Silver Cat Tea Party: Bernie Dexter toile

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to get to celebrate the upcoming Christmas season with some old friends

We decided to go to the English Rose in nearby Pleasanton since this is one that I've told one of my friends so much about! It was kind of a late time for tea but our appointment (the last available table open for that day) was for 4pm. We arrived to gorgeous festivities not only at the tea room but also all along the downtown Pleaseanton area.

Upon arrival, our cozy table was set up and waiting for us decked out with a tangerine ambrosia salad and a sugar cookie for each of us. While we perused the tea selection deciding on which tea we would like the tea server came around with a pot of their seasonal candy cane tea for samples. She soon then came around again with warm moist towels for us to use before our tea service began.

The tea spread was a lovely prix fixe menu for the holiday season. It started with the sugar cookie and tangerine ambrosia salad and was soon followed by a three tiered plate of five assorted tea sandwiches which included a cucumber sandwich, egg salad sandwich on wheat, chicken salad on butter croissant, a sweet and savory wrap, and a basil and tomato filo, then there were two savories, a fresh scone accompanied by lemon curd, clotted cream, and strawberry preserves, a mini raspberry tart cake, mini mocha cheesecake, chocolate coconut petit four, grapes and slices of oranges, all finished with a small tiramisu. I'm sorry to say I forgot to take pictures of the small tiramisu but I am not sorry I ate it.

While it was a fine tea, there were some things that I had a bit of gripe about. For instance, the menu itself, while seeming a bit fuller than their usual tea fair, did not really seem to come with any special Christmas theme in mind which was a little disappointing. Another aspect of this tea which caused me a bit of heartache is that for the Christmas season the English Rose added an extra seating to their usual three seatings for Saturdays but because they had more seatings than usual it seemed they also rushed us out a bit faster than usual. I am one that really likes to eat slowly and enjoy my meal for any meal time but especially more so while out to tea. I feel like tea should be a leisurly affair and should not be rushed. It was sad to see that during a holiday tea when you have even more reason than usual to relax and enjoy celebrating with good company, that it would be a somewhat rushed affair. Another change that the English Rose did during their holiday tea which I did not care for was that they only allowed two tea pots per table at a time, meaning each of the guests had to agree and pick teas to share. While they let us change out the tea as often as we liked, I found it made things a bit difficult. I'm usually really careful about getting decaffeinated or herbal teas when I go out for tea but since we were all sharing teapots it made it especially tricky to control this while still be gracious to the friends I was out with.

Overall though, despite my misgivings about the seasonal changes the English Rose made, we had a lovely time out to tea out celebrating the Christmas season and enjoying good company. I will definitely come back to the English Rose again but will probably skip their Christmas tea in the future.

Outfit of the Day:
For this day's festivities I chose to wear something that would be in a bit of a Christmas theme. I picked my Bernie Dexter Sugar Doll dress in Red Toile which I bought a couple months ago from a friend. I paired it with a red cardigan I got several years ago from Nordstrom Rack, red Ecco flats I found on ebay, a red toggle button overcoat I got a couple years ago from Target, and white ankle socks. To keep extra warm, I also wore nude tights under my socks. For finishing touches I wore a lollipop necklace I bought recently on sale at Macy's available here and red ruby and diamond stud earrings my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas a few years ago.