Afternoon Tea

Between a bit of a crazy travel schedule (Paris for a weekend, then two weeks later Rome for a week) and picking up a few new video games, I will admit that I have been pretty crap about keeping the blog updated. I do plan on posting about both trips, but since those will take a bit more thought, I figured I'd update with something we did even more recently: Fancy afternoon tea.

While afternoon tea with some small snacks is very common here a big fancy one is not necessarily, and is certainly not part of our normal lifestyle. Still it feels like something every visitor should do, so Mary set about researching. She came upon one that patterned all their desserts off fashion items, and since the photo had little shortbreads iced to look like handbags, she was sold. We were not sure how much proper food to expect, so we went in hungry but not starving. We started with tea (duh) and some small sandwiches. We had four sandwich quarters, though we did order another tray because they were delicious. Mary was quite taken with an egg salad sandwich, and I with one that had some form of salad on it with figs. There were also ones with roast beef and horseradish, smoked salmon, and cucumber (naturally.) All crusts were removed, as we are not savages.

After the sandwiches, they brought out the trays. These included small savory items as well as desserts. The savories were great, with very intense flavors in one or two bites. I was quite taken with small cones of crab salad, which had a nice heat and peppery bite. Mary dug one with a small piece of melon topped with goat cheese mixed with mint. There were also little pie-crust coffins filled with roasted veggies, and a small fois gras shooter with some odd crispy substance on it. We could not always understand our server, so there were some mystery items. The desserts ranged from iced cookies (in the shape of shoes and lady torsos) to mousses to cookies topped with mousses. There was quite a wide variety of flavors and textures, and we both found things to fall in love with. Whenever we would get close to finishing off the items on a tray, a new one would be brought out replenishing our giant pile of sweets. It was good fun, though it did cause us to question our memeberships in the clean plate club.

In the end it was a very fun experience, and we came out of it stuffed. We definitely got enough food. Coming in the late afternoon, it was a fun sort of un-brunch that I could see repeating when we have guests in town. It did make me a bit wistful for my Pastry School days -- such as they were -- but I think I will leave the icing of bikinis to the pros, for now. Next week: Paris photos and commentary, really!