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.

Tea, please!

The Anglofile in me was overjoyed when I discovered a friend, who, because of her half-British heritage, shared the same love of dressing up and going to tea. So every few months we get together and try out a new place in LA to have tea. After all, there are a lot of Brits in LA, especially in the entertainment industry. However, through our forays into tea time, I think I've seen more Asians having tea parties than Brits.

Anyway, my friend, SUZANNE CUPAL, suggested that we celebrate my birthday by having High Tea at Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, this time. I was certainly game for this -- the only difference being that we had to celebrate my birthday three weeks early because her dad, HENRY, was in town and wanted to come along on what he called 'a chick thing.' Well, the Brits might see it as a cultural ceremony for all civilized folks, but the red-blooded, meat and potatoes, whiskey-swilling American male sees it as 'a chick thing.'

I love her dad. He's eighty this year, but he's robust and healthy enough to get about and do things... he may be a little slow-moving with age and a little watching his diet due to bypass heart surgery, but he's fun to be with and robust enough to do things with. I miss that with my own dad... for the last few years that I visited him, we couldn't go anywhere... his eyesight was too bad and he was too afraid of falling... and I never pushed it because the one time I took him to the mall to get him new pants, as easy as we took it, he came back to have a heart attack at lunch, in front of me. And that is something you don't want to experience, a loved one having a heart attack in front of you and feeling impotent to stop it.

I also love talking to Henry. He was an engineer before he retired... worked for GM in Michigan. And more importantly he was an MP during the Korean war... and I love to hear him talk about being an MP, especially when he describes himself as a green, wet-behind-the ears country kid who didn't know anything suddenly thrust into the military police because he could read and write and was better educated than anyone else in the unit.

But I digress... back to tea at the Peninsula Hotel. As you can see, it is quite the nice place. We arrived early so I had time to take plenty of photographs. I didn't get to follow the paths to see if there were gardens but I liked the fountain.

The harpist played well, although before we were done with tea, she was gone and someone was playing the piano. Not as nice.

Being early also gave me a chance to scope out the place. As you can see, they have their teas in their atrium lounge... with large, and I'm certain, comfortable couches, for people to gather and chat. Which, though lovely, I'm sorry, is not quite what I want for tea.

I don't want to be constantly leaning over, reaching for the sandwiches and sweets, dribbling the jams and clotted creams over my lap. I love lounge settings, and soft lighting, and music -- for drinks, when I'm cuddling up with an attractive male date, not for tea with a female friend and her dad.

Luckily, I spied some cute little tables in the corner... one with three chairs around it and one with four. So I went to the hostess to alert her that I wanted a table. Suzanne had indicated that we would probably be put on the small side couches inside the door. Picture something that looks like one side of a booth... or what you wait on before entering the restaurant. Just because they had cocktail tables in front of them didn't make them look inviting or comfortable. So I decided to tell the hostess what I wanted.

What she told me was interesting. She said that tables were reserved for parties of 10 or more. To which I promptly pointed out the small tables in the corner and said no way do those handle 10 people. Then she indicated that those tables were requested specifically by people more than two weeks ago. Well, I know that Suzanne made the reservation well over a month ago -- it isn't easy matching our schedules and this time we had to take into consideration when Henry was coming. I, of course, mentioned this to her, but I conceded that Suzanne probably had not specifically requested a table... after all, who would know you had to? The Hostess said that people who had been there before knew to do so -- not exactly the kind of answer that would prompt me to return.

When she pointed out the booth-like seating near the front as where they were planning to put us, I told her no way was I having tea, sitting in the through way to the restrooms. That I wasn't going to let her slough us off in such an undesirable place. We went back and forth a bit, since she was claiming that the two small tables I was talking about, although empty, were booked, but I stuck to my guns. She requested 10 minutes to see what she could do and requested we be seated in the undesirable place. I told her that we would while she sorted things out, but no way was I having tea there. And when a waiter came to put the place settings on the cocktail table in front of us, I waved him away, saying we weren't having tea there.

I don't know what Suzanne or Henry wanted because they said nothing, except the birthday girl gets her choice. I can't believe they would have liked being shoved in the corner booth where we'd be interrupted by everyone going down the hallway to the restrooms and hotel facilities, but they chose to keep quiet.

