boring, and I don't want anyone to drink tea over coffee. Okay. For me, I don't get it. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm wondering if we can change your mind. I'm actually not super confident that we will, but I will say that the places that we're going to today, these will be some carefully curated blends of teas served at the proper temperature and the proper crockery as well. Great. There's a hotel here, right? Yeah, this is like a five-star hotel. But there's no way Tom Cruise gets up in the morning and wanders down here in basketball shorts and is like, oh, let's get something to eat before I head out, right? I mean, even though there's a hotel up here, people aren't just filtering through before they head out to whatever they're doing. No, this isn't like a sort of buffet breakfast style hotel. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. No, they do things slightly more properly here, I think. All right, cool. This is a place where you will have to book. It's like 80 pounds a head, including the champagne glass. Maybe 70 pounds without. So maybe you'd bring like your parents or your grandparents here or something for a nice fancy London day out. Have you taken either of your parents and or grandparents to tea yet as a working adult who now supports himself? I've actually not. I need to take my grandma. Man. Yeah. We've been talking about doing like London afternoon tea for years and never got around to it. So I'll get her up here at some point. She's going to see this and be like, my grandson took the dude from Food Wars to tea and not me? All right. I'm out of the will now. Yeah, out of the will, yeah. There goes my only shot at hereditary wealth. I feel like, was it Tarzan who took him out of the jungle and dressed him all up and he's all like, I don't like this. I feel like that right now. It's like, can I just go to McDonald's and go home? It's fine. We'll get a Big Mac on the way home. Yeah. I've never heard a champagne bottle open that quietly before. Yes, that's impressive. Oh, you don't want to have all the stuff shooting out? There's a lot of glass in this room. Oh yeah, look at that. Thank you. Yo! There we go. Fantastic pour. Look at that. Thank you. You have to just like, wonder how we got this as our job. Yeah, this is very strange. Thanks. Looks good. Thank you very much. Cheers, my man. Hey, cheers. This is like, eerily romantic. It's a weird vibe. So I would decide to prepare for you the lightest expression of a black tea on the planet. It's called Darjeeling First Flash. So it's the spring harvest. Just a couple of weeks of harvest. That's the reason why it's so expensive. And this is the second one. And those are the same? The same region, different states. For two different slopes, two different terroirs. Very light. For black tea. All right, let's try some tea. Cheers. Yeah, here we go. There we go. That's the main event. Our chefs, they like to display them chromatically to attenuate the colors. But we do have a favorite order. It usually goes egg, salmon, beef, chicken. I see. Enjoy. Thank you so much. So what's this type thing? So this is a palmier. It's a layer of effectively flaky pastry. This is with a mascarpone quenelle. Get that little spread. I know, yeah. That's really good. That mascarpone. That's beautiful. Yeah, this sandwich was... So this is like a sort of smoked salmon type of vibe. Okay, I'm into that. Lux, as you guys might call it. Visually, these all look beautiful. Yeah, this looks amazing. This is beautiful. It's almost like a work of art. It's not a small amount of food, is it? No, it's not. I was surprised at how much they're giving us. But I mean, if you're paying 80 quid, it better walk out of here full. You ever heard of quality over quantity? It could be both. Why is it a choice? Tomato bread? Steak on a tomato bread. I don't think I've had tomato bread. Tomato bread. I'm trying the egg. You're steaming ahead of me. I'm gonna tell you, tomato guy's the best one. This is fantastic. What was in here? Like steak and tomato, I think. Oh, yeah. Oh, steak? And listen, these are two different teas. Yeah, so this is the first flushed Darjeeling. Yeah. Have you had this before? No, I don't know. Do you like it? I have no idea. It tastes like all the other teas I've had. I can't say I agree. This is a black tea, but it tastes almost more like a green tea or a white tea. It's so gentle. This last one, which one's this one? So Coronation Chicken, as the name suggests, kind of invented for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, but they got pieces of chicken which were cooked, basically put in mayonnaise, which you then add curry powder to. This is so good. And sometimes raisins as well, which is kind of unusual. Not getting the raisins, but I think this is the best one. Really? Yeah. Let me try some curry chicken. Right? That's fantastic. Coronation Chicken is