Afternoon Tea at Craftsman and Wolves, San Francisco

Went to Craftsman and Wolves with A. for afternoon tea one day. Interesting name for a bakery, right? Someone recommended it to us after having seen me lurking around Crown & Crumpet one too many times. Being a fan of afternoon tea, I was totally game to try something new. 

Turns out this was too modern and poshy for both me and A. I'm not a traditionalist and don't have anything against modern takes of afternoon tea. I had my very first afternoon tea ever in Tokyo and it was modern and I loved it! But here it was way too experimental. Apparently they change the menu items often, so perhaps we just happened to come on a day when the items served didn't really click with us. That said, their main offerings of pastries and breads were amazing and A. and I each bought a a nice helping to bring home afterwards. If you like a modern twist to afternoon tea, by all means give this place a try. If not, at least go and try their breads.

Having offering afternoon tea, they don't really have a big tea list. There were only about 5 choices when we went, so I picked a plain earl grey and A. picked a fruit tisane, which she said was totally bland and watery because they didn't put enough of the tisane in (which is actually a common problem - tisane requires double the amount of tea to yield a similar strength brew).

The sweets were decent, nothing outstanding to be honest.

Here is what I meant by "experimental" - buckwheat crumpet (the round chocolate-y looking thing) and Thai mango scone (the giant rectangular thing). The buckwheat crumpet tasted like a block of soap. A. and I took one bite and couldn't choke it down. The Thai mango scone was much more interesting. It had chunks of candied mango, shred of shaved coconut, and Thai green curry. Yep, you read that right, green curry, in a scone, and you could really taste the curry too. It was decent, but I wouldn't order it again LOL!

The savory tray was better. The highlights were a mini duck confit slider, which I liked for the red wine jam, and cold baked trout appetizer, which A. really enjoyed. So for $40 for 2 people, it wasn't worth it because we each really liked only 1 thing we ate. Oh well...