Tea & Sympathy New York

Frank, Sean and Pat. West Village urchins.

Lately, I have needed tea and I have needed sympathy and today I got both.

Sean spotted 4 open seats at this very popular West Village brunch spot. It is a British restaurant which you would think would suggest plenty of availability, but they (the Brits) do breakfast like no others.

Tea & Sympathy evokes all those cloyingly awful descriptors: quaint, cozy, charming - but in the most wonderful deserved way.

This place is a KEEPER. Like I wrote about Kefi the other day, I will keep this place on my list of really wonderful New York dining spots. I had "The Full Monty" (naff name I have to say) breakfast which was eggs, sausage, bacon (the British kind) and tomahhhhto and MOST EXCELLENT 7 grain toast. And fresh-squeezed OJ. And the Earl Grey tea was wonderful. $14.40 all in which sadly is a really good price.


Everything I had was wonderful. And I tasted the scones (we always pronounced them "skawns" growing up, but most Americans say "skOHns" which I have a hard time hearing for some reason. Get over it, I know.) They were really the real deal. Wonderful.

My dear old Scottish mum would never order tea out because she said they didn't know how to make it properly and she would be right, but here they do and it was a cure-all for me. I am still thinking about it.


Frank and Pat. One stuffing. One staring.

The best thing of all was I had brunch with Frank, Pat and Sean. I felt like it had been so long since the 4 of us had seen each other and it was a fitting and wonderful reunion. We were right back and had a great time. I value my time with them and when the backdrop is a place like this it is like an old familiar doily.

Huh?

Sean being all Ruth Reichl

Alice's Tea Cup

I had time to kill on 46th and Lex in between appointments. I thought I would grab a coffee and then I saw Alice's Tea Cup on E 64h St across from where Bernie Madoff used to roam happily. I decided it was probably too expensive or too "twee" for me, but I ducked inside as I also have this odd self-righteous, nobody puts baby in a corner streak in me these day. Commonly known around town as "defensiveness."

It was a little girly-precious, but the thought of a scone and a cup of tea sounded nostalgic. It is what my mum used to serve.

I was given a menu with a tea list that was as many pages as a wine list at a posh restaurant. I found it much like betting on horses; you go for the name that you like. There was a black tea blend called "Margaret's Hope." (Could also be a racehorse name in fact!) I went for that because that is my mum's name and I want her to have that for me. I got a French vanilla scone to go with because I am studying French and I am awfully vanilla.

My whole order sorted, I sat back at a table with an Alice doll encased under glass peering up at me and read a New Yorker article (see: yesterday's entry) about Samuel Beckett who oolong ago (tea joke) replaced David Cassidy on my wall. (Now there was a leap!)

Margaret's Blend was so wonderful and the experience of stopping for a moment in an isolated tea shop in the middle of Manhattan and being able to read an article in my breeds-like-sheep New Yorker was so relaxing.

Alice's Tea Cup is really a day spa.

AHhhhhhhhhhh.