Marlene's Tea & Cakes

4.23.2025

Somehow, another year has passed with my manz so we planned our celebration in Oceanside!

We went to Marlene’s Tea & Cakes I thought a nice afternoon tea experience would be pleasant and really nice if we could sit outside.

My manz had never been to afternoon tea before, so it was his first time trying it There’s quite a few options in San Diego, but they’re harder to book, so I chose this one!

There was this huge chair with a super pretty flower wall! I love the look, but I can’t help but think about how much dust must be on it

For my outfit, I picked something springful

♡ Setup: Liz Lisa Plume Rose ♡
♡ Hair clips: MA*RS ♡
♡ Tights: Misako x Shimamura ♡
♡ Bag: idang club ♡
♡ Shoes: Evelyn ♡

The Liz Lisa setup is new, but I’m so happy that it matches my closet so easily that I already feel like I can wear it a lot Basically, I’ve matched it with all my favourite/often-worn items here!

Unrelated, but I’ve been thinking of trying some circle lens that aren’t so huge. It’s just that the big sized ones haven’t been in trend for many years so basically all the styles I love have been discontinued over the years I’m just so used to this size though…

Marlene’s is in this cute little plaza that has super easy and free parking!

We accidentally went through the wrong entrance to the plaza, but the waitress spotted us and probably could recognize I was dressed up for tea She brought us over to our table & brought out the tea we selected when making the reservation!

Lady Londonberry Lightly and elegantly flavored with strawberry, lemon balm leaves, Calendula and Sunflower petals.

Earl Grey Supreme For the connoisseur who loves Bergamot and fine tea, this is a higher grade of tea, with the addition of Silver Tips.

Somehow, I didn’t take a photo of both teapots? But there was a floral one that was so cute and pretty, now I want a big floral teapot too

They served us a corn soup (not pictured but it was actually so delicious!!) and after a bit, got us our tower By this time, both of us were quite hungry as the drive down took a while so we were excited to eat haha

We started with the lowest layer, which had cucumber sandwiches, a pineapple & cheese pastry (a new combo for me!?) + chicken pastry for the manz, egg quiche, and… I think I had another egg sandwhich while the mans got a beef one!

Both of us agreed that the white chocolate raspberry scone was the best of all of them!! I’m salivating a bit thinking about it You can read on their yelp/google reviews that people LOVE their scones - moist and very flavourful, buttery, and perfect texture

Purple grapes like this texture kind of freak me out (the texture reminds me of flesh), so I gave them to my manz I didn’t try the creamy dip but apparently it was tasty with the scone!

Finally, on the top layer: chocolate mousse, strawberry macaron, tiramisu, custard cream boy. I was still enjoying everything a lot, but by this time the mans was very oversugared since he’s not really someone who eats that much sweets typically I really enjoyed the mousse & reminded me that I used to enjoy making it as a dessert!

It was so fun to try together It’s been quite a long time since I went to afternoon tea since it’s usually quite pricey and feels formal, but I’m happy that my manz indulged me in this girly enjoyment even if he knew he would probably get oversugared

Enjoying our time here as a start to our anniversary celebrations really made me think again about prettifying our daily food & getting back into making desserts, which I haven’t done since i have the equivalent of a brown thumb (like for plants) but for baking

Seeing all the cute plates reminded me of when I looooved thrifting cute teawares during and after college, but I stopped at some point since my family didn’t take care of them well so they would get scratched up or broken even with not too much use But, I’m inspired to think about even free/low-budget ways to put some cuteness into our food