Elise's Tea Room

This past Saturday, I got a chance to meet a bunch of strangers for tea at Elise's Tea Room in Long Beach, CA. It was an interesting experience as there were ten of us, all from different facades of life, age and nationality.

Elise's Tea Room is situated in a strip mall where the parking is in the rear. I can't say about the neighborhood as I am not familiar with this area of Long Beach and I have never realized how BIG Long Beach is! Anyway, you can park on the street but will be limited to two hours. We ordered the high tea menu which is $ 30.50 per person. A bit steep for an experience with a bunch of strangers but it was nice to try a new place. I love the charm of Elise's Tea Room. It is quite quaint, rustic and vintage....eh...old would be another word I can see some people use. If you are more into the Ritz Carlton high tea dining experience - this place might not be for you but if you like to try different places, whether new or old, modern or rustic, this place should be an add to the list.

I love the red in this chandelier.

We started off with tea! I ordered the darjeeling raspberry tea. There was something else but I forgot the other tea leaf. Anyway, I really liked this tea as it was very light and refreshing.

Your order came with two scones. I chose regular and cranberry. The scones were o.k. I think the scone at Chado Tea in Pasadena was yummier. Our host mentioned that this was considered the "American" tea versus the "English" tea. I guess the difference is that the scones are served first in the American tea. Anyway, these scones were served with Elise's devonshire cream and two different types of jam.

Next up was the cream of asparagus soup. There were no chunks of asparagus in the soup as the host said that the "tea" experience required us to dine a bit more "daintier." I guess the asparagus was grind somewhere in the soup.

After the soup was the salad (nothing memorable about the salad so I did not bother to take a picture). We were supposed to get quiche with this menu but I guess another tea party had reserved or ordered all the quiche. So instead of quiche, we were served soup (picture above) and an extra sandwich, which is a total of seven sandwiches. There are normally six sandwiches. You see six sandwiches below because I ate the other one, which was a salmon sandwich made especially for our group, in lieu of the quiche. I also got two curry chicken (instead of the black olive because I don't like olive), apple pecan on cinnamon bread, cucumber and cream cheese, chives and cream cheese and egg salad. I ended up only eating three sandwiches at the tea place and boxed up the other four for home.

Last but not least, dessert. Each person got to choose his or her own piece of cake. I ordered dulce leche. It was rather rich for my tastbuds.

Overall, it was an enjoyable experience. Would I go back to Elise's Tea Room? Probably not because there are just too many other tea places to try. Oh the service was wonderful! Our host named Marco (who is the sou chef and I think is Elise's husband) is very knowledgable about tea. He's also very knowledgable in everyday conversational topics as well.