what it's called? So you wouldn't put milk or any sweetener in these teas? Is that kind of like a faux pas? If you really wanted to add sugar to this, then no one's going to physically stop you from doing that. But personally, I think these are all going to be nice enough that you can enjoy just as they are. I'm curious about how much different this one can taste. So Darjeeling is a place in India which has now kind of given its name to a type of tea, a variety of tea leaf. I follow. What is, you're saying first flush? So that depends on when in the season it's picked and at what stage of the growth that it's picked. Yeah. So first flush is picked quite early in the season. First. Some sort of like immature tea leaves almost and lends itself to, again, like a much more gentle flavor. That's a myth. Don't do that. What, the pinky up? The pinky up thing. No one's doing that. And also don't slurp. If I did this at my grandma's house, I'd be getting a scolding. So I have to extend that same thing to you, John. Apparently you're never taking her for tea, so. Because I'm too terrified of the telling off I'd get if I did anything wrong. That's funny. All right, then second flush then, therefore, is at a second. At a slightly later stage of the sort of tea trees development. Oh, it's much darker. I've never seen anyone insist that you smell the top of the pot lid. I've never seen it. Is that something that's normal? It's like smelling the cork of a bottle of wine. Second flush. Give us some thoughts. Yeah, stronger flavor. Now you tell me the difference. You get more like tannins. You know, it kind of like hits your tongue and it almost like feels like it's kind of drying your tongue out. Okay. That's usually because of the tannins content. That's also what stains your teeth. So that's why British people all look like they do. Hey, you said it, not me. Is that what I mean? I feel like Americans were constantly drinking coffee. Isn't it the same thing? Coffee has similar compounds in it, yeah. Same with like red wine. You know when you drink like a really rich red wine and it's again like kind of like sucking moisture out of your mouth. All right. Thank you very much. Delicious. We've been waiting for your opinion to settle the debate as to which one of these is better. I don't know. This one? Sure. Okay, cool. Second flush. Debated, yeah. Deal sealed. It feels more like tea. It looks more like tea. It's darker and has more of a tea flavor to it. How do you like that? I'm sure the experts in the industry will appreciate that insight. No, we never thought of that. Thank you. Oh, okay. I immediately got a smoky aroma from this one. I think we've got one of the smoked teas. Oh, yeah. Smoked tea. No, no, no, just the tea. It's on purpose. Oh, god. Oh, here we go. It's beautiful. Oh, very nice. We usually suggest to start with the scones. And I say one. We serve them with a strawberry preserve and earl grey tea gelatine and cornish buttercream. So the idea is to tear the scones apart and to enjoy them in a cornish style, I'm a cream first guy. I can play by your rules. It's okay. Thank you. I'm going to have a smoked tea. Smoked tea. I mean, you're from America. You guys like to smoke things. I had a smoked tea before. No. What are you guys talking about? So grab a scone. Yep. It's actually more traditional to just like tear these. Just get your thumbs kind of in and just rip it apart. I'm just going to tear bread. There you go. Although you've gone sideways rather than horizontal, so. Oh, okay. Maybe I do need to. Well, what's going on here? I can't. Can we note the difference between my finished scone and Joe's finished scone, please? I think how I did it. Nice neat halves. So there's a big debate in the UK when it comes to scones. If you are in Cornwall. Yeah. You will do the jam on and then you'll top that with a layer of cream. Yeah, that's definitely the way to do it. If you're in Devon, you will do the cream and then top with a layer of jam. No, no, no, no. Fruit first, cream second. Interesting. I don't need to be from here to know like I'm putting jam and butter on my toast. Sure. Jam first, butter last. You're insane. No. Jam and then the butter or the cream goes on top of it. What do you mean? Butter on top of toast is insane. Yeah. What are you talking about? That's bloody insane. In the UK, if you're making toast, you will always use butter as the foundation layer. Always. Here's how I'm imagining it. I'm imagining I go jam first on there because it's easier to get the jam off the knife by wiping it. And then when I go for the butter, I have pretty much a clean knife to take the butter. If I do the butter first, I got a buttery knife into the jam. That's jam and my butter in the fridge. Does that make sense? Fine. Well, the people of Cornwall will love you. I'm going to be the mayor of Cornwall by the end of... Do you guys have mayors? Yeah, we have