After the Palace

After our tour of Buckingham Palace, we contemplated doing a proper afternoon tea. We decided against it purely because we were far too hungry to be proper and polite and eat small portions of things. With this in mind, we went back into St James's Park in a hunt for a hot dog stall.

We had seen them there last time we visited, and figured we may as well give them a try. The park was full of people enjoying the sunshine, so there was a bit of a line when we found our target. The man cooking the hot dogs was very cheeky, pretending there weren't any left, then pretending they weren't ready, then pretending we couldn't have any sauce. We almost felt like he should have been an honourary Aussie.

The kransky-style dog was served on a toasted brioche bun, which was surprisingly sweet, to which we added ketchup and mustard. Best of all, they filled our starving bellies, and allowed us to also sit and enjoy the sunshine for a short while.

From here we made the decision to go back to Fortum and Mason to explore the three floors we hadn't seen yet. For those who haven't been, the entire building would rival a Bunnings - five or six levels (can't quite remember) of the best store in the world.

Primarily a tea-store, it also sells fresh produce, gourmet deli items, meats, breads, chocolates and other sweets, biscuits, coffees, cakes, jams and preserves, speciality and more generic alcohol - and that's just the food and drinks. It also sells homewares; ladies and mens fashion, accessories and perfumes; giftware and stationary; an entire section dedicated to a Christmas store (incuding £1000 crackers pictured below - gifts inside include pearl necklaces, silk handkerchiefs, silver bookmarks, etc).

The store also has a restaurant, a separate one for afternoon tea sittings, and an ice-cream parlour, where we decided to stop for some ice-cream. We were seated at the bar, which was a great opportunity to watch the staff create the various sundaes and beverages on offer. We both opted to simply have a couple of scoops of ice-cream each, and I'm glad we did, as we were served enough for four people (even though in the picture below it looks quite small). If anyone comes to visit us over here, I will gladly take you to Fortnum's for a sundae, or afternoon tea, or lunch, or just to browse and buy!

 

This is the incredibly long spoon they give you to eat your ice-cream with. It was amusing to try and hold it at the very end like we were posh, and still be able to eat properly. The flavours we chose were Chocolossus (rich chocolate with peanuts and marshmallows), raspberry swirl (with fresh raspberry sauce, not bottled syrup), salted caramel (the richest, saltiest caramel that ever existed) and honeycomb (not as rich but equally delicious).

After eating our ice-cream, we explored the store some more. I had to restrain myself incredibly, as we hadn't moved into our flat at that point. We managed to only buy one box of tea. We will be back soon though!