An Alice in Wonderland Night

First Fridays in the King Williams historical district of San Antonio are a wonderful mix of glorious architecture, live music, and art galleries open till late. Last night my friends Jean and Wilma took me to this street fair. We had a ball and intend to go again.

Dinner was at the Mad Hatter's Tearoom which, as it's name implies, is straight out of "Alice in Wonderland". The food is eclectic, very good, and reasonably priced. My choice was half a turkey sandwich with spinach, tomatoes, chipotle cream cheese, and pickled onion, accompanied by a cup of chicken florentine soup. Once seated I started looking around and brought out the camera. I asked my friends if people in the area were okay with people taking pictures all the time and upon being reassured started taking pictures of everything that caught my eye. And I could have taken more. This is just the bare bones of this fantastic place.

This picture, taken from the inside, shows the window sign and happy hour banner. There are fresh flowers on all the tables and you can tell from the cars parked outside that things are starting to get lively. Finding parking on this night is hard to do, but we were lucky to find one right in front of an old house where the driveway had been moved. I guess the lack of a curb had fooled some folk. Not our Wilma.

This is the hallway to their secondary room. I liked the way this row of windows provides light and a good view of everyone who was walking by outside. Before we finished eating there was a steady stream of folk walking past.

On the front left you see an amplifier being set up for live music later in the evening. The performers were coming in one by one while we dined. Our evening of wandering took in the main street and then came back for refreshments and to sit and listen to the group. The dessert Wilma and I shared was decadent. It looked like some kind of layered cheese cake concoction. There was creamy coconut filling at the top, a lovely cake like chocolate crust and when you bit into the cheese, ohmygosh, it was filled with those dark liqueur like cherries that made you think of cherry cordial candies.

Remember how in Wonderland, every cup at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party was different? And you picked your place to sit at by the type of cup you wanted? The same held true here. Some of these cups are quite nice. It had me wondering how long it took them to collect all these different ones. There was a very large selection of teas to choose from too. Trying some of them will be one of my goals the next time we visit.

Jean pointed out the sign for take out shown here. "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!" the rabbit cried. He kept looking at his pocket watch and running down the trail till he jumped down a rabbit hole. And Alice followed him down the hole. Not here...she got take out and left to wander the streets.

Jean also pointed out these shelves and this very large economy sized cup up at the cash register. She's got a great eye for detail. She is the one who took this picture, and I think she did a good job of it. My view was obstructed by flowers and the place was so crowded that handing her the camera was a better choice than getting up and moving around.

This is the performance area where the quartet was setting up. The pictures on the wall caught my eye and made for an interesting background when they were performing later. There were no for sale signs, so I think these belonged to the restaurant.

Stopping to wash our hands on the way out we encountered the waiting lounge, and the feelings of gracious comfort were extended there as well. The seating room was fitted with several chairs, a table or two, and lots of whimsy. Waiting my turn, I couldn't resist taking pictures of all the bits and pieces that make up the flavor of this place. It's absolutely amazing how much detail went into this lovely little restaurant.

Here's the Mad Hatter himself. I loved the way he's dressed and it is a very child attractive doll, as you can tell from the missing fingers on his left hand and the bandage on his foot. Because it has porcelain hands, I'm guessing this is an antique and hope it wasn't damaged beyond keeping its value.

There was a built in curio cabinet with some fragile items enclosed in wooden cubbyholes and protected by glass. These two cats are shaped teapots.

Above a set of bookshelves I saw this fantastic sight. That cup has to be bigger than my upper torso. "Will you have one lump or two," asked the Hatter?

"Two please," said Alice.

Here's what the well read tea lover would have in their library. Notice the title of the book on the right? All of us chuckled over that one. I'm delighted with the way this picture turned out. You can clearly read every title on the spines and I was thrilled to notice that a Harry Potter book was among the selections.

This other cup was above the curio cabinet in the corner. And there was another one just like it in the opposite corner.

As we were getting ready to head out the door this painting caught my eye. Thanks to some details of her work, which San graciously shared with me, my attention to detail in art has improved and I noticed that this was in 3D. My curiosity peaked I got closer. The colors are varied, dappled, and intense. I like the way the location of the eyes are defined by the the white surrounding the iris.

Trying to get a better defined image showing the three dimensional nature of this painting I took this angled shot. I'm don't think it caught the bas-relief effect of the facial features as I'd hoped, but it does show the window which opens your view to the next room, see that small chair top in the lower corner of the window, and from there out the window behind it into the outdoors. While the front of the restaurant looks business enough like, the layout seems to be more like a Victorian style house with lots of windows looking every which way and into different rooms.

Learning from San, I took a couple of details hoping to show you the amount of work and creativity that went into this painting. Here's the eye because that iris defined by a single curve of white struck me as a very creative way to do them.

And here is the mouth. From a distance the lips look pursed to me, but close up they look puckered. While the overall expression of the face doesn't make me think of romance, more a pensive, sly kind of look, the lips in close up give the image of a mouth getting ready for a kiss.

Then we left. And while I had my camera in my pocket, with every intent of taking tons of pictures, I was just too nervous about dropping it and we were doing almost non stop walking and looking in the middle of a crowd. So I didn't take any more photos. My plan is to try to do better the next time we go, because I fully intend to go back again!

New Tea Taste Test (Can you say that 5 times real fast?)

Tea Embassy in Austin, TX had a page on rooibos (red bush) tea and its health benefits (If interested you'll need to scroll to the bottom to read all of it). Rooibos tea is an herbal tisane made from the red bush which grows in South Africa. They said it's becoming popular in the US. It's on the fair trade list, so if I bought one with the fair trade stamp I would be making a contribution to the economic welfare of another country. The page spoke authoritatively and persuasively, so I decided to try some.

There were several brands in the grocery store I went to (Sun Harvest), including one that was both organic and fair trade. That brand was the most expensive costing almost $6 USD for 15 teabags. Rooibos seems to come blended with stuff a lot, and in two different colors. There were both red and green varieties. Sun Harvest didn't have many blends, although Tea Embassy's web page has quite a few. One I did see was rooibos mixed with honeybush. Numi had a plain variety, and I wanted to know if I liked the basic herb, so that's what I bought. Numi's packaging attributed an "earthy vanilla" flavor to it. Tea Embassy said the tea was slightly sweet.

Well, I've just had my first cup and.....hmmm. Took a whiff and it smells like Camphor. A very tentative first sip didn't taste sweet, but, as had been promised, with its low tannin content it didn't taste bitter either. It tasted better than it smelled. Next I sweetened it and that was an improvement. What I got was a kind of minty vanilla taste. That's not bad, the mint was a surprise though, no mention of it on the box. There is a hint of earthiness that's hard to describe. Its a faint darkness that sits on your tongue, a little heavier than smoke but too light to be substance. Rooibos wasn't an instant hit, but it's intriguing and it's growing on me. Halfway through the cup I found I liked it better cooled.

If you've got experience with this tea and any of the variety of blends I'd like to hear your take on it. Which is the best blend? Should I have gotten the green variety?