Tea and Elephants -- Where Else but the Ritz?

After our disappointing tea at the Peninsula Hotel (which you can read about in the March 31st "Tea, Please" entry), we decided to return for tea to the place we liked best -- the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena. It took us two months to get the reservation but it was quite worth it -- they lived up to our expectations and our memories.

First, they showed us to a table -- none of that couch and coffee table stuff, which is fine for cocktails with a group of friends, but pretty awkward for eating sandwiches and spreading Devonshire cream and jam on scones. SUZANNE said she requested a table when she made the reservation, but I don't think it really mattered.This was a real tea in a dining room, so we were all at tables.

Choosing the actual tea to drink was difficult for me because they all sounded so delicious. Should I have the Wild Blackberries China tea? Or the Bleu Peacock Oolong China and Formosa Blend with a hint of almond, vanilla, and citrus? Or should I have the Vanilla Bean Ceylon and China Black tea with Madagascar vanilla and caramel. In the end, I chose the blackberry.



And even though it looks like Suzanne is studying the menu, she had her Golden Egyptian chamomile again -- not very adventurous, but I think she said her allergies were acting up. You could smell the blackberry all the way across the table, it was that wonderfully strong. And very nice -- I drank a lot of it. I was a bit disconcerted that they didn't leave the pot of tea on the table, because I'm pretty much of a chain tea drinker and don't like to be without tea in my cup. But they wanted to keep it warm and they did re-appear regularly to refill the cups. So I have no complaints in that department. In fact, they may have gone through a few teabags because we were there for quite a while... not that we were malingering, but we did what we did last time -- we loved the sandwiches so much that we ordered a second batch.

We both got the Traditional teas. There was a more expensive Royal tea, but that's because it has champagne with it and I don't drink much any more for health reasons. The Royal also had a fresh California strawberries and vanilla whipped cream (with a choice of Grand Marnier or Chambord) dessert, but they give you so much sugar in the Traditional that I really didn't need any more. Still, if they offered a tea between the Traditional and the Royal that would have offered the California strawberries and vanilla whipped cream dessert and not the champagne, we would have opted for that.

As you can see, they brought us a tray that had two tiers of sandwiches in its three tiers and the sweets were all crowded onto the bottom tier. Usually it's the other way around. If you look at the Peninsula's spread, you can see there is only one tier of sandwiches, one tier of sweets, and a tier of scones. This suited me better because I like the sandwiches best. The scones are smaller at the Ritz so they can share the tier with the sweets, but that's okay -- scones are one of my least favorite foods. It's one of the foods I don't think the Brits get right.

So we each got our own tier of sandwiches. My favorite was the Norweigian smoked salmon with caper cream and tomato dill relish on squaw bread. The salmon was not even salty and almost melted in your mouth. Suzanne's favorite was the nice juicy fat poached gulf shrimp with citrus cream, mandarin orange and sprouts on sour dough bread. This was my second favorite.

I wasn't fond of the fresh parma ham but they were smart enough to add roasted apple chutney and dried apricot on walnut raisin bread. And the raisin bread made up for the lacks in the ham. Interestingly enough, Suzanne like that one and didn't care for the wheel of egg with herb mousse and ground basil on toasted walnut rye bread. She doesn't like caraway, but since I was brought up on that kind of rye bread (usually with corned beef stuck between), I loved it.

Much as I love cucumber sandwiches, I have to say I have had better than the marinated cucumber with Boursa mousse and watercress on Brioche bread they served here. It wasn't bad, just not as good as it could be.

Like I said, I'm not fond of scones. But to my delight, they had blackberry jam. I think it was two marmalades and one blackberry and we quickly told the waiter, we needed more blackberry, so he brought us four little jars. I was in heaven. Oddly enough, they didn't give us the Devonshire cream and we had to ask for it. But it was heavenly Devonshire cream, not the clotted cream that looks like butter, which they served at Peninsula. I put the Devonshire cream on practically everything I wouldn't ruin the taste of. I'm surprised I didn't gain 10 lbs just from that alone. Blackberry jam and Devonshire cream got me through the scones.

That's when we ordered the second batch of sandwiches -- they came out with only one tray of one each finger sandwich. And I was like, excuse me, what's this? Suzanne suggested we could share, but I quickly pointed out, I wanted the shrimp AND the salmon. Suzanne promptly ordered a second tray, so we could each have our own again.

Okay, so I wasn't playing nice and I was being a pig, but I didn't really care. This was somewhat of a celebration anyway, because Suzanne has finished school in her new career and is moving back to Michigan... It might take me a while to find another tea buddy, so it didn't quite matter if this tea cost us a lot.

Did I mention that the finger sandwiches are scrumptious and well worth it?

We both agreed that the raspberry almond mousse and the blueberry with cookie crumbles tart were the best of the sweets, although once again we differed in their ranks. I said blueberry first, raspberry second and Suzanne ranked them the other way around. Of course, MY blueberry tart not only had the cookie crumbles on top, but Devonshire cream -- I did say I put it on everything I could. The other sweets were a regular assortment of milk chocolate and lemon torte, Cream Boulee, Almond orange Pain Turk, black and white cookies (far too sweet), chocolate madelienes (yea) and lemon poppyseed cake (which went great with blackberry jam and Devonshire cream - big smile).

Eventually we had eaten to satisfaction. I told the waiter that there was only one thing more he could have had to make the tea even more perfect -- that is, a warm roast beef on puff pastry that we had at the Rose Tree Cottage, an English store/teahouse in Pasadena. It isn't a traditional tea food, but it sure is good.

As we walked through the hotel, we had seen many women and girls dressed in gorgeous and colorful saris. We saw this one guy in a gold beaded coat and pants. We marveled at the gorgeous patterns and since I love clothes and colors, I was envious of every one of them.

As we finished our tea, drums started beating and we discovered that there was a Hindu wedding going on in the garden. It was quite a spectacular sight.

In the middle of this hotel garden in Pasadena, California, there was a live elephant carrying the guy in the gold beaded outfit whom we had previous seen in the hotel. He and a young companion rode into the garden amid drum rolls and chanting. Yes, the real live animal. This was obviously not a cheap wedding. All the groom's guests gathered around the elephant, singing and dancing -- raising their hands to the sky. The bride's guests gathered off to the side.

Meanwhile, hotel staff was dropping fuchsia pink rose petals along the path to the tent where they would be married.

To dismount, they brought the groom a ladder and amid a fanfare, he climbed down.

Since I don't know what a Hindu bride looks like -- among all the gorgeous fancy dresses we saw, I don't know if we saw her or not. I wanted to stay a bit and see the bride -- that is, until the announcer told the guests to get some refreshments because it would be a few hours before the wedding ceremony happened.

Apparently, these kind of weddings can go on for days... and maybe that's why it was happening at the hotel... maybe they all had rooms there and were planning to stay the weekend.

As for us, we left at that point.

And guess what? We felt no need to go get a Chicago hotdog at Taste Chicago to assuage our disappointment, like we did after tea at the Peninsula.