mayors. Okay, now I'm going to be the archduke of Cornwall at the end of this trip. See, look at this. Perfect. Oh, yes. Yes. See, I'm normally the Devonshire scone approach because of the logic that if I'm making toast, I'll put the kind of like dairy fat layer on first. So in my mind, that made more sense. But here they recommend it the Cornish way. So I'll play by their rules. Look at how dry scones are. That's why you guys drink so much tea. That's why you have loads of stuff on them though. How does the scone go with the smoked tea? Very surprised by this. It's... I love the aroma. I love what it smells. Certainly smoked tea is not common. Definitely not common, no. But I'm really loving it. It's like you're drinking like a campfire. Yeah. But I mean that in a nice way. Yeah, yeah. It's nice. Like nostalgic. Yeah. And then I mean from there, it sort of just remains for you to try some of these pastries out as well. Which one do you think? I think a nice classic British dessert is banoffee pie. Which one is that? It's these circular tart ones. So I think I want to see you try the banoffee pie. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Oh my god, I love that. I want to try it too now. Am I right in saying that banoffee is not a super common like pie filling in the US? I don't think I've ever even heard of it. Yeah. What is it? So it's banana and toffee, but not banana and coffee. So it's like usually like a caramel layer on top of a biscuit or pastry base. Usually with like slices of banana and then cream. It's fantastic. Yeah. This is fantastic. I do think that these really nice, rare, expensive teas are being wasted on me. But so far, I've impressed. I think the range of teas you get to try that you would never normally get to try are amazing. The service is amazing, beautiful location. So I think, yeah, like obviously it's a treat. Yeah. Well, you're more of a tea fan. What do you think of these? I've loved all of these teas. I'm going to be honest. These are like opening my eyes to new possibilities for tea. You just can't get this at the store? Not the regular store. You can't find like first flush teas at Tesco. I don't know. And you can tell they really know their stuff here. They've like taken the time to like curate these blends, these pairings. Well, I could stay here all day and argue about the order in which you add things to other things. But I want to check out more tea. Me too. That'd be great. We've got several more teas to try. Plenty more order of things to argue about. Can't wait. Let's give it a go. Let's do it. Houses of Parliament, Big Ben. Yeah. Also against the iconic grey background of London. There it is. All right. Next place. We're at the Swan at the Globe. Definitely different vibe from the last place. Yeah. So this is very much less of the kind of like posh hotel style and more of a modern classic British restaurant style. Yeah. This is a really nice place. And not only does it do a good afternoon tea, but it's themed. Can you guess what it might be themed around? Globe, Shakespeare? Correct. So it's theatre themed? It's a Shakespeare themed afternoon tea. Okay. Oh no. We're attached to the Globe Theatre, one of Britain's most iconic theatres. Yeah. Shakespeare used to do all of his plays here way back in the day. It's actually burned down and was rebuilt. So it's not quite on the original location. Same spot? A few hundred metres down the road. Couldn't get the permissions for the same spot. Yeah. But they've rebuilt it really faithfully. It's in the style. It's using the same materials. You commented on the roof on the way over. They've still got the like thatch straw roof that they used to have as well. Seems incredibly unsafe. A little bit. Yeah. That's why the first one burned down. But they were like, it can't happen again. Had they learned nothing from the first one. Have you been in the Globe Theatre? I have. Yeah. I've seen a few plays before. So they have a big standing area in the middle. Now. Because the theatre used to be like a very like common people's entertainment. It used to be for the working class. And they would all pay for the cheap tickets. Which you would go and stand in the middle and watch the play. And then you have the rich people. Standing for a whole play? The rich people sitting around the outside. How long is a play? You can get like a three hour Shakespeare play. By which time. Hell no. Yeah. I stood for one of them and my legs did hurt quite a lot by the end of it. How long was it? Probably two hours, two and a half hours. You're just kind of pacing back and forth. Like, all right, get to the third act. Let's go. Just kill him already. You know what's going to happen. It's a Shakespeare. Everyone dies. Just cut to the good bit. So the afternoon tea that we're trying today is themed around Macbeth. The Scottish play. I've actually, I actually know that one. There you