The Place To Eat John Lewis Trafford Centre Manchester

Danny wanted to go here, I didn't particularly. An afternoon tea for 2 at £10.95 cought my eye at the first counter. It looked uninspiring. If I choose to order a sandwich I prefer to see it being buttered in front of my eyes before I eat it. We stood beside the scones and a young girl asked if she could help us. Danny chose a cherry scone. She asked us if there was anything else; she was rushing me. I said I'd have a fruit scone. She grabbed some metal tongues from a receptacle, dripped the water off the end of them and scooped the scones up. I thought about wet scones.  She then spoke a couple of sentences of gibberish and looked at me. There was a pause, I frowned and said, "Er, sorry...what?". She said the exact same words again, this time slowly and I did recognise it as English. "Anything else, any sandwiches, hot food, anything else  from any of the other counters?"  I said, "no thanks" and she very quickly came back with "any hot drinks?"  We plumped for two americanos. As she saw to the coffees we grabbed milk, jam, a knife and spoons from the counter in front of us. We paid £8.30 and went to find a table. The Place To Eat was bustling with shoppers and  families. This is not the place to eat if you have an aversion to  double buggies. Our table was in a thoroughfare, next to a Japanese family with two young kids. A mother and daughter plus shopping bags occupied a table behind us. Our table was wet and whiffed ever so slightly of damp dish cloths. The coffees were of top percentile standard. The well heeled  Japanese family were munching through  several courses of food, the children were heartily tucking into chips. The mother was shovelling food into one of young boy's mouths, opening her own mouth at the exact same time. I thought about the amount of money they must have spent here. Danny enjoyed his cherry scone and Rodda's cream. He raved about his coffee, and still is. My scone was ok, I've had better, there wasn't much evidence of fruit within them. The Place To Eat is clean, busy, serves excellent coffee and the staff appear well primed in sticking to their script. I imagine there are people who think The Place To Eat is the best thing since sliced bread and are not afraid to tell all their friends.  Despite the fancy lights, for me, the place was soulless

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