Rose Garden Tea Room
1151 Oxford Rd.
San Marino
626-405-2236
The Huntington Gardens. What a beautiful place. The grounds are filled with all kinds of beautiful flowers and trees. A great place to go. But it's expensive to go. $20 for adults on weekend, $15 during the week. But if you use your Bank of America debit or credit card, you get $5 off admission, until September.
The Huntington Gardens has the Rose Garden Tea Room. First you must make reservations. When I was there they turned down a lot of people because they just don't have the space. The Tea Room is set up for an all you can eat buffet, of finger sandwiches, cheeses, salads, fruits, cheese, and some good desserts. The buffet is $24.95.
The first picture has salmon with dill on pumpernickel bread and taragon chicken and walnut sandwich.
I loved the taragon chicken and walnut sandwich. This was a simple chicken salad, with celery, mayo, and taragon. Very fresh, very good. I went back a few times and I would say I ate about two regular sized sandwich worth of it.
I wasn't a fan of the salmon and dill. The salmon was suppose to be smoked but I didn't get any smoked flavor. It was bland, chewy and not that fresh. I didn't get another helping even when they replenished the buffet table.
The second picture has spicy egg salad and proscuitto and pear. The proscuitto was on marble bread with a blue cheese spread. The pear was sweet and was a nice contrast to the salty proscuitto. The proscuitto is decent quality but nothing special. I wasn't that impressed with the proscuitto and pear.
I did like the spicy egg salad on egg bread. It wasn't spicy and I didn't taste or notice any cayenne pepper. But this was moist, tasty and had lots of good fresh eggs. I went back for more of the egg salad.
The last picture has an assortment of desserts. The fudge brownie was very moist and tasty. The two cakes, pound and chocolate, were also moist and tasty. But the best was the cream filled chocolate cup. The cream was light and combined with the great chocolate, made this the best dessert.
Service was good. The server came by on a regular basis to refill drinks and remove plates. She was nice, friendly and attentive.
For a special occasion the Rose Garden Tea Room is a great spot. I do not think it's worth the $24.95 price. But I think you have to go once. But remember you must also pay the admission into the Huntington Gardens to be able to eat in the Tea Room. So for $50 per person, it better be a special occation.
