Burnett house i salute you (and remove you from my hit list)

Sunday, Director Chick (DC) and I, who were fed up to the back teeth with squiddy illness in the house, received a spontaneous invitation to join DC2 and her mama for a spot of high tea at Burnett House at Myilly Point. A few weeks ago we had a bit of an altercation with Burnett House after we were unable to get into celebrate DC's 40th birthday - it's a long story - but i think a fair precis of the event would be that it was all their fault. Nevertheless and having no emotional investment in it working out in any particular way, we went. Burnett House is a lovely historical piece of the original Darwin, boasting original tropical architecture and a few bullet holes from world war 2 and has lush green tropical gardens and a slide to keep the kiddiwinks amused. Tables are set in the garden surrounding the house - free water is supplied. In the wet season people can squeeze into the main dining room inside if it rains. Luckily it was a beautifully sunny fake dry season day and the kids just got to trip around the garden until it got too late and they had a fight over a special rock and it all ended in tears...anyhoo that came later. The best thing about high tea here is that you can go and you don't have to get dressed up. And you can take the kids and let them run wild in the gardens - just keep them off the road.

We had high tea for 4 - this included lots of pots of very good tea (or you can have plunger coffee), scones jam and cream with little tropical touches - a corner of dragonfruit sitting in the cream for example - and CWA cakes (if memory serves there was a lemon tart smothered in cream that was out of this world), shortbread scrolls and savoury pastries as well as the traditional finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off - we also ordered savoury platters, which weren't that memorable - crackers, a few savoury pasry bits, some cheese, a lone piece of beef... really i just remember a lot of cheese getting very hot in the afternoon sun.

Burnett House high tea goes from 330pm - 530 or 6pm on Sundays pretty much all year round. Get there early to bags a table.