This cafe is in the Selby’s house, inside the Selby Botanical gardens. The house was built by the Selbys in 1921 and became their residence. Upon her death in 1971, she willed it to be a botanical garden, which opened in 1975.
The cafe has indoor and out seatings. Part of outdoor is on a terrace and part is under the huge tree. Dropping from the birds in the normal.
Self service. Decent food, on the expensive side. $60 for a beer, a Chardonnay, a wrap and the Scottish salmon salad with baby kale, roasted Brussel sprouts, toasted walnuts, a few pieces of shredded parmesan, dried cranberries. The lemon champagne vinaigrette is delicious.
This Italian restaurant is huge, with many rooms and corners for events. Mostly outdoor, roofed and open air by the street, with a jazz singer. We walked in and sat by the street.
Ambiance: calm and quiet. Mostly were couples.
Service: very good and efficient.
Food: very delicious. We’d Trio (tapenade, hummus and olives), mussels (they didn’t provide a seafood fork) and lasagna, which is one of the better one I’ve in a while. The stems are above average – could have been a slightly better?
Their bathroom has a list of things for sale: scrub salt, essential oils and more.
We didn’t try their dessert – have an opera to catch. Street parking is relatively easy to find.
Again, the balcony section is very hot. During the only intermission, I asked one elderly male usher if the opera house knew they need to provide more air conditioning. He said, “I think they’ve problem this morning …”
“Really? I was here last Tuesday and it was HOT.”
He looked pathetic.
I felt sorry for him … I don’t want to give hard time to any staff that provide service to us but I hate to be lied to. If their house is too old to have adequate a/c, just say so. We’re reasonable.
The production is decent. They added some suer-nature element to it and injected little humor – Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at one point – I thought it’s well done.
The little bar/cafe area is lively before the show.
This is a private home off S Beneva Road. They made it a small garden of air plants, which we’ve been looking into, to add to our little garden.
Air plants are epiphytes, that they don’t need soil, only need air, water and light – especially morning sun. Sounds wonderful, isn’t? They grow on other plants, usually on tree branches.
The lady of the house Lisa cuddles the plants like her children – the love is unmistakeable. We purchased four Tillandsia Ionantha – blushing bride air plant, one bromeliad finger nail that likes the French nails -:), one young cornstalk Hoya ‘Krimson Queen‘, and a wax plant lemon twist.
