Dan's Papers - August 24, 2007 -

As soon as you walk into this charming tearoom you feel transported into a different era or country. Co-owners, Jan Kirwan and chef Jeanette Holloway are now in their third season with this iconic spot, long before Greenport's current culinary boom that has been a vital part of the town's regeneration.

Open each day from 11 a.m. until late afternoon, Jan and Jeanette offer a wonderful place to meet, chat and enjoy some great homemade food. We started, as always here with their soups. Chilled carrot and ginger soup was not icy cold and this enabled the deep tastes to really come through. The ginger was not just a taste but provided a perfect balance and as we continued to find out, balance is key to the cooking here. Nothing is over the top and nothing is bland. Zucchini and goat cheese soup was even more interesting than its description. The goat cheese was still semi-solid and slowly dissolved in the fragrant base stock, making a superlative soup that we could have made a meal of, especially with some of their rightly famous homemade, light as a feather cornbread.

I love quiches, but know that, made to a classic recipe, they are very, very rich but the ham and cheddar quiche was so light and full of flavor and not made with any butter or cream, so can be enjoyed without too much guilt! The crust melted in the mouth.

They offer a really wide range of wraps and sandwiches and substantial salads. We chose the romaine, Gorgonzola, walnut, cranberry salad, dressed with a very light raspberry vinaigrette topped with grilled shrimp. This proved to be a wonderful choice because the large shrimp were seasoned and grilled to juicy perfection and the salad offered a complementary blend of crispness and saltiness from the cheese and sweetness from the fruit. Salads change each day, according to the availability of ingredients or the chef's whims but if this one is on the menu, go for it. One dish, which is on everyday now and is new this season is the BBLT sandwich. This is a variant of course on the traditional BLT and the extra B stands for creamy Brie cheese. We chose the toasted whole wheat bread and the sandwich was to die for. Yes, this one is unashamedly rich with the substantial portion of aromatic bacon and lightly melted cheese but it really is so good!

Get your English favorite summer drink of shandy (beer mixed with lemonade). As you would expect from a tearoom, they have exceptional iced teas and we chose a deep tasting raspberry/apple blend and an intriguing ginseng/peppermint version.

We managed to leave a little space for a dessert and the homemade lemon pie toped with warm blueberries made us glad that we had done so. Other desserts on offer were key lime pie, chocolate layer cake or their special chocolate truffle brownies.

Now, one of the beauties of a tearoom such as this, is that if you simply want to have something light with tea or coffee, rather than a full meal, no problem. Your only problem will be one of choice from fresh baked scones with the traditional cream and strawberry jam to assorted tea sandwiches, desserts, fruit or the very popular High Tea, which comes with something of everything. Elegantly served on a three-tired stand, together with your choice of teas. Now, choosing your tea can also pose nice problems because they list 17 teas, plus 7 decaffeinated and 6 herbal varieties (you can also choose coffee). Tea is also available for sale in many varieties and also they stock a great range of very functional, but very attractive teapots designed to brew loose tea easily and without cleanup problems. Recently they had customers who were visiting from England and they not only purchased some tea when they left but after returning home they contacted them on their website at greenportteacompany.com and had more tea sent over to them - a classic case of 'Sending tea to China' or to use an Englishism, 'Coals to Newcastle!'

They also offer a cheese and fruit tower featuring gourmet-imported cheeses, also served on the three-tiered stand.

Most items on the menu range from $4.50 for the soup to around $15 for the large salad combinations.

The high tea is $25.75 for two and the fruit and cheese tower $19.95 for two persons.

Jan and Jeannette, like myself, were born and raised in England and there is no doubt that this small gem of a restaurant is very reminiscent of the tea shops that used to abound there years ago.