High Tea at Alice's Tea Cafe, Chatswood, Sydney

High tea is a bit of an event for me - somethingto linger over while hashing out the details of your last few days to your best friend, taking a sip of that relaxing tea after biting into a little cake... The words high tea conjure up images of a relaxing afternoon.

So what happens when you pop into cafe located in the middle of a mall that does high tea? An excellent afternoon of people watching, of course! Mr Prince and I recently head to Alice's Cafe to check out their high tea.

It's a cosy Alice in Wonderland themed cafe in Chatswood Westfield, which is quite open and not private at all, making it easy to watch your neighbours while you dine. We were asked to find our own seats, and they also asked us what kind of T2 teas we wanted, which we could see on the shelf behind the counter, or if we'd prefer a glass of sparkling wine or coffee instead. I went with Lemon of Ginger, in lieu of Chamomile, while Mr Prince had something with orange in it.

When the food arrived on the usual three tiered stand, it was done up neatly with fake flowers, which were cute at first, but the flower at the top kept threatening to drop into our cakes, and from the stickiness of it, it was evident that it had happened before. This prompted us to rearrange the tiers, so that the cakes weren't in contact with the decorations!

We had a toasted chicken sandwich to begin with, followed by unspectacular scones, one date and one plain, before we got to the sweets, which were worth working up to. There were macaroons, fruit tarts and cheesecakes, which we polished off.

While this certainly isn't the kind of place where high tea is worth getting dolled up for, it's a kitschy cafe where you can grab a bite to eat, or a coffee between shopping, or just a spot where you can gab with your friends. This could also be ideal for people with kids, who are looking for a place to park themselves and their prams.

Overall, I would rate this:

6.5/10