go. Yeah. Nice. But they also do something that I quite like the look of. Which is a gentleman's tea. Which is afternoon tea, but for blokes. Oh god. And I'm just kind of curious to see what that's like. I think it's aimed maybe at either very hungry people. Or men who are a little bit too insecure about their masculinity to enjoy some sandwiches. What are some of the points? Well, instead of sandwiches and scones, you're getting like a scotch egg. Just a full portion of fish and chips is on there. Some haggis. All of that? You eat all of it? It seems to just be like all of their main courses on a board. So I'm just kind of curious to see how that goes. Oh man, I don't want to say that. Yeah. I think that, I know that they're a business and they want to do it. So I don't want to disparage it. But anyone who gets that sincerely needs to be connected with a therapist. Britain would be a much better place if most of the men here had therapy. So I'm kind of in support of that. But let's order one just to see what it's like. Loose leaf tea. As it should be. That's really nice. Thank you. Oh, and that catches, that's so clever. Smart, right? Yeah, I think loose leaf tea is traditional for afternoon tea. Sure. So I think they've done a good job there. Yeah. Got a castle on it. Mine's got a deer on there. Yeah, look at this. It looks pretty Shakespearean. Man, they weren't playing with the theme. I like that. Okay. A lot of people say that when you have tea from a teapot, the milk should go in first. Why? Then you should pour the tea in. There's a few reasons for this. Personally, I think it eliminates the need for stirring, because if the milk's already in there, it's kind of churning itself up and becoming homogenous while it's in there. That would have been helpful, because I killed my wrist stirring tea this week. The thought of doing that? Look, man, Brits have to do it every day. So it's a real workout. It's like when you used to crankstart cars. It's just such an inconvenience. There's actually a historical reason as to why people would put the milk in first as well. Let's have it. So back in the day, you'd be drinking your tea out of a fine china cup, because it's a really status symbol type of thing. Really thin, delicate materials, because it was the finer craftsmanship. The issue there was that sometimes they would make it so fine that if you poured boiling tea into it, it would just shatter then and there. That to me sounds like poor craftsmanship then. The very use of that is to drink tea out of, and the fact that it explodes when you put the tea in, it makes me seem like they did a bad job with that. We came up with a solution. You could put a bit of milk in first, and then when you added the tea in, it sort of tempers it and reduces the temperature of it as it hits it. Brings the temperature down so that the mug can then withstand the temperature. Couldn't you just wait for the tea to cool? You could have done that. You kind of want to be at least steeping and pouring tea when it's still pretty hot. Right, because you're supposed to be drinking hot, and then the cup explodes because it can't handle hot liquids. It's a bad cup. Whatever. Well, I'm going to drink some with milk. I'm going to add a little milk just to... So this is milk? This isn't cream? This is milk to be either semi-skimmed or whole milk. How much am I putting in here? I mean, I just do like a little splash. I don't need much. Oh, it broke. Explodes. Okay, look at this. It's like I work here, the way I'm working to put this tea together. Let's try with the milk. Very little difference, but okay. There we go. That's heavy. Okay. Thank you very much. Everything looks awesome. Thank you so much. All right, well, what do we got here? Food's here. Okay, so I think we should probably start with some of the savories. And probably work our way up. I think it's going to be the best way to do this. Starting from the bottom. Now we're here. Okay. Salmon. I'll join you on the salmon. Salmon cream cheese. It's a classic. You can't go wrong. First hit, fantastic. That is so creamy. That's a very good sandwich. Do you like the feeling of eating like a little dainty finger sandwich? Yeah, I don't mind. I mean, definitely like this is... I know I'm supposed to take your time doing this, but the way these sandwiches are cut, I'm like, oh, this is great. I can eat these a lot faster. I think that's the point. Next one is what? This is an egg mayo on spinach bread. Yeah, no crust on any of these with the finger sandwiches. Why is that? What is the version of crust? I think it's, again, this kind of like appearance presentation is quite important with an afternoon tea. They're trash cans back there, overflowing with crust. Just full of crust. I'm hoping that they found a way to utilize the other crust. Maybe make breadcrumbs or something. The ducks, they're eating well. All right. What is that, watercress