Random Post: My 30th Birthday Celebration Week, Part 1 - Shakespeare's Corner Shoppe!

My birthday was last Saturday, and let me tell you, I was really anxious/nervous/annoyed/awkward/weird about turning the big 3-0.
I think it had something to do with my mother-in-law telling me stories and planting a seed in my head many years ago about how 30 was the "year she dreaded." Stress via osmosis or something.

Anyways, I was determined to make the most of the week leading up to 30, so we had a few adventures. Here's day 1. I took lots of photos.

On Monday morning, Josh and I went to Shakespeare's Corner Shoppe for an early afternoon tea service. Not just any tea, a proper British tea! Each person gets their own pot of tea, and these were the ones we got. Aren't they adorable?!

We stuck to what we know and like, it being our first time there. I picked a Christmas spiced black tea, my favorite kind., full of cinnamon and some orange/lemon notes. Josh didn't get too wild, either, he chose an Assam black tea, which we had never tried, but smelled so good we just couldn't pass it up. Both of them were amaaaaazing. We tried them every which way: straight up, with milk only, with sugar only, and with milk and sugar. We each had about 6 cups of tea, and didn't come close to finishing the pots. This was legit good tea. We can't wait to go back and get some loose leaf!

A close-up of the teacup I used. So beautiful! The woman who was our server told us that these are imports from England, bone china. Elegant!

Our place settings had these equally gorgeous plates. Look at the cool napkin ring!

Not a great picture, but here's our menu. How it works is you pay a set price, and they bring you a full 3 tiered tray of goodies, but you need to make reservations because they have to buy enough stuff and prepare your food. If you don't call to cancel/don't show up, they charge you anyway, and I understand, it's a waste of ingredients they can't really save since everything is prepped per day in advance.

The tray in all its glory. The top tier was savories, including finger sandwiches and a British sausage roll with Branston pickle, which was my favorite. It was amazing! the earl gray chicken salad sandwich was also good. The second tier was scones and fruit. Third tier was all sweets, including a lavender sponge cake with lemon butter cream and dark chocolate covered honeycomb and apricot. YUMMMM.

By far, though, the best item we had was the scones. Look at it real hard. See the shiny top, the flaky middle, and those raisins? MAN. I could devour 3 of these right now. The photo doesn't do it justice, they were huge! They came with a side of double devonshire cream, which we had never had, but need to find available to buy or make it ourselves. These were delicious. I wish we had asked for lemon curd, I forgot to do so when I made our reservation and was too nervous when we got there. *drool*

So, we had an excellent time at our very first British tea service. We were just thrilled with the selection of food and teas. Our server was such a sweet woman, she really had no problems with talking to us and explaining everything to us, especially since we were the only people there that day and time. We would absolutey go back, and they have having a Harry Potter themed tea in October I have my eye on. If you live in San Diego, we highly recommend Shakespeare's Corner Shoppe for your afternoon tea service!