An Unbirthday Dinner at Alice's Tea Cup

A long-standing tradition in my family is that the birthday girl (or boy, if it's my dad) gets to choose a restaurant to celebrate the passing of another year. No one is allowed to complain about the choice. Suck it up, then order up.

Paul and I have continued this tradition. He generally picks a steakhouse (yuck) and I choose some kind of bakery. This year was no exception. We went to Alice's Tea Cup.

As you might expect from an "Alice in Wonderland"-themed restaurant, the place was uber-girly. That's not why we went. We went purely for the scones.

Last year when Paul was out-of-town, I stopped by Alice's for a scone-to-go and thought it was one of the most delicious things I'd ever tasted. The employee even packed me a small plastic container with preserves and cream. Yummy.

This time I went for a tea service for two: three scones, two sandwiches, a dessert, assorted cookies and two pots of tea.


My sandwich -- lapsang souchong smoked chicken breast -- looked simple but tasted amazing, with sliced apples and herbed goat cheese. The lemon tart was OK, although I'm sure the shell was straight from the freezer. The real star of the show, as I suspected, were the scones. Paul was boring and chose a buttermilk scone, and even that was good. I could scarf down the ham and goat cheese scone each day for lunch. And we were so full from everything else that I got to take home the mixed berry scone and eat it for dessert the next day.

So the food was good, but better than that, the place was quaint. Our table was an old sewing machine. We were served on mismatched dinnerware. "Alice" quotes and artwork abounded -- even in the bathroom.

Inside the bathroom

Paul said it was safe to say that it wasn't a place he would have chosen to eat. Mission accomplished.