in there? Egg and cress is like a really classic British sandwich. I don't know if you have as much of a cress thing in the US. It's coming around. Watercress specifically. My wife likes to put them in lots of stuff because it's very healthy. Good for you. Like peppery kick to it. Yeah. All right. I'm wondering if these are like a haggis bite. Then we have little haggis tartlets and these little beef brioche bun things. Let's try a tartlet first. That's so good. I think haggis was traditionally made in the sheep stomach, right? Like basically the way you stuff a sausage, they use the sheep's guts to do that or whatever. But they don't do that anymore. I guess someone does. But now it's almost like one of those synthetic sleeves that they make sausage in, right? Yeah, I think maybe very traditional places might still do it the old way. But with the spices and oats, it isn't very good. Pretty tasty. Yeah. I do like haggis a lot. It's good. Brioche beef sandwich. Look at that, so cute. Little tiny, tiny beef. Now, if this was the only tea I was having, I would say I feel like I could easily, if I was just doing this to do it, I could easily eat this whole thing. You can clear this. I will say afternoon tea is kind of designed to be eaten at a leisurely pace for the most part, kind of over the course of like an hour, hour and a half. This is very good. Maybe the fact that we're just kind of like blitzing through it is helping it out. I will say the horseradish, fantastic on this. Horseradish sometimes tends to be a little overpowering, but this one, creamy enough. You know the horse is there. You taste the horse, but you also taste the beef, so. That's really good. Yeah, right? You said that maybe this wouldn't be enough food to like fill you up. And I guess traditionally that wasn't really the point. It's always been like a kind of mid-afternoon snack. Is this a snack? Yeah. Just threw something together. They were actually invented by the 7th Duchess of Bedford. The 7th Duchess of Bedford? Exactly. Exactly like that. So she found that she would have this kind of like sinking feeling around four o'clock in the afternoon. So she wanted basically an afternoon snack as a kind of pick-me-up. Yeah. And then invite some of her friends to join her. And because she was, you know, a duchess in the royal court, it suddenly became this status symbol and this kind of exclusive club. And suddenly everyone wanted in. So yeah, I think initially it did start as very much like an afternoon snack. Nowadays, I think maybe it has transitioned into more of a substantial meal. Probably like a decent-sized lunch. But yeah, it's interesting to see how it's evolved over the years. I'm ready to move on to the scone section of the meal. And I'm going to do one cream, then jam, and then one jam, then cream. For science. Do it side by side. Okay. And settle the debate once and for all. All right. Right? This is the way you think. So we're both we're both devoning it right now. Okay, let's get devoned out. I love scones, man. The other way? Official verdict? Jam, cream. The end. Okay. As I said before, right? You did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm sticking to my guns, but I respect your opinion. Wow. That's fine. Do you guys eat a lot of scones in America? No. No? Muffins, donuts. No scones. I feel like you're missing out. They're so good. This is a really good one. It's got that like flaky pastry on the outside. This scone is fantastic, though. All right. This one of mine, this one has like a skull on it. Let's take a look at this guy. Oh, and it's encased in chocolate. So then we have some sweet, sweet treats. How do I just bite this open? I don't really know. I'm trying to cut the roof of my mouth on this one. You confirmed that we eat the outside of this? There's like a bunch of doughnuts. Hey, use your spoon, weirdo. What are you doing? We might be about to shatter our teeth, but cheers. Oh, the mousse inside. I'm very impressed with this. This is all very good. Yeah. Quality so far, high across the board. Yeah. So this is the gentleman's tea set. Yes. Something geared, I'm assuming, more towards the gents. So I'm just grabbing a chip real quick. Some tartar sauce. A lot of chips here. Oh, that's a great chip. Okay. Scotch egg time. I love a scotch egg. This is like a fancy one. It's done well. You can tell because the yolk is still soft. Yeah. Crispy on the outside. Oh, yeah. That's a fantastic scotch egg. What is this thing over here? So this is smoked haddock from Arbroath, which is a town in Scotland. Arbroath. Smoky. Strong mustardy, possibly horseradish flavor to it, but it's a really fantastic taste. Cut of meat. I'm going to go just a fish. I think like as a sort of alternative to like a smoked salmon sandwich. Yeah. Works really well. That's very good. We know what fish and chips taste like. We've done a video on that. We don't need to taste