My best friend came into town this weekend and we decided to go somewhere special. Last time she was here we did some shopping and grabbed some Chai from a little tea room. Going over there menu we saw a pretty neat brunch menu that we wanted to check out. So when looking fora place to kick back and celebrate her birthday in more girlie style we picked The Steeping Room.

It turned out to be a little more fun, down to earth and delicious then girlie - but wow!

I know… All us tried and true Austinites, those “Keeping it Weird” are suppose to hate “The Domain”. I would like to but there are a few problems. I really like the jean store in there and, well, the Apple Store is pretty sacred. So I made exceptions for those places.

This weekend, however, I ended up doing brunch there. Looking at the prices it seemed a tad out of my general price range. Nine-ish bucks for french toast seemed a lot, so do did close to $3.00 for a single scone. But it was a special occasion and I figured I would just roll with it.

Once the food arrived and I totally got over myself. That scone? That single scone might have been the best tasting food I have had in ages. It had multiple flavors and smelled so good that I would buy that perfume if they ever offered it. It had chunks of sweet ginger in it, all the spices that seem to occur specifically for Christmas and was exactly sweet enough. Ok, note to self, if breakfast had one of these in it each day, I’d never skip it again.

The french toast – was chai flavored on challah bread and was delicious. Slices of fresh pear, green apple, blueberries, strawberries and kiwi accompanied the toast which didn’t need the maple syrup. I used it anyway though. My brunch mates’ dishes had them making yum yum noises too.

So, the food is terrific. However, that wasn’t even the best part. The owner is the best part. We had questions on the teas. I mean, what made a tea “tippy” and what did “tippy” taste like? It was our first real visit there and we had so many choices that we appreciated having a little direction. She was the sommelier of teas. I bet there is a special term for that but I have no idea what it might be. After all the attention, amazingly great food and information suddenly the price didn’t seem all that high.

We asked if she was considering doing a tea sampler or something similar and there is a possible food/tea pairing menu in the future. In the meantime she told us Tuesday nights there were little classes on teas. I am so entirely going to go to as many of those as I can manage.

After that we decided to get some tea to take home. We were faced with about a hundred choices. Fortunately, their amazing service stepped up again and the guy running the front registere walked us through picking. He asked great questions, found out what we liked and didn’t and made suggestions that were spot on.

I can’t wait to go back.