Lois K.
Yelp
I'm very happy to have found Dream Come True for a final afternoon tea with 2 of my girlfriends before the baby comes. The night before, I was scrambling to find a place that could accommodate us the next morning when I realized that Basilur at the Source discontinued their afternoon tea. Through searching online, I found Dream Come True on a list of best afternoon teas in the LA area. Compared to others (many open at 11 or 11:30), Dream Come True opens earlier at 10 and is more convenient because you can book reservations online via Open Table. I called the morning of and left a message and received a call back from Elena who confirmed when there was an availability. I appreciated her direct and prompt communication!
There was plenty of parking on the street in front of the store and parking in the lot in the back, which made parking easy. They have a setup for outdoor dining in the parking lot and the store itself is very cute with a traditional garden party vibe and also a trendy neon light photo wall.
Elena gave us great menu recommendations for our party of 3 to do the High Tea for 2 set with add-ons as needed for a third person. Adding a scone and pot of tea for the third person worked out perfectly for us and was the perfect amount of food since it comes with 6 tea sandwich pairs to share. I love how easy it is to customize things a La carte here. You can also ask for the tea sandwiches to be made on different breads than listed. We picked soup over salad since the weather was chilly that day.
Their tea menu has some updates which she went over verbally but I couldn't remember them all. I already knew I wanted a tea with peach however so I had the Peach Oolong, which had the peach aroma I was looking for and was nice and light. Based on Elena's recommendations, my 2 friends had the Buttercream black tea and the Summer Rose black tea. The Summer Rose is a heavier, thicker tea for those who like their teas strong. Both were very fragrant but the Butterscotch was amazingly smooth and tasted like caramel. You don't even need to add sugar to it. It's a must-get!
For the tea sandwiches, we picked 2 orders of roast beef, 1 hummus, 1 sesame crusted chicken salad, and 2 salmon mousse. The roast beef was everyone's favorite. We also loved the sesame crusted chicken salad, which was unique and tasty. I would definitely order more of the sesame chicken in a future visit. The hummus one was very fresh, but the salmon one tasted more like cream cheese than we expected.
The assorted sweets were apple bars, raspberry bars, fruit and petit fours. I enjoyed the bars and sweet fresh berries. I couldn't have the petit four because of my gestational diabetes, but wish they had macarons.
Our reservation was at 11 and we were served our tea and scones at 11:40. The tea came in adorable large pots - we were barely able to finish it during our time there and none of us needed a refill. The scone (a cranberry orange) is served deliciously warm and is also large. The scone itself and the icing is quite sweet but the clotted cream balanced it out. We enjoyed having the traditional clotted cream! The blackberry preserve was also good but didn't go as well with this particular scone, which was already strongly-flavored. The butternut squash soup arrived soon after in a small cute cup. It was thick and creamy and held us over for the next 40 minutes until our tea sandwiches were served at 12:30. It was a pretty long wait in between so good thing there was plenty of tea and the scone is pretty substantial. Not sure if it's because there were 2 other parties there for afternoon tea, a diner there for brunch, and a private party next door, but the pace is more suitable for those who have a leisurely afternoon and aren't in a rush. Elena also offered us a complimentary mimosa since she was making it for the brunch diner. That was very sweet of her. The other 2 servers were equally as sweet and friendly and helped us to snap a lot of photos.
All in all, for 3, the total was about $90 which is very affordable. We were happy and satisfied with the taste and the amount of food. The highlights were the Butterscotch tea, clotted cream w/ scone, and roast beef & sesame crusted sandwiches. It was a wonderful setting for us to catch up and get good photos for our memories. Definitely recommend it for a girls day out for afternoon tea or just for brunch (they currently serve quiche and crepes)!