Table: High Tea at La Petite Cuillère
Today my friends and I gathered together in honour of a birthday celebration at La Petite Cuillère. It was a really rainy day that was pouring down buckets but I dressed up for the occasion anyways. I'm glad my shoes didn't get soaked on the walk over!
The place is located at 55 Kingsway near the Mount Pleasant Community Centre. It's a cornershop and the inside is very cute and old-fashioned kind of decor with classical music playing. Upon entering there was a handy little umbrella stand to the right with lots of umbrellas already there!
They have lots of cabinets with tea sets displayed, with lights inside to illuminate the chinaware. Near the entrance, the cabinets have signs saying that the cups inside are for sale and to inquire if interested.
The table is set attractively with linens, and they seem to make sure that nothing matches on the table (barring the plate underneath the cup or sugar bowl):
My friend had ordered the afternoon tea set which is described as "Enjoy a full service of three miniature sweets, three finger sandwiches, two miniature scones, mini loaf, tea biscuit, fruit preserves, and Devonshire cream. Served on a traditional three tier stand with your choice of tea from our premium loose leaf tea selection." I had done some homework and looked up the list of teas, so I already knew what I wanted to try which was the Mango Green Tea. My second pick would have been the Earl Grey Cream, of which two of my friends ordered. The other tea to grace the table was the Coconut Rooibos Tea. We were each served our own teapot with a cuddlesome cozy, and those ordering black teas (which was everyone but me) were given the option of cream or milk as accompaniment:
When poured, my tea was a pale yellow, and had a light and somewhat flowery scent. The taste was very delicate and refreshing, and with a cube of sugar the mango taste became more pronounced. The mango, I was pleased to find, was not the artificial kind of flavour, but a very light hint. If you're looking for something that stands up and kicks your tastebuds as "mango", this tea is probably not for you. I didn't get a picture of my friend's Earl Grey Cream, but I sampled it and found it much stronger and almost overly spiced after the delicate green tea I had. When poured it was a darker amber-brown colour and had strong wafts of bergamot and lavender floating up my nose. I scented the Coconut Rooibos and it smelled very strongly of cinnamon.
The pastries arrived on a three tiered stand.
Bottom tier: 2x cucumber sandwich triangles, croissant with chicken and cheese, herbed foccacia with smoked salmon and asparagus, clotted cream/devonshire cream, raspberry jam
Middle tier: banana loaf, 2x raisin and apricot? scones, butter biscuit
Top tier: pistachio macaron, blueberry tart, black and white cheese mousse cake
The cucumber sandwich was pretty straightforward. It wasn't spiced with anything, it tasted of the bread and cucumber.
The croissant was a little greasy and I had to wipe my fingers after handling it, but it was tasty. The chicken was nice and moist, and the cheese complimented everything well.
My favourite of the bottom tier, the herbed foccacia and smoked salmon was very tasty! I loved the little asparagus bits inside. They were cooked very tenderly and were very nice and sweet, which I really enjoyed. I'm lucky enough to not be able to taste that supposedly off-putting bitterness that asparagus has. However, I have on occasion eaten asparagus that was overcooked or something because I have tasted some bitterness, but I was pleased to find that the asparagus in this sandwich was sweet and delicious.
Moving upwards, I had the scone with I slopped plenty of cream and jam on top. It should be of note that upon tasting the cream, it turned out not to be devonshire cream but some variant of sour cream (thickened with sugar? not quite sure). It was still very tasty and delicious though, and when you consider that traditional devonshire cream is made with unpasteurised milk, which I don't think is allowed for commercial sale in Canada, it's forgivable that there wouldn't be "authentic" clotted cream on the table. The combination was delicious. It seemed like a typical scone and wasn't extraordinary.
Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the loaf and the biscuit, but the loaf was very pleasant and moist with a strong taste of banana. It wasn't too dense, but neither was it crumbly. The biscuit was nice and buttery and it didn't crumble when I was taking bites out of it.
On the last tier I started with the macaron. I'm pretty infamous for not liking them, as I find them overly sweet (and I can't understand why they are such a huge fad anyways... sure it requires a bit of mechanical technique to get them right, but it's just a ganache with a meringue, which isn't anything special... okay, rant aside). The birthday girl noted that the meringue was done well because there weren't any air pockets and it was of uniform density. It had pistachio bits scattered on the macaron, and the flavour came through. But like usual, the middle ganache was very sweet.
I moved on to the blueberry tart, which I found was well-executed. The tart base was not too crumbly, but separated easily under knife and fork. The inside used real blueberries, and they were the small and rich kind that had very nice flavour.
The cream cheese cake came topped with cream cheese butter frosting. The main cake was like a light mousse and not the heavy and decadent piece I was expecting. However, it was good that it was light because I was super stuffed by the end! The base was a tiny light sponge layer of vanilla/plain cake.
If I had the hankering for tea time frivolities then I'd probably come back. As my first experience with high tea in Vancouver, it was a good one! Earlier last year I had wanted to go to Fur Elise downtown because Anata said their cakes were super yum, but I never seem to find the time :( so instead this was my first tea in Vancouver and I was not disappointed!
Website: http://www.lapetitecuillere.ca/
