Afternoon Tea

Having afternoon tea is one of those refined things I like to do every now and then. Especially when I want to go some place and hang out and chat for a while. This is one of those days. Its my sister-in-law, Deby's, big 4-0. So the other sisters-in-law and I decided to have a girl's day out in honor of her birthday. We decided to have afternoon tea and head out to the spa afterwards to get massages. Our husbands, luckily, were more than happy to hang out at my brother-in-law's house to watch the kids for the next few hours.

Afternoon tea was held at The Gilded Rose Manor, not too far from my house. Its a quaint little building, built to look like an old purple Victorian House. When you walk in, its reminiscent of a grandmother's house. Complete with rose-themed wallpapers, and doilies with mismatched china on the tables. We each ordered the Royal Tea, which included a small pot of your choice of tea. I ordered my usual French Vanilla Creme Brulee tea:

It also included an assortment of tea sandwiches that one of my sisters-in-law really liked. Cucumber, egg salad, and chicken salad tea sandwiches.

The next course was a savory pastry that contained either chicken and mushroom, spinach and cheese, sausage or beef. I've ordered both the Spinach and Cheese pastry and the chicken and mushroom pastry before. But today, I decided to try the beef pastry. I expected it to taste somewhat like an empanada. But the beef tasted a little too "gamey" as Andrew Zimmern would describe it. It didn't have too much flavor. I'll probably stick to Spinach and Cheese next time.

The next course was our salad. Which I found quite odd to have salad in the middle of our meal. Salads usually came in the beginning of the meal. The salad was delicious, nonetheless. It was a mix of lettuce, strawberries, and sweetened nuts, drizzled with some kind of balsamic vinaigrette.

Vanilla and cranberry scones were next

accompanied by the Devonshire cream with lemon custard and strawberry preserves.

My sisters-in-law were shocked at all the food that kept coming to our table. Very unexpected for them at a tea house. But when the dessert came, they knew the arrival of food had reached its end.
We were all stuffed at the end, that when the plate of desserts came, we decided to each pick one and split it to 4. That way, we were able to try each dessert without being too full. We had just enough dessert to satisfy us until our massages afterwards. Deby said she had a very memorable birthday. That makes me happy. The remaining dessert was boxed up for our patient husbands waiting for us at home.