Happy Birthday to Me: Rose Garden Tea Room

Rose Garden Tea Room
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108

The Huntingon Library is well known for its gorgeous botanical gardens and historical art and manuscript collection. Tucked away in the center of it all is the Rose Garden Tea Room and Cafe. High tea was a bit different from the standard loose leaf selection and crumpets and biscuits tower. Instead, we were given 4 teabag choices and the finger foods were located in a buffet type cart in the center of the room. The egg salad sandwich left a nice buttery aftertaste but the other sandwiches were just decent. There were a good selection of cheeses and the caviar was a nice touch. The cookies and cakes were cute and delightful but after seeing a couple customers stick their heads underneath the cart, we decided to end our tea experience.

The Huntington Library should not be spent indoors. Instead, bring a picnic basket, find a nice shaded spot and just enjoy the scenery.

"Cheena" in Baja

Delicacheena ventured south to La Salina in Baja for the holidays. It was a week of cold wind, wild children and questionable plumbing, yet it was oddly relaxing.

La Salina is about forty minutes of Ensenada and twenty or so miles from there is La Bufadora. La Bufadora roughly translates to "the blowhole," where ocean water shoots up along the cliffs after being drawn into a underwater sea cave. It was not as spectacular as INK imagined, but it still evoked oohs and aahs and numerous poor photo attempts.

Si, the aquamarine sea and sky made a more delicious experience, but we had some fresh and pretty good fish and shrimp tacos at Mariscos Moreno, the stand closest to the blowhole. It was $7.50 or 75 pesos for five items. What a view if you choose to sit at the benches and enjoy your tacos garnished with shredded cabbage, pico de gallo, and hot sauces on site.

Instead, we meandered down the shop-line street to check out the deals. Lessons learned: bargain or it's no deal, get the gordidtas de nata. The sweet pancake smell tempted us on the way to the blowhole and we submitted on the walk back.

At $2 for four hockey puck diameter gorditas, INK kept being reminded that Baja wasn't dirt cheap for the tourists, but eight chewy on the outside, soft and warm on the inside disks were happily consumed by babies and all.

Dios mio! How could we forget the fresh churros sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar--cranked into hot oil, emerging curly and golden and so much better than the frozen sticks found in Los Estados Unidos.