that. You also get the same haggis tart that you get on the normal one. Nice. The scone is slightly different. It's like a cheese scone with a butter instead. Oh, like a cheddar bay biscuit from Red Lobster? Pretty much exactly the same. Yes. Okay. I'm listening. And then also what you can get, which we didn't get today because we just got the breakfast tea, but you can get instead of tea, a bone broth. It sounds a little bit Shakespearean. Yeah, I don't know. Are you convinced by the gentlemen's afternoon tea as a concept or are you still pretty... Yeah, I am kind of convinced. I think the marketing towards gentlemen things are all a bit off-putting. Maybe just market it as like a sort of savory sharing platter or something. There you go. Fantastic. But it's all very tasty. Yes, it's very good. It's all very good. It's scotch egg, man. I'm kind of obsessed with scotch egg. I think it's really funny that we've got this gentlemen's afternoon tea and the knowledge that tea houses in the UK actually played a big role in the women's suffrage movement. Okay. Tea houses back in the kind of Victorian era became really popular. There were lots of them popping up. They were cheap and also they were one of the few places where women were allowed to kind of go and socialize unaccompanied by a man. It was a different time. So because of that, you had all these women meeting up thinking, actually, why don't we have more of a say in the matter? Maybe we should ask for the right to vote. And the kind of suffragist, suffragette movements were really born out of tea houses. Get it, ladies. Get it. And then 150 years later, we have the blokes reclaiming afternoon teas. Overall, have you enjoyed the Swan at the Globes afternoon tea? Yeah, this was really great. This was really great. I enjoyed, I think, everything. I don't think there's been a dish where I've not enjoyed it. It's always a good sign. Everything has really been delicious. What would this cost? What would this set you back? So I think here it's around 40 pounds. Absolutely worth the value. 40 pounds. The price is nice on that considering how good everything was. And they're feeding you here. You get a whole, look at all this tea. Whole pot of tea. Yeah. Not bad. Yeah, not bad at all. Fantastic. Do you have room for some more? I believe I do have some room for some more. Cool, because we've got one more afternoon tea experience to show you. And let's just say it's going to take you on a ride. Okay, let's go have tea on a roller coaster. Couldn't help but notice this table is moving. Yeah, so this is Bridget's bakery bus tour. Yeah. This is our last stop on our afternoon tea tour. It is an afternoon tea on a bus. So I'm seeing London, all right, from the bus. So this is the obvious benefit of being a both an afternoon tea and also be a sightseeing tour. We're going to go basically around central London for about 90 minutes depending on the traffic. And of course, we have this lovely array of food. This is great. It's a lot to get acclimated to. So right now, I'm still just like, okay, we're moving. The food was already sitting here. This is for four people. Sorry to break the fourth wall, but there are two cameramen sitting next to us. I think at this point, we're close enough that they can probably see each other. Okay, great. So we had to book a table for four. I couldn't book a table for two. We did, yes. Okay. We're also going to be served some hot drinks. They have a range here. I'm probably just going to get a breakfast tea. A few things obviously different to a normal one. What's another tea that I think I should try? I mean, you could try Earl Grey. It's a slightly more like herbal, fragrant version of a black tea. Oh, there's a jasmine one. There's a berry one. It's really, really up to you. Chai one. They have a range. Stop pushing it. It's fine right there. Shove it towards you. All right. Obviously, the hot drinks are served to you in a screw top cup. Yeah. Because we are moving. We have these little cup holders embedded in the table, which is cool. But we do not want to get any spillages. He did make a point to be like, yo, I'm giving you a cup of boiling water. So keep that lid on there. Be careful. I will say that this food was sitting out waiting for us when we got on the bus. It was. I like to think it's been prepared today. But I'm sure it'll be tasty. A bit of ham and cheese. Got mini quiches right here, dude. See this? This is the biggest of the mini quiches we've had. This is almost a regular quiche. If that's a mini quiche, I want to see a mega quiche. This is a bakery that did this. You could tell everything tastes like a really well-baked good. I'm very impressed with how well all this food tastes. Yeah, I kind of like the vibe of looking around and see people walking down like, yo, what's up peasants waiting for your bus? And I love how festive the pastries are. I think you're right. I