Originally, to treat myself, I was going to go to one of my favorite Vegetarian places in Chinatown like I usually do and blog about it later.
Then, I read about the various tea salons throughout New York City in The Weekend Arts Section from March 11 - yes, I am slightly behind when it comes to reading the New York Times.
I thought the peace and serenity may do some good so I decided to check out one of the tea salons listed there. The Radiance Tea House and Books (which I will call Radiance as of now) located at 158 W 55th Street seemed like a good choice since I wanted to be on the West Side. I was planning on going to the gym for a yoga class after my dentist appointment and one of the locations was in Columbus Circle so I thought this would work.
Around 2 pm, I arrived at Radiance. It was packed. A waitress came out from the back and asked me what I wanted and I said table for one. I guess she did not hear me and set the table in the back (only one available) for two people. I politely told her that no, it is just me having tea. She seemed surprised, but then recovered nicely and took away the extra setting. I started getting offended, but then I looked around me and every table had two people sitting there enjoying and sharing their tea so I guess that was the usual fare for the customers.
I received the regular lunch menu and THREE (can you believe the number of variety) menus for the teas - one was for wellness and herbal, one was for iced tea, and the last one was for traditional tea (Japanese and Chinese variety). Since I am trying to stick to my diet, I decided to try the wellness tea and selected Sweet Elixir.
Sweet Elixir is supposed to help you with weight loss and your complexion-both areas I wanted to work on so that was what I selected. Since I was going to blog about this experience and my blog is about food, I had to add something to munch on. That was the combination lunch box.
When I was ready to order, I waved at the server and the tea came right away.
It looked gorgeous - so pretty! It tasted even better. Once I drank that, all of my frustrations melted away.
It was so good!!! I heard similar statements at the other tables as their tea arrived and they took their sips.
The women at the next table kept repeating how wonderful their tea was.
I could not agree further. Since they also had every tea on their menu for sale, you can purchase the teas you like as well. I bought a packet of 24 varieties. Obviously, I could not prepare the one that I ordered and since everyone seemed to love their teas, I bought the ones in the sachets that I can just put in hot water and pour.
Then, my combination lunch box came. I got a choice of two types of dumplings so I selected the vegetarian dumplings and the soup ones (although that had pork in it) because I love how it fills my mouth with soup when I bite into it all at once after it cools, of course.
The picture below does not do it justice:
The top left is edamame, the top right is salad, the bottom right is the vegetable dumplings, and the bottom one on the left with the spoon is the soup dumpling.
I have to say that I enjoyed the food and the tea in this place.
They allowed me to stay as long as I wanted. Since I wanted to finish the newspaper, I spent about 2 hours there and left around 4 pm or so. I liked the privacy given to me by the servers although the tables were very close so I can hear everyone's conversation around me. Therefore, there were no privacy if you wanted to have a private conversation.
They also have books for sale if you are interested in tea.
The decor was very nice and serene.
This is definitely worth checking out for anyone who loves tea and even for those who don't LOVE it, but may want to share some tea and good conversation with a friend.
I am definitely going back!!!!
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