My Cup of Tea

Spending a couple of hours strolling through Mission San Juan Capistrano’s gardens and the Los Rios Historic district (the oldest neighborhood in California) makes a body hungry. We had hoped to lunch at a tea house located in the Los Rios area; however, we did not make reservations. It is probably just as well because when we passed the place it was packed, rather loud, and pretty high priced ($15 for a sandwich). We continued our meandering for another half an hour when my son voiced his wish to eat. We agreed and began searching for something interesting that wouldn’t break the budget. We did not succeed. As we wound our way back toward the car, we checked posted menus as every eatery along the way (and there were a number of them), but all of them had standard fare like chicken sandwiches and fries in the $13 to $15 price range with better options (think fish and tropical salsa) in the $20 range. We also noticed that these places did not have separate lunch and dinner menus, which discouraged us since we just couldn’t bring ourselves to pay what they were asking. Thus, with heavy sighs, we opted for fast food saving these restaurants for another time when we’re feeling flush.


Opting out of burgers we chose Arby’s, which offers food that isn’t fried. The guys opted for multiple plain roast beef sandwiches with some mozzarella sticks on the side. I tried one of the new chicken salad deli sandwiches. It was $5, but quite large and probably similar to the kind I would have paid $13 for at the tea shop. The chicken salad was excellent with chunks of chicken, halved purple grapes, bits of apple, and chopped pecans held together with enough mayo to make it moist, but not so much that everything else was drowning. The only thing that would have made it better is a good dose of black pepper to contrast with the sweetness. A good sized portion of this salad was stuffed between two Texas-toast sized pieces of whole grain bread along with some leafy romaine. By the end of lunch we were satisfied with our choice since the entire thing set us back about $20, even after the guys got seconds!

Refreshed and sated, we decided to stroll through the nearby town of San Clemente where local shops run along a strip of road that leads to the pier. A lovely breeze blows along the sidewalks which are adorned by hanging baskets overflowing with flowers, planters by shop doors, and many benches where weary tourists can sit a spell in the shade. By the time we had wended our way through numerous antique shops, interesting little jewelry stores, and the public library’s sidewalk sale, we were ready for more refreshments. Since we had been disappointed at the tea house in Los Rios and had gone low ticket on lunch we decided to splurge on dessert at an unassuming little tea shop along the walkway. Here Jeff and I ordered a “cream tea” combo which consisted of a large pot of tea (about 6 cups), two warm blueberry scones dusted with powdered sugar (served with crème fraiche and jam), and a plate of seasonal fruit including kiwi, strawberries, papaya, and red grapes all cut into beautiful little bites and arranged artfully on a dish before being garnished with the thinnest slices of red and green apple I ever seen. We chose a chocolate orange tea from a list that had to have included at least 150 varieties of tea. Of course, the entire thing was served on beautiful mismatched china at garden tables set with linen napkins. While our son did not share our enthusiasm for tea service, he did enjoy a lovely piece of strawberry swirled cheesecake served with a scoop of ice cream and drizzled with extra strawberry sauce. None of us left hungry and this excursion cost us $25 including tax and tip, so we vowed that tomorrow’s evening meal would be grilled chicken on our patio following a day at our favorite beach – Crystal Cove.