Tea time!

I got a coupon for 1/2 off High Tea at the Laurel Court in the Fairmont Hotel (big, old, fancy hotel on Nob Hill) so Neil and I ascended the hill to rub elbows with the fancy types on Sunday. Unfortunately, we didn't get the memo that you are supposed to dress for high tea. We both showed up in nice enough shirts, and then jeans. Eveyone else had a dress on (because everyone else there was a woman). Once we sat down, we looked okay, but I'm pretty sure the maître d' thought we were lost when we first wandered in.

I've done the whole tea thing with my mom and sister a few times. There is a little farm out in the middle of nowhere up by my parents house called the Pomeroy House that does a traditional afternoon English tea and I just love it. The little tea sandwiches are adorable (and tasty) and the scones are buttery deliciousness and there are always good selections of teas.

This tea was even more of a treat, because it was in the Laurel Court, which is super-beautiful and fancy and every now and then - shhh, don't tell - I like to pretend that I'm fancy. Fancy without a dress, though, of course. Neil was actually very keen on the idea as well - he likes things like little finger sandwiches and I think - shh, don't tell - that he likes to feel fancy every now and then, too.

We forgot to bring a camera, so I stole some images from the interwebs. Here is the Laurel Court, right off the beautiful lobby of the hotel:

We actually sat at the table right in front of that big mirror.

I chose the Fairmont Blend tea, so I'm not really sure what was in it, or what kind of tea it was, but it ended up being really fabulous, with cream and honey. Neil chose the Earl Gray which neither of us really liked that much - it was very flowery and the floral scent before I took a sip just almost made me a little bit nauseous. Interestingly, every other table around us had really pretty little silver teapots. We got some dumpy old ceramic teapots. Perhaps it was the jeans? I'm sure the tea tastes the same no matter what it is served in. The tea leaves are loose in the pot, and so they had this little silver strainer that sat on top of the teacup, and you pour the tea through it to catch any stray leaves. Then there was a precious little silver cup that the strainer sat in after you were finished with it.

After our server brought our teapots, he brought out our little tray of teatime treats. Isn't it beautiful?

There were five different types of tea sandwiches. Here was the menu:

Smoked Salmon and Chive Cream Cheese Pinwheel on Rye Bread
Five-Spice Beef Tenderloin and Lady Apple Slaw on Black Olive Baguette
Dungeness Crab and Mango Salad on a Corn Muffin
Coconut Curry Chicken on a Mini Herb Roll
Cucumber and Sonoma Goat Cheese with Sun Dried Tomato Tapenade on Black Walnut Bread

My favorite was the Beef Tenderloin and Neil's was the Crab Salad on the corn muffin. But they were all super-delicious. I didn't try one that I didn't like.

On the next tier were our scones, accompanied by pots of Devonshire Cream (like delicious, richer, whipped cream), lemon curd and pear compote. Just heavenly. I'm not usually a huge fan of lemon curd, but this stuff was magnificent. I did a combination of cream and lemon curd on one bit of scone and I will just say, wow...

By this time, we'd drunk about 6 cups of tea a piece, but we forged ahead onto the last tier, the dessert platter with an assortment of pastries. I don't remember exactly what was presented, but there was a madeline, which was okay, a fruit tart (mine had a blackberry on it that was severely underripe, dampening my experience a bit), a cheesecake tart thing that was excellent, a coffee/tiramisu/bar thingy that I could have eaten a boatload of, and finally, we ended with chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup which was so amazing that I almost cried when it was gone. It melted in your mouth to a luscious, rich chocolate heaven that just slid effortlessly down your throat. Mmm, I'm starting to salivate just thinking about it right now.

It ended up really being a lot of food, and a lot of tea, and they practically had to roll us out of the Laurel Court when we were finished. We browsed around the hotel for awhile afterwards - it has amazing views of the rest of San Francisco, because it sits right up on the crest of Nob Hill - and then we headed back down the hill to return to the commoners.  Because neither of us had cash for a bus fare for Neil, we walked all the way home. It was an unceremonious, fitting return to our regular life.

But for a couple of hours, we were fancy...