Sweet Melissa's Patisserie

On today's menu, afternoon tea at Sweet Melissa's Patisserie near Prospect Park in Brooklyn!  The bakery is small and quiet with a French-y ambiance.  This was a much better place for tea than Sanctuary T in SoHo...maybe more about that in another post....

Anyway, we got the traditional afternoon tea: I had the Earl Grey and tiered plates of tea food.  On the menu were: a mini-quiche, salmon and dill cream cheese sandwich, chicken salad sandwich, scones, and petit fours.

The quiches were really good, though I preferred mushroom over spinach.  A little soggy in the crust department, but flavorful.  Actually, the reason I preferred mushroom over spinach was that mushroom actually tasted like earthy wild mushroom and spinach tasted more like dark green mush.

Next, we munched on the open-faced chicken tarragon sandwich.  I had fun trying to tell apart the different components of this salad, including raisins and apples.  It was tasty, yet...reminded me of my usual dinner during my MCATs class (chicken tarragon salad sandwich from Starbucks)....

The salmon and cream cheese (okay, lox) were pretty refreshing.  It was served in a crusty hero of nice chewy bread.  Although I have been known to eat lots and lots and lots of lox...after a while, this sandwich started tasting a little less good.

Afterwards, we headed to sweet: orange blossom and blackcurrent scones with berry preserves and clotted cream!  I liked the scones (it's hard not to) but they were a little crumbly and messy.  Scone + jam + clotted cream...takes me back to London ♥.

Finally, our sweet-sweets: a nutty chewy pastry square, banana caramel mini-pie, chocolate fudge, and a little fondant-covered cake.  Everything was fairly tasty and standard dessert-ish.  The little almond caramel thing (for lack of better word) had a lemony layer, which helped cut the very sweet caramel topping.  The banana caramel munchkin was my favorite sweet: it was a little cake stuffed with a banana puree and topped with whipped cream.  I don't think I've had anything like it!  It was nice and banana-y and not too sweet.  Next, we tried the chocolate fudge ball.  It was just a very dense, very sweet ball of fudge.  One bite, yummy. The whole bonbon?  A little much, especially after so many other sweet things!  Finally, I tried a little sliver of the cake, since I was so maxed out on sugar already.  I couldn't really pinpoint what it was, but the fondant covering it was really sweet.  That's all that registered: SUGAR.

Tea, at this point, however, was heading on a downward slope: for me, I very sugar-saturated...and then, for Alex...well, let's just say biting into a crunchy shard of glass made the whole experience kind of difficult to enjoy...

Overall?  The food was good!  I would have preferred less of the sweet stuff and a bigger serving of savory things, but that's just me: I like savory, and I think they had more of a forte with their quiche and sandwiches anyway.  Downsides: I think I'm at risk for diabetes now; their little square cake thing was definitely very carelessly made (unless glass is on the list of ingredients); and afternoon tea is wicked expensive! Some wisdom that everyone should know, though: everyone should have afternoon tea.  Tea tastes better out of a teapot and with little finger food arranged at different heights. 

          

Sweet Melissa's Patisserie
175 7th Avenue, Brooklyn