Mitra’s Tearoom @ Antique Outlet

The wife and I decided to stop in at the Antique Outlet, as we had yet to visit this establishment. It’s a big place! We wandered thru for a while, ran across the tea room, and decided to have lunch. We were seated, order drink (a special tea for the day) and lunch. We had time to look at the cuckoo clocks and tea cups.
Lunch was delivered and it was awesome! We have nothing but great things to say about Mitra’s.
In fact, I am having my oldest daughter and grandkids take me there for lunch for my father’s day. So looking forward to this!

I stopped by after a relaxing stroll through the kitsch of yesteryear trying to kill some time waiting for my car to be repaired nearby. The ambiance was cute, with tea sets abounding. The food was good (hard to mess up a sandwich– let’s be honest), great selection of teas… Plus they serve the hot tea with lump sugar (bonus points from a food snob like me). The dessert selection was interesting and some obviously home made. Service was great… No complaints.
Overall, nice little place for a relaxing afternoon.

One hot Saturday I was looking for something to do away from home for a few hours in the A/​C, so I grabbed the Hubs and we headed to the Antique Outlet and Mitra’s Tearoom (this was his punishment for being inconsiderate earlier in the day). Unfortunately, we did not have the same positive experience at the Tearoom as the other reviewer.
We arrived at the Antique Outlet a little after 1 PM and went immediately to the Tearoom to have lunch. We were seated promptly, ordered iced tea and perused the menu. To begin with, I have to say that service was glacially slow. I realize that this is a place for a relaxed lunch and is not fast food, but service was glacially slow (there were only four other tables with diners — total of eight other diners). It was close to 10 minutes before we were brought our iced teas. With those came some mini muffins and rolls along with strawberry butter. Those were very good and I was thinking this was a nice start. Unfortunately, that’s were it ended. We had placed our orders when the server brought the tea. I ordered a Tea Sandwich Platter ($ 8.99) that came with ‘chicken salad sandwich, egg salad sandwich, and cucumber sandwich and served with a cup of soup, house salad and fresh fruit’. The soup choices were tomato of some sort and cantaloupe. I opted for the cantaloupe. The Hubs ordered the Cobb Salad ($ 7.99). Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Our server came by and said there was ‘an issue’ and it wouldn’t be much longer. Of course we were intrigued as to what kind of issue was holding our lunch hostage. Then she came by another couple of times to let us know it wouldn’t be much longer. By the time we got our food, we had waited over 30 minutes (I’m being generous with the 30 minutes, because I think it was actually closer to 40). All this time, I was watching a woman that I guessed was the owner discussing a menu for a catering job with a couple other diners. Apparently this person is also the only one who prepares the food (I’m only guessing here) since as soon as she was done discussing business with the other diners, our lunch magically came out in just a few minutes. Hmmm. So we waited for over half an hour for our lunches while others planned a party for another day. Maybe that’s just something one has to abide when dealing with small businesses, but it seemed like there could have been a better way to handle it. We were offered free desserts for the long wait, though.
So we got our lunch. My Tea Sandwich Platter looked really nice but failed to live up to appearances for one simple reason — everything on the plate was warm, or perhaps room temperature would be more accurate. The fillings in the sandwiches were not cold or even cool (remember chicken salad, egg salad, cucumber with cream cheese). The soup was supposed to be a chilled soup and was room temp. The salad and dressing may have been cold, but I wasn’t overly concerned about that. I was concerned more about the fillings in the sandwiches and whether or not they were safe to eat (thankfully there were no ill effects). The Hubs wasn’t impressed with the Cobb Salad. I didn’t really get a close look at it, but I did note that it was kind of small. We shared a slice of coconut cream cake that was quite good (we were offered 2 slices, btw, but we just wanted to share one).
The Tearoom is cute and looks like just the thing for ‘ladies doing lunch’. The menu is nice and the visual part of the food is pretty well executed. The rest just didn’t cut it due to the temperature of the food. If it had been chilled, my lunch would have been very good. I’m hoping the day we went was just an anomaly, but still…

I walked in feeling tired and a bit «off.» I walked out feeling happy and relaxed. That, my friends, is the mark of a 5-​star worthy restaurant.
To his credit, my boyfriend found this place. He met our volley of «what do you want to do/​where do you want to eat?» by pulling up Groupon Now. Their offer was just $ 10 for $ 5, but I’d been wanting to try a tea room in an antique mall and we never found them open when we wanted to go. (This one is actually open until 4:00 on Saturday!) So off we went. My boyfriend didn’t even balk when we got there and found a very «feminine» environment of floral tablecloths and floral china (pluses in my book!).
This place combined excellent service with wonderful food at a reasonable price. I was initially a little disappointed they didn’t offer the traditional high tea with scones and clotted cream, etc. The sampler platter they offered, however, was similar enough to amply satisfy me.
Although not listed on the menu, we started with a small plate of warm muffins and rolls, accompanied by wonderful strawberry butter. Then on to the soup — I got the potato and my boyfriend opted for the tomato. Both were excellent; the tomato tasted more like marinara sauce than soup. Lunch was a selection of tea sandwiches, quiche, salad and fruit. The tea sandwiches were very traditional, with 1 even having the whimsical touch of being cut in the shape of a heart. I loved my quiche — yesterday’s was zucchini onion.
The big capper was the dessert. Amazing. I usually instantly opt for bread pudding, but decided to forgo that for the red velvet/​cheesecake. This decision was pretty much made for me, when I told the waitress I was debating and the person in the table next to me shouted, «go with the red velvet — it’s incredible.» So I dutifully followed instructions and am glad I did. My boyfriend went with the banana pudding and downed it so fast I was hard-​pressed to get in a taste. (Also delicious.) We had to forgo several other tempting desserts, including a coconut cream pie.
The crowning glory of this place was the iced tea. At first I was a bit offput by having iced tea instead of hot tea in a tea room. But this was amazing. Our choices were mint green and cherry apricot. My boyfriend immediately opted for the mint and since I wanted to try different things, I went with cherry apricot. I was SO glad I did, because while his was good, mine was exceptional. Really really special. I told the waitress how much I loved the tea and when she was putting on a fresh pot, she brought the loose tea by for me to smell. She told me that working there and making tea was her «aromatherapy.»
In general, our waitress was exceptional. She was knowledgeable and friendly and upbeat, but still very calm and had a very soothing demeanor. The chef (who may have even been Mitra?) came out at one point to check on us and make sure we were doing ok.
LOVED this place. My boyfriend also loved it. I’ll have no problems convincing him to return. It’ll also be a great place to bring my girlfriends for a girls’ lunch.