Marlene’s is a lovely tea house in the Fairbanks Ranch area of San Diego. Driving to it is a weird and windy and the location is an oddly residential looking space. There’s a little parking lot to the side of the shopping center Marlene’s is located in and there’s a good amount of street parking in the surrounding area.
The way things work at Marlene’s is a little odd but I like it. It’s a prefix, prepay menu. For two of us the total cost was $114.43, which includes tip (something I appreciate). We arrived a bit before our reservation time at 11 and we were sat at a cute table that had our tea prepared and waiting for us. It was a lovely thing to be able to sit down and immediately pour ourselves a cup.
The first course was a Loaded Baked Potato Soup. Overall, this was bland and forgettable. It probably would have been better had I been able to eat the topping as it was probably the crucial salt component that was missing. The crisp on top was delicious, I wish I had more of those.
A 3 tiered stand that was full of the rest of our meal was delivered to our table which was impressive and delightful looking. We started at the bottom and worked our way up. In hindsight we would start in the middle with the scones, and then do the savory course to finish with the sweets at the top. Starting at the bottom made us miss having something savory to break things up as it is a sweet heavy meal flavor wise. The savory sandwiches at the bottom were mostly good with a few misses.
There was the standard tea favorite, a Cucumber Sandwich. It was pretty good, I could have used more of the cream cheese spread as that holds most of the flavor, but I would eat a lot of these if they were on the table. 9/10
Another standard with Egg Salad. The bread was a light choux pastry and there was a cute addition spinach at bottom. But the egg salad itself needed more seasoning, this one was forgettable. 5/10
A small Beef Wellington was something I haven’t seen before. The meat inside was well cooked meat and extremely tender but (an unfortunate reoccurring theme here) bland. Some kind of sauce inside would have done a lot to help. 6/10
A unexpected treat was a Red Onion Tart with Peach Jam. This was flavor packed. The caramelized onions were delicious mellow flavor and paired wonderfully with the peach jam on top. 10/10
A Turkey Cranberry Ruben was an oddball. It had a decent start with a nice cranberry bite, but was overwhelmed by a heavy mayo flavor. 6/10
The middle tier was the scone tier and the reason why I’ll return. This month featured a pear scone. It was unique, moist and full of chunks of pear. I have never had a scone quite this moist, light and almost muffin top crumb before. It was delicious and I’m VERY curious what their next flavor will be. This tier also had some cute fruit as well as clotted cream; while tasty they are definitely supporting characters next to the scone. 11/10
The top teir was the sweets/dessert tier.
A small cup of what I think was Lemon Pannacotta. This was very light and had a delightfully refreshing lemon flavor. Save this one for last! 9/10
Millionaire/Carmel cheesecake looked very cute but was overpowering. Very strong flavors combined with a very sweet profile made it too much for my tastes. 5/10
A appealing Fruit Tart topped with raspberry, blackberry, pineapple and kiwi. It was basic but tasted good! 7/10
Something I haven’t seen before was an Italian cream cake – walnuts are nice. Very sweet, Icing is overpowering the flavor of the cake 4/10
Overall it was a lovely tea service. My friend and I could not get over how good the scone was and will be returning again if only to see what the new flavor is. Oh! And the Lemon cucumber water they served their was a 10/10!
Always Peckish 