Miss Marple's Tea Room 2

Miss Marple's Tea Room

382 Mount Dandenong Tourist Road, Sassafras 

(Ph) 9755 1610

See here for our first visit here.

P's brother, V, was in town so we decided to go to Mt Dandenong and hike up the 1000 steps, and might as well take him to the "famous" Miss Marple's. We got there at 12.45pm and the waitress said there was a 45 minute wait time and told us to go walk around the shops and come back. V was very hungry and asked why we couldn't go to one of the many other cafes there but P said it was worth the wait so we just went to the other shops and snacked on their taste testers =P We came back at 1.30pm, and asked them how much longer - they said they were setting up our table, but we still had to wait another 10 minutes. We were starving by then we really didn't care what we ate! While we were waiting, we saw lots of people coming in - a group of 8 came in, the waiter said the wait time was 1 hour and they don't seat groups of 8, it'll be 2 groups of 4 and there's no guarantee the 2 tables will be seated together or at the same time, was kinda rude the way she said it =/

We sat at a small table by the window - good that we got a view, but it was quite a small table, pretty sure it was meant to be for 2 not 3 originally =/ We looked at the menu and decided not to get the same stuff we ordered last time. I didn't realise at the time (and that's why I didn't take a photo of the menu and don't know exactly how much each dish cost) but everything had gone up in price 50c to $1.00! It's been less than 6 months! =O

The waiter said the special of the day were the Miss Marple's Famous Finger's Christmas Special - Sliced Turkey Breast with Cheddar & Cranberry Sauce $14.50 and the Christmas pudding we had last time during "Christmas in July". I wonder if these 2 dishes were available the whole time... the Christmas decorations around the tea house looked exactly the same as last time - baubles, stockings, tree and everything! We thought we should get a fingers dish anyway so we ordered this one.

Gourmet toasted sandwich but definitely not worth $14.50! It doesn't look very good with the crust still on and everything but I guess if they cut the crust off it would be a lot less on the plate lol! I don't really know why P wanted or order one again this time it's really not worth it but I guess it was quite tasty with the alfalfa.

Last time P ordered the Cottage Pie and didn't really like it and regretted not ordering the quiche so we ordered it this time - Quiche Lorraine (Egg & Bacon) - served with "hot" chipped potatoes & garden salad ~$16

Looks like a massive dish and all but the quiche was 99% egg and 1% bacon, it was very disappointing - bacon is not that expensive is it?! The crust was filo and was crunchy and all, and the "hot chipped potatoes" were nothing special but just normal chips. Was quite a let down overall.

V wanted the Fish and chips with Salad ~$17 and we remember seeing other people having it last time and it looked quite good.

The fish pieces were so small compared to the chips and the salad pile. After reading other blogs and looking at their photos, it seems like the fish size had definitely shrunk. Even though it was quite delicious with just the right amount of batter - the reduction in size was definitely a disappointment!

Their chips were quite tasty though - steak chips. Look at how long this one was!

We thought we should just share one dessert and one serving of scones. We got the Miss Marple's "Sundae Best" - layers of ice-cream and fresh berry sauce topped with chocolate fudge, whipped cream and roasted flaked almonds ~$15

It's really just ice-cream, cream and a few strawberries. There was so much cream and unlike last time when we got Vicar's Folly where the ice-cream wasn't white and it was easily distinguished from the cream, the vanilla ice-cream here looked the same as the cream after it starts to melt and so I ate a lot of cream unintentionally - wasn't nice =( I'm pretty sure they don't make their own ice-cream so really nothing in this dessert is special to Miss Marple's.

We got one serve of Devonshire Scones served with "Miss Marple's Own" Delicious Home-made Jam and Lashings of Freshly Whipped Cream $9.00

We remember it from last time being very tasty, but this time they felt a bit dry - like they were microwaved or something. These are more like teacakes not scones, though their jam is very tasty. That's one good thing from the meal - we bought a bottle of jam home when we left =)

Food~

4/10 - food overall is alright, nothing special, and quite pricey for what you get.

Atmosphere~

2/5 - was alright, good that we got a window table but we felt quite squished at the small table.

Service~

1/5 - the waiters are quite rude here - I remember them being nicer last time! Felt like they're too good for us or something! Took ages trying to get their attention, and we felt like we were being rushed so they could get the next table in =/

Won't be coming back again - twice was definitely more than enough!

C.

xo