think because this is operated by a bakery, it does seem like there's been some extra emphasis placed on like very beautiful looking pastry goods. This is maybe the best looking plate we've had today. Not to say that the others haven't been like, you know, nice pastries, but these are like, they've been made by a bakery. You can tell. It's nothing like meringue tart things. How's the pretzel bun? I can recommend the pretzel bun, actually. There's like a non-seeded one over here. No, I don't mind seeds. Let me get a bit of that. The chew and softness on that is beautiful. Wow. And the actual pretzel bun itself. That's really good. Oh my gosh, it's so good. I love this. That's a police van right there. Those guys are having a very different experience for us right now. He's like, he just took a picture of me, pulled him over. Arrest that man. Yeah. Yeah, this is great. I think that this is really fun. It's a great idea. I do think that there's no knock on this business or the food experience. It is what right now? It's three, a little after three? About three o'clock. Traffic's a little tight. It's a little busier part of London. A lot more stop and go. He's driving right into this crowd. Big Ben's right there. Pedestrians in London do not obey road signals. They don't give a damn. I think most of it is in central London, so I would expect a fair amount of stop-start. But look, I mean, we're already going straight past the Houses of Parliament. What goes on in that building? That's the Houses of Parliament. That's where we are governed from. Ah. It's like our Senate, Congress building. All right. Really, like, we started right in central London. We're hitting some key sites early on. I think we just hit a key person. Jesus. This food is fantastic, though. It's really good food. Are you moving on to your sweet course now? All right, let's go. Is that like marshmallow? Got a little something there. Got a little bit. Let me get some of that. Oh, it's really good. I'll put the bag in there. So we're actually on a Routemaster bus right now. Now, Routemaster buses are an iconic part of British culture. They're like a British design icon. They came in in 1954 and were just like immediately a hit. Not to say they weren't without their faults. So you might have noticed that we got on from a platform at the back. Yeah. That was the only way you can get on and off the bus. The idea being that it was easy to hop on and hop off. You could basically just jump on whenever you wanted. The issue was that some people took that a little bit too literally. Some people were trying to like jump on to a moving bus or jump off from a moving bus. Yeah. Not always successfully. I think there were injuries reported. Sure. So sadly, they were gradually withdrawn and they sort of disappeared around the 2000s. I think I still see these buses around. So they kind of tried to bring them back. It was when Boris Johnson was our mayor of London. He brought back the new Routemaster. They do have ways to get on and off at the back and in the middle as well, but the door is closed while it's in motion. You can't just be jumping on and off. I love the idea of someone who's like, I'm just going to jump out right here, like literally jump off right here. That's like a 40 miles an hour or whatever. However, you guys measure distance here. I don't know. 40 kilometers of stone. We still do miles per hour. It's really confusing. Again, we've decimalized so badly. I think it's just a better idea that it's harder to jump off of a moving bus. They made a few thousand of these buses. And then I guess as they start to phase them out, there's still buses in circulation, but they're not used officially anymore. So some of them went up for sale and have been bought by places like this. Bus tours are really popular. There's a double-decker bus right there. Yeah, all over the place, but not of this style. Oh, with the back door. I see. The Routemaster. Yeah, yeah. We're very much still using double-decker buses. Don't get me wrong. They're great. Okay, I get the Routemaster, yeah. So we're shooting this in the run-up to Christmas. This is actually a Christmas-themed bus tour. And this is a British Christmas Cracker. Have you done one of these before? No, what is it? So you traditionally done around Christmas. Is there crackers in this? No, sadly not. I don't know where the name came from. I guess because, well, I'll show you. So basically, give me one end. I take this end, give it a little squeeze. And then we're going to pull, all right? Is it going to make a noise? So then it makes a crack, like a pop noise. No. I'm sorry, everybody. All right, three, two, one. Hey, and you win. You've got the... And if you look inside there, you'll find a prize. So you get a little paper hat and some, usually some kind of like disposable plastic toy in there as well. Oh, I got a frog. Oh, it jumped out. That'd be