I have a particular friend that I eat lunch with every so often, and it has become our pattern to choose The Steeping Room for our midday meal and caffeine fix. We each say that it’s because the other is the only one who will go with us, but I’m pretty sure it is because we are both too lazy to try and find something else that we can mutually agree upon. (Plus, he truly is the only one who will go have tea with me!)
The Steeping Room is a tea shop and restaurant in Austin’s all-too-hyped shopping center, The Domain. I’ve been there several times now, and the service has been consistently attentive, and the servers have always been happy to make suggestions or explain things when I’ve asked them to. The food has been good every time I’ve eaten there, and while the reasonably-sized portions may not suit every big Texas appetite, they’re just about perfect for me.
Okay, so maybe there weren’t any crumpets on the menu (at least not that I remember), but there were plenty of other delicious items to be had. Of course, there is an extensive tea selection, divided logically enough that a non-tea-connoisseur (such as myself) could intelligently select a tea to drink. Today we elected to share a pot of a single-leaf variety of Darjeeling tea. Once our tea arrived, we settled in to decide what we’d have for lunch. I always make a big show of looking through the entire menu, but without fail, I gravitate toward the tea sandwiches. They are delicious here. In the past, I have had tea sandwiches made with ingredients such as gravlax and hummus (not together). Today, I ordered sandwiches made with mashed edamame, cucumber, and lemon. The flavors were incredible - light and refreshing and filling but not over-filling - the perfect thing for a very hot summer day (unlike all that hot tea we were drinking).
