Our 32nd Spot:

Son & Garden

535 Bryant Street Palo Alto, CA 94301

www.sonandgarden.com

[Again, my Spots are not misnumbered. Read our last Blog Post for full explanation.]

Since I had an unexpected hospitalization, I had to reschedule this Tea from last month. All over the confirmation emails, it says “nonrefundable” or “cannot be modified”…so I thought I was gonna have a hard time. Thankfully, the owner or manager I spoke with was so kind about the whole thing. It was easy to change my reservation, and she even understood me well all through my labored speaking voice.

You can see ALL THOSE FLOWERS from the sidewalk. I got there before my girls, and checked us in…taking all the hundreds of florals in. I could hear Miley in my head! Smaller venue than what I expected. I don’t know why or how these instagram posts or TikToks make these places look more massive and luxurious than they actually are…? Hashtag, click-bait…or wait, visit-bait! 😛

I’m so glad we made it in time for their Cherry Blossom Tea Service. Even tho I didn’t specifically know what it entailed, I just love that whole vibe. My daughter is big into cherry blossoms. Sometimes I call her “Sakura” and she answers to it! Hehe. We did that in Japantown once, and people kept looking at us as if in awe that we picked that for her name!! Her actual middle name IS in Japanese, chosen by my husband (who is infatuated with the culture).

Soon after our party was seated, they brought over their Welcome Drink: Spring Time (Japanese Sakura Flower, Fruity & Floral, Lemon, Bubbly Water). I only had a sip. It was pretty tho, came in a cute square glass cup, had 1 blossom floating around…very aesthetic. It was nice, sweet. And I love Welcome Stuff!! Have you ever watched that Vacation show on Netflix?! Every time they got to a new rental, they had Arrival Appetizers waiting on the counter for them! I was fascinated. I love Arrival Appetizers!! (can you tell?)

I had this place Pinned on a Board for a while. Looked really cute, had this funky appeal. Happy to’ve added it on the Tour, of course! Then I saw this ad or post somewhere of something called a “Bobamosa”. Looked so cool and the promo was so eye-catching! My Assistant (I don’t really have one, that’s just my gf’s nickname hehe) loves boba, so I showed her. Of course she’d be invited to this Tea. And of course she ordered it! We saw all these cool drinks coming out, with moss all over them and branches sticking out! Those weren’t her’s tho. Oh, here her’s came. Oh. She said it was just okay… Fully champagne (no juice involved) with strawberry popping boba. Here’s the promo, and here’s what she got… Not our first Instagram vs. Reality moment with this Spot.

You saw the table we were working with right? No tiers at this place. No, this Tea Spot presented their tea party food on CARTS!! Ugh, could you just die at all this floral cuteness!!?! I can’t. I couldn’t, then. We took all the videos + pictures + boomerangs we could! I joked with our table, “we can eat in about ten minutes!” Haha. Oh! I forgot to mention who I brought with me!? Okay, so- my Assistant (the boba-lover), and 2 dear dear friends (mother + daughter, but their relationship is so sweet they could be Besties!) that I’ve wanted to hang out with for a while now. Mom + sweet girl have never been to Tea, so Firsties!! (jazz hands emoji) So, they bring TWO of these carts out AND 2 medium size plates of scones + pastries. Where are we supposed to put all this stuff?? We manage to find room…but I could barely see my friend!? Haha. I have to like duck or reach over flowers, if I want to have any kind of communication with her!

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Matcha Scone – These were the most gorgeous looking scones I’ve ever seen at a tea service! A beautiful shade of green, if I do say so myself. And they came out warm! (I love having warm fresh scones!!) Took my first bite…oh. So dry + crumbly! And really lacked flavor. Someone from our table said they “tasted like burnt matcha”. Yikes. I went to wash it down with my t- hold on, I don’t have tea?? Isn’t this a TEA party?! Let me back up- first of all (ooh, you know it’s bad when someone starts with those 3 words huh), if you scroll up a bit you can see a little leaf thing sticking out our teacups. They had a TEABAG sitting in the cup. I wanna say I was introduced to this brand at the last SF Tea Fest I went to…or maybe it was a sample that was sent to me. But I don’t think I was very impressed, or I would have remembered. So it was just that one tea type. And it was just sitting there.

In the cup.

Looking at me,

choking on my dry burnt matcha scone. Haha!

Dood! We were well into passed a half an hour of our tea service with no tea man!? Come on! I had to request water for it. Now I’ve had Cherry Blossom teas before (oh yeah, that was the flavor of this tea…surprise!) The St. Regis serves a really good one, but my favorite and a staple at home is Harney & Sons. This one was just full on cherry flavor. Not much to it.

Okay (sigh), for the rest of this tea service I’m gonna go relatively fast. There’s a lot of items they served, but not really much to say about any of em…unfortunately. This is verbatim what I wrote in my phone about each of these… You’ll see what I mean at the end of this post. Just wait for it.

Ham & Cheese Danish – dry + crispy

Cucumber + Dill Sandwich – crunchy cucumbers, didn’t like the cream

Egg Salad + Chive Sandwich – nice, comforting, needs salt (tho one person at our table didn’t think so 😉 )

Salmon + Cream Cheese + Dill – LOTS of it (let me expand on this… the ratio was not good, salmon was overpowering); this was a favorite of one of my girls however, so it was nice to see her enjoying it! OH! And we had fun with that edible butterfly! “It’s EDIBLE you know!!”

There were ELEVEN sweet things to their FIVE savory things. Here we go…

Raspberry Sorbet – very sweet, someone said it reminded them of “Jamba Juice”; I thought this was more of a cutesy thing

Orange Blossom Honey Madeleine – dense but nice flavor, like the frosting thing on top

Lemon Tart – nice pastry, a little too much lemon for me, artificial lemon

Chocolate Raspberry Tart – artificial flavors

Macaron – this was the only thing I liked, I think it was vanilla

Assorted Petite Pastries – [round] dry, crumbly, bland; [square] had fun crispies

Opera Cake – good, coffee

Whew! We’re done, we made it. There was just so much to try. I forgot to mention on the onset just how overwhelmed we were in the beginning. They packed those carts so full. And you would think that was a good thing, but most of the items lacked quality in flavor. Everything was more “CUTE” than good. There were quite a few pieces my friends didn’t even get to. And no one really wanted to take anything home either. I reluctantly did, cuz I don’t like to waste. I literally just took ONE BITE out of each thing just so I could write about it. I mean, look!! Evidence!

Overall, this Spot is more of a ‘trendy’ ‘instagram’ ‘tiktok’ place to me. I mean, one of their corners even has a neon sign and a ring light!!? (monkey closing eyes emoji) Food was mediocre. Service was good. If you ask me (this is where my husband would start on his spiel about Tea Houses and Tea Rooms needing to hire me as a Tea Consultant!!), I would cut down on your offerings and just focus on maybe 7 or 8 really GOOD things. They fall into the category of having a tea service just to have a tea service, if you know what I mean. Oh that’s another thing- they only offer it on weekdays and last seating is at 1p/1:30p. (eh emoji) For the price we paid, I expected more… My takeaway: I’m glad I got to spend time with my girls! Can’t wait to take them to a better one next time.

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