December 2024
Thus begins our chicago tea tour! The good, the bad, the ugly, the yummy, of afternoon tea, chicago tea tour stop #1! Our first stop was at Russian Tea Time. We booked our reservation online and we were the first table seated as soon as they opened. This place was extremely busy and by the time we left both dining rooms were full of guests. Lets get into the details, starting with the GOOD.
Even though it was very busy and jammed packed full of tables and people, I really liked this venue. I liked it’s vibe and ambiance and found it quite pretty. Our server was friendly and did a fine job even though he never asked us to refresh our tea pots. The menu is a bit confusing but we ordered classic tea service for two people at $44 USD per person so $88 total. It does seem common that people share the serving as we had to explain that we wanted two servings. All that to say, we each got to choose a tea and I chose the Earl Grey Bravo and it was DELCIOUS. It was VERY strong bergamot flavour and it was amazing. They do not sell this tea separately so I was sad to learn that I couldn’t bring any home with me. Anyway, the good here was the ambiance and my strong bergamot earl grey tea.
The bad - there wasn’t anything BAD persay here but the food was not my favourite so these are personal preferences. Let me tell you about it starting with the savouries. We each received a cucumber cream cheese sandwich covered in dried parsley. An egg salad round with raw onion on a sesame bread.
A salmon sandwich with sesame seeds (which I didn’t eat b/c i dont eat salmon b/c i dont like it) a chicken salad with cranberry which tasted good and likely had small raw onions, and a crepe with veggies - we were told it was sauerkraut but it just tasted like cabbage and carrots in vinaigrette to me without the fermentedness that I know of sauerkraut. This was my favourite item that was served. It reminded me a vietnamese spring roll but in a soft crepe; delicious.
For scones, we each received two scones but if you were sharing one serving as many ppl seemed to be doing, you’d each have one scone. These scones were quite different to scones I’ve had before. I cannot explain why they were so yellow, the only thing i could come up with was that there was lots of eggs in them. The scones were served with a shared bowl of whipped cream and strawberry jam. We also asked for butter so you see that here too. They tasted quite bland and blah; not sweet, not savory. They were extremely light and airy. We both agreed they tasted better with butter so what they lacked in flavour was helped with butter. I didn’t hate the scones but I didn’t love them either. They weren’t MY favourite style but they just might be yours!
The same story continues with the sweets. We each received a cupcake, a chocolate cherry cake, a sugar cookie, a lemon square, and a condensed milk nut cookie. I appreciated the different shapes and flavours and textures so that was good. However, I wasn’t a huge fan of the quality and taste. The chocolate cake had a tasty cherry icing but the cake itself was very dry and needed more of the icing to carry it’s dryness. The lemon bar had an odd consistency and was under-baked. I think it was also made with sweet condensed milk and the bottom was fairly raw so it wasn’t good. The cupcake was also plain and very yellow - again, i have no idea how they make these things so yellow. It was also dry. However, the icing didn’t save this one. The sugar cookie sandwich had some chocolate chips inside maybe.. I wasn’t really sure; they tasted low quality if it was chocolate and only found on half of the cookie. The cookie itself wasn’t too bad. It was buttery but not super. My tea friend did not like hers as she said it tasted over baked. I probably should have dipped it in my tea; against all manners to make it taste better.
I was excited by the nut shaped cookie but it was very dry and I did not like it. So these sweets were not my personal style of sweets; for me they lacked quality - but they might work perfectly for you and be your style.
For the ugly - I don’t really have anything ugly to report on. I liked this venue.
The yummy - as I mentioned, the best bite was the cabbage crepe on the savory tier. They serve crepes on their menu so maybe that’s their specialty.
As I said this afternoon tea was $44 US per person which is about $62 CAD. This is a higher price tag for this quality but not completely outrageous b/c the quantity of food served was on par with expectations and we ARE in a major city here so this price is FINE.
Overall, this food wasn’t my preferred style but it might be perfect for you. There wasn’t anything really WRONG here except for no clotted cream of course; this just wasn’t my type of afternoon tea but I am still glad we went to experience something different. However, using my same criteria to be consistent, my queen of afternoon tea rating is 2.5 out of 5 stars - could be 3 out of 5 stars if dry sweets and super light airy scones are your thing.
