Valentine's Tea Lover's Lunch At Port Gamble Tea Room

For Valentine's Day yesterday, my honey drove the 40+ miles to the Tea Room at Port Gamble, Washington.

Port Gamble is just across the Hood Canal floating Bridge which crosses...Hood Canal! The bridge does open for shipping and pleasure craft so we were relieved we had padded in extra time in case we got caught approaching the bridge during an opening...which we did.  Here is open and when we got caught for 40 minutes. Sigh...the joy of living on a peninsula...

To make iteasier for folks living in the immediate area, there are morning and evening no-opening times for commuting and school schedules. At other times, you never know. There are websites and traffic cams all over and you can receive bridge opening texts, emails or phone calls. We don't cross it enough to bother with that,  just leave extra time.

We were a bit early so we browsed the Port Gamble General Store, which also has a restaurant that was packed. The menu looked so good, we intend to drive over again soon and have lunch there. 

This is a lovely old Victorian home, empty now, across the street from the tea room. Lovely stained glass windows and gingerbread porch. 

This is an historical marker explaining who the town was named for, and below is the post office, that has operated continuously from the 1920s when mail was still arriving by ship.

We had a marine layer come in...better known as fog...so it was a grey Valentine's Day. Inside the tea room, everything was lovely, and there was a classical guitarist playing.  We first had our choice of about 50 varieties of tea categorized into black, green, white, herbal and decafeinated. I had my favorite, the Margaret Hope Darjeeling and my honey had English Breakfast.

This is the teaset they use throughout the tea room. My only criticism...the cups are very small...only about 3 ounces so you are refilling OFTEN!  I had hoped to copy the pretty flier that had the Valentine's menu and graphics, but it won't allow me to copy! Rats!!!  But I was able to get it off the email reservation acknowledgement:

VALENTINES LUNCHEON

Thursday, February 14th, 12:30 Seating

  

LIVE MUSIC BY:

Gerald Braude

Solo Acoustic Guitarist

Appetizer Plate

Gingered Cream Cheese Grapes,

Balsamic-Herb Strawberries,

Baby Hearts of Romaine with Chicken

  

Salad & Soup

Baby Mixed Greens w/Apple, Pear, Pecans and Feta,

w/Sweet Onion Dressing

Roasted Red Pepper with Smoked Gouda

Sandwiches

Asparagus and Prosciutto

Pear and Stilton

Ham and Apricot Preserves

Dessert

Chocolate Covered Strawberry

Chocolate Mousse

Raspberry Truffle

Includes your Tea, Coffee or Coke Product

And here is the photo of the appetizers...which I didn't remember to photograph until I'd eaten all the balsamic strawberries surrounding the panna cotta!!

Ah well...better late than never. And then we had soup and salad...which I forgot to photograph...I'm sorry, I'm hopeless! We get so busy talking, that we just forget.! You see, our 39th wedding anniversary is on Saturday, Feb. 16th, so this was sort of an anniversary celebration and we were doing a lot of reminiscing...

Then the towers arrived...with sandwiches, scones and sweets. We ended going home with half of it in a box, along with our huge chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate raspberry truffles. Here is the truffle case you have to pass to get out!!!

This is the owner Janis Kelley. What a sweetie! She is always such a joy, so welcoming and so gracious. She occasionally spontaneously serenades the patrons! Lovely!

So we had a wonderful Lover's Lunch for Valentine's Day and our 39th anniversary. Lovely! I would reccommend the Tea Room to anyone passing the area, which is a charming little town. There is a great quilt shop there that we haven't visited as I am not a quilter, but have heard raves about locally. Have a great weekend...we'll still be celebrating our anniversary!