First of all I want to thank all of you for all the wishes for my husband. We had wonderful time those few days. And to celebrate that day we went for an afternoon tea. I know it’s not really special, but for us ‘afternoon tea‘ was making ourselves a drink from lipton tea, raspberry syrup, pieces of orange and dry cloves followed with some home made goods. Especially that prices of afternoon tea in America are quite high.
We did some research and found a place called ‘Secret Garden Tea House‘. It’s located at 721 Lincoln Way, San Francisco right in front of Golden Gate Park whichmakes it much easier to find a parking spot than in the other places. I love how it looks inside – white and pastel colors, rose-pattern everywhere… just my cup of tea! Literally! Too bad my husband said ‘Even I feel it’s too girly for me’. Place by itself is not really big, you could count like 10 tables that’s why you should make a reservation because after 1PM it gets quite crowded. We went there little bit after 12, ending up after 3PM. Why so long, you could ask. Maybe because such an unexperienced people like us went thru online menus of other tea houses and they always mentioned ‘set for 1 person/2 people’ etc. so we just thought we should get two different sets. It was a mistake. Delicious, but still it was mistake.
We decided to take The Bedford’s Delight for 22.95 USD that included a choice of tea, a scone with devon cream and strawberry preserves, eight seasonal tea sandwiches, a sumptous savory, 3 mini tea pastries, tea cookies and fresh fruits (green melon, peach, strawberries, watermelon and kiwi). We also took Afternoon Delight for 18.95 USD with another pot of tea, choice of two full (8 small pieces) seasonal tea sandwiches and mix greens salad with balsamic vinegar dressing which my husband first thought was… a soy sauce.
As my tea I asked for something named Evening in England –an indescribable blend of 20 flowers and herbs. Perfect for relaxing, fragrant. and Sing ordered a Snow Berry – combination flavors of berry, vanilla and cinnamon which later ended up as ‘snow berry hot milk tea’. To be honest I loved both of them. They smelled really well and they tasted delicious. If I really wanted to complain I could only say that the tea was packed, not as leaves. Beside that I cannot really complain. Fruits tasted fresh, pastry was very light and not too sweet.
No country can match the bread from Poland, of course in my opinion, but the choice of sandwiches was pretty good: cucumber hummus, ham & apricot cream, egg salad & sprouts, sweet curry chicken with raisins, turkey and cranberry, mango chutney & cheddar, apple cinnamon and vanilla cheese, tuna salad.My favourite one were the egg and tuna salad, rest was good but sweet so it might not suit taste of some people (‘some people’ a.k.a. ‘omg-I-hate-sweets-Husband’). Whole menu can be found on their site http://secretgardenteahouse.com/. Beside Afternoon Tea they hold a tea parties – we even were sitting close to a lady having her baby-shower. Secret Garden also offers you to buy China, Tea Sets, unique Victorian home decorations and modern vintage accessories, hats, children tea baskets and more. Their stuff looks so beautiful I even wanted to buy it but I will wait for Chirstmas time – it will surely make me feel more like home.
Also in December there will be special Christmas events and Gingerbread Tea Party! You know where you can find me!
I almost forgot – I mentioned before they sell hats… but you can just dress up in them and sit as a classy English lady. It really fun to see little girls running in a huge hats, smiling to everyone. It’s also really funny to see some moms taking selfies in every possible hat. I mean – atmosphere is really great. How it looks, how it smell, how people behave. Service is just stunning – what else I could ask for? I would definitely recommend it to everyone who wants a really good afternoon tea with not too high cost.
As we were so full we decided to take our time and walk around the Golden Gate Park – Secret Garden has a really good location. Maybe they even done that thinking about all those full customers and they just take care of our health? Haha, it surely was a really nice experience.
What was your best afternoon tea experience? Or maybe you know some ‘must see’ places? Please, share! 🙂
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My Mom and I are actually heading to have afternoon tea today here in Hua Hin, Thailand! I guess great minds think alike. Glad you enjoyed your tea time.
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High tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C. is fantastic. But it’s very expensive. I haven’t tried it for about 10 years.
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Sounds like an awesome experience and a perfect way to continue the birthday celebration for your husband!! I am not much of a tea drinker myself but I love a great cup of coffee!!!
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I love Devonshire afternoon teas!
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What an elegant tea time you had! 😀
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Sounds great, gave me an idea to surprise my wife 🙂
We have only one tea house here (possible in the in the whole country…) but it also got dim sum! Each, tea and dim sum alone are reason to visit that place.
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Beautiful, it reminds to the afternoon tea at the Four Seasons…Love it!
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I am not in the United States but here in New Zealand and had a High Tea surprise birthday put on for my birthday back in May. It was to a tea plantation where we learnt how the tea was cultivated and grown and then a tea demonstration where we got to taste all these different blends of tea and finally the high tea to top it all off check out http://www.zealong.com
I thought your place looked gorgeous and just my sort of thing. There is something special about drinking from a bone china cup 😉 Thanks for coming into my blog this week too, its great to have you there 😀
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Some of the best afternoon teas I’ve had have been at home. It helps that I have an awesome wife with whom we can converse about life. Secondly, the water quality isn’t the most clear (literally and figuratively) around this area. Thus, I rely on the beer or locally bought bottled water.
Neat post! Thank you for sharing!
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I’ve only experienced one Tea like this and that was in Ireland. Scones, clotted cream, finger sandwiches and wonderful tea. I loved every minute of it.
Your pictures are wonderful.
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I love the ceremony of afternoon tea !
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Betty’s in The UK!! Oh so lovely 🙂
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Gorgeous, thanks for your like of marykayhongkong.wordpress.com
Happy to see you are enjoying Hong Kong. 🙂
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Reblogged this on HitoshiDragonX2.
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Really nice post! I am also a big fan of afternoon teas, and there are so many possibilities here in London ~ you should come 😉
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