The Old Town Hall Cafe & Tea Rooms - Urenui

 Nestled in Northern Taranaki is the quaint and quirky village of Urenui. 

We are on a short holiday visiting family and after a late bacon and egg breakfast we set out on a bit of a jaunt that included a quick trip to Urenui. You can stop in for a look on your way into New Plymouth when approaching from the north, or take a 24 kilometre trip out from New Plymouth. 

The small village looks quite intriguing and there were a couple of shops that I need to explore at a later date (sans husband). But today we were there for food. I know that I have just explained that we had a late breakfast but we were prepared to stuff ourselves further after the reports from Lance’s sister Jo gave us of the scones at The Old Town Hall Cafe and Tea Rooms in Urenui. 

The building is furbished with rainbow coloured bikes and curios and set to look older than it is. Inside the old mismatched tables and chairs are surrounded by olde world charm and anything with a hook is festooned in hats of all descriptions. One chair is covered from top to toe (well chairs don’t actually have toes, but they do have legs) in a fitted crocheted blanket. 

But we were here not to admire the curious surroundings, we were here to eat scones!

The owner settled us in and welcomed us with English charm and wit. The menu offers an array of scones to select from, and when with a slip of the tongue a ‘normal scone’ was requested we were told “We don’t have any ‘normal’ scones here, you must mean a buttermilk scone”.

Lance’s cheese scone 

Lance ordered his usual, a cheese scone, but this scone came with butter and Branston pickle, and a cup of English Breakfast Tea. Yorkshire tea was suggested and sure enough a large teapot wearing a woollen tea cosy arrived. All places were set with old sets of tea cups, saucers and side plates. 

. I try not to eat things with gluten but this was an experience that I was not prepared to miss out on so I went full scale and ordered a ginger and pear scone with butter, clotted cream and ginger jam. 

All orders were placed and our party of seven chose a variety of hats to wear whilst we awaited. 

I really don’t know how to explain with culinary expertise how good my scone was, but it really was bloody great and I can’t stop think about it.  If you are a scone connoisseur you may understand what I mean when I say the centre was light and fluffy whilst being dense and moist. And the outer was crusty with out being crisp or crumbly. I scraped every bit of butter out of the dish and coated the two inner halves with the chunky ginger jam. I love ginger and this jam took the cake (or scone). And the clotted cream, OMG that was the creme de la creme. As I loaded small shovels full onto my scone the butter, which had melted on the warm scone, oozed into the clotted cream. I could have eaten a second! 

My delicious ginger and pear scone  

The treats that the others had ordered looked good and it took me all of my manners to not ask the man at the next table if I could take a photo of his pork pie. It arrived at his table on a bread board with a pickle, boiled egg, Branston Pickle, Piccallili, a wedge of cheese and Colmans hot mustard. 

If you are on the road in the vicinity of Urenui you should really stop in for a bite. This is a not to be missed spot.