After about 10 minutes, the hostess came back and took us to the small table seating three. The other table which seated four had three people already there. That was fine, since there were only three of us. I was quite happy with it. It was lovely and private -- just what you wanted for tea, especially at the prices they were charging us. Don't mind paying for value.

We had a good time there. I had caramel pear tea which was delightful. It had a strong enough aroma that Suzanne could smell it and compliment its fragrance. They were less venturesome and chose chamomile tea. I could drink mine all day. Suzanne and Henry gave thumbs up on theirs as well. Hence, I'd be the first to say that the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills served excellent tea.

We ordered what they called the Full Tea. There were a couple of higher priced teas, but those came with alcohol, which none of us drink any more, for various health-related reasons. If they had had one with the fresh strawberries without the alcohol, we would have gone for it.

Unfortunately, the food was not up to the promise of the tea or the surroundings. I'm never a good judge of scones, since I rarely like them -- too heavy for me -- but the cream looked more like butter than cream, let alone clotted cream. In fact, I even asked where the cream was and Suzanne pointed to what I thought was butter. Instead of sugar cubes, we got the same packets of sugar/sweet&low/equal one finds in most restaurants.

The finger sandwiches were so-so. I liked the salmon and the chicken salad one. And the egg salad one was decent, but I was disappointed there were no cucumber ones -- which I love. What is a British tea without cucumber sandwiches? Putting a slice of cucumber on top the salmon is not the same thing. They also had an odd finger sandwich -- all raw vegetables -- which I didn't care much for, but Suzanne and Henry liked it.

The sweets were okay, but sparse. I can't think of anything to write home about there.

All in all, the company was great and we enjoyed ourselves in the pretty surroundings, but Suzanne and I both agreed that we have had better teas. Henry, being on his second visit to his so-called 'chick thing', had no vote. We both agreed that our favorite teas are still the Rose Garden in Pasadena... a tiny British store with an adjacent teahouse and best of all, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pasadena. And that we were both somewhat disappointed with the Peninsula tea. So much so that Suzanne suggested we take another trip to the Ritz Carlton tea in a few weeks.

As we were driving home, Suzanne remarked that she felt unsatisfied by the tea. I knew what she meant -- it wasn't exactly a high spot. She had been wanting to try a Chicago hotdog and wished that we could do that, since she'll be leaving LA soon. I didn't see why we couldn't do that, even though it did feel a little piggish to be eating again right after tea... did I say we weren't satisfied by the tea?

So we drove to my favorite place for authentic and excellent Chicago cuisine, Taste Chicago in Burbank, owned by Joe Mantegna, whom I worked with on Joan of Arcadia. When going over my receipts for income tax time, I found so many from Taste Chicago that I'd be embarrass to admit how many times I was there last year, never by myself and often with people as crazy about the place as I am. But Taste Chicago has the real thing: Vienna Beef hotdogs, with onions and mustard and tomato slices on poppyseed buns, sprinkled with celery salt if you wish (and peppers if you're nuts). But most important, they have the dark green relish that I remember on my Chicago hotdogs in Chicago, not the pale green stuff you buy in supermarkets. You have to ask for it -- they call it 'neon relish' here -- but it's worth the trip all by itself.

Of course, Henry protested as we dragged him inside Taste Chicago that he was full from the tea and we told him that was okay, he could order something and take it home for lunch the next day -- after all, it is a take-out as well as eat-there place. Then I heard him say, "They have Italian beef here?"

"They have great Italian beef here," I answered. I've had it... it's wonderful, but I like the hotdogs even more. Chicago is known for its Italian beef and this is as good as it gets.

"Okay," he said, "I'll have a bite and take the rest home." He had it polished off even before we had our hotdogs done. So much for a bite because he was full and take the rest home.

Now Joe Mallozzi would probably say I should have taken a photograph of the hotdog... and I would have, if I had thought about it -- from the time I got it in my hot little hands, my only thought was of consuming it.

We both agreed, though, that we were now satisfied and happy. A truly great ending to a birthday celebration.

For those of you who are celebrity watchers, while we were waiting for the Peninsula Hotel valets to get our car, Tony Bennet and his family were waiting right beside us. He looks hale and hearty as well.