lively. Yeah, and then, okay. And usually a joke or a trivia. What have you got? What begins with T and ends with T? It has T in it. Teapot. And you get a little paper crown as well. So that's what they meant Christmas. I always thought that when I saw these online, that they were a fancy way of wrapping, like there's crackers in the middle of it. You guys have like this big. I need to rip mine open. That was a good pop. I got a fake mustache, which you're supposed to like clip onto your nose, but it's kind of painful. Just for a little nose. The issue I have is that I have a really big head. Yes. And so sometimes these crowns don't fit me. Look, I could tuck my ears into mine. You got some wiggle room there. Whereas if I do it, it's like stretching. Oh, wow. Yeah, you got a big dome, bro. I got a cranium on me, man. It's like stretching. Yeah, you got such a big brain. Would you like my joke? That's it, yeah. What do you got? Oh, that's bad. How do sheep greet each other at Christmas? Bah humbug? Merry Christmas to you. But it's spelled like E-W-E. I actually prefer yours, so. Thank you. Good job. God, I could punch these up, baby. Call the boys. We'll do a writer's sesh. Food Wars Christmas crackers coming soon. So we've had three excellent afternoons here today. Very different experiences. Yeah. Hard to draw direct comparisons between many of them, other than the fact that I think the food's been really good at all of them. Had a nice mix of sweet and savory. But we've had, you know, the fancy experience. We've had a themed experience and, of course, a tour bus experience. You're doing it with this mustache on? I was going to try and do that for as long as I could until you noticed. So we did the Hotel Café Royale. All right, very fancy, very nice. A bit stress-inducing. Definitely felt out of place there. Felt like royalty's supposed to be there and instead they got us. For that, I felt like it was the historic, this is the finest way to do it. This is a traditional Londoner tea time. I liked how the guy knew everything. He was really funny and charming and knew his stuff. I really liked that. I went to the Swan at the Globe. Onto the Swan at the Globe. It was more of like a restaurant experience, but everything that they brought us I thought was delicious. I enjoyed the tea very much. I thought that the food portions were incredible. Everything tasted amazing. That one was definitely a lot of fun. I just, that environment I really enjoyed. Sure. That was more of the modern take on an afternoon tea and personally that atmosphere is more of my element. Sure. And Bridget's Bus. This is so much fun. I wish I was doing this with my wife and not you guys. I think also this would be fun to take my nieces and nephews, maybe my mom. I love them doing two things at once. You know, I'm going to do an afternoon tea and we'll do sightseeing. Okay, knock them out in one thing. Dinner and a show. Yeah. Each of them were three different, very unique experiences. So for me, all the food was incredible. All the tea was incredible. The experiences are incredible. So what I'm going to pick is less to do with the best one and one that more speaks to an experience that I would probably want to do again. Sure. Enjoy the most personally. Okay. And if you had to pick which one that was? I loved the Swan of the Globe. I thought that was absolutely fantastic. That was good. I liked it more, felt like it was a restaurant. You have a couple of drinks. So out of all of them, that was the experience I felt spoke more to what I enjoy doing. But every single one of these is awesome, including this one. I'm having a great time. I know it seems like I'm not, but I'm easily carsick. So I'm kind of just like, ugh. I think you've summarized it well there. Thank you. Again, I think it's less a case of like picking the best one and more a case of just, like you said, picking the one that speaks to us the most. Yeah. I think I agree. Like this one was a really good just like general experience. I actually did really like the Hotel Cafe as well. But mostly because like that's the sort of place where I could take like my grandma and have a really nice fancy treat day out. But even this, I think would also kind of do that job. This is so much fun. Have we brought you around on afternoon tea? And I guess tea is a drink itself. Despite controversial opinion, this is the best tea we've had all day. Interesting. I think it's really good. Yeah. Earl Grey? You like Earl Grey? Yeah. Oh, I guess I like Earl Grey. You like Earl Grey. Yeah. This is fantastic. You have brought me around in tea. I'm probably going to continue to never get it. But maybe I'll surprise myself, start drinking one more tea. I'll take that. All right. Cheers, mate. Just gentlemen out on the town, you know. A couple of blokes. What's the blokes bus? It's just this, but they give you like a can of Stella Artois instead of this.