Saturday was another dreary day, our third dreary Saturday in a row! Rain in the afternoon, sleet and snow in the evening, and too crummy for a long drive anywhere, even if there were sunshine to be found. We badly needed a dose of whimsy and something very nice.

For me, there's no better store of whimsy than the collection of paintings by Ralph Cahoon at the Cahoon Museum of American Art in Cotuit, on Rte 28 on the Upper Cape.  Ralph Cahoon and his wife Martha were Cape Cod artists active through much of the 20th century, known for their happy, folksy paintings of Cape Cod scenes filled with humor and color.... and mermaids, as in Megansett Tea Room, pictured above.

The museum is only five or ten minutes from the Dunbar Tea Room, a beautiful, cozy, tasteful, and very pleasant place to while away an afternoon with a great selection of Tea and really good food. They also have a limited but fine selection of wines and beers, including varieties that you don't often see in restaurants, like Theakston's Old Peculier Ale and their selection of Ports.

The service is always excellent, with knowledgable and attentive servers who know when to leave you alone, and when not to! 

It's especially good to have knowledgable servers because the fare is not the usual appetizers loaded off the Sysco truck every morning and stored in the freezer, and it's not what you'd call Nouvelle American cuisine but neither is it what you think of as traditional boiled-beef British fare that you see in touristy places.

We sat by the fireplace and felt the damp and chill evaporate. I had a "sandwich" (while dining in Sandwich, MA) of a fine lightly-herbed egg salad topped with Ducktrap River smoked salmon on a delicious crusty bread that was perfectly fresh. That was one of the specials.

Lorna had the Cumberland Crumpet Melt, her go-to cold-weather dish there.

Of course, as a British-style tea room you can also get a Cream Tea (tea with scones), or even their elaborate Windsor Tea, complete with little ribbon sandwiches and sweets!

The Tea selection is wide and interesting. Dunbar does not set out a basket of envelopes with a little pot of tepid water; you get a proper pot made with loose leaf tea made up in the kitchen with real boiling water (fancy that!). The tea menu has maybe 20 items, including classics like Darjeeling and Assam from India and Oolong and smokey Lapsang Souchong from China. Even more are available in the tea shop.

Tea does not have to be the insipid coffee-substitute that it is in so many restaurants. In many parts of the world, tea is the superior hot beverage, and connoisseurs know it and pay top dollar for the finest teas. There are a number of fine tea importers in New England, including the venerable Mark T Wendell of West Concord and the incredible Upton Tea Imports of Holliston.

Follow the Tea link on this site for more on this excellent, historic, and oft-overlooked and badly-prepared treat. You'll be surprised how much a little information can transform an everyday mediocrity into a true aesthetic experience.

Of course nothing brightens a dreary day like a fine dessert, and Dunbar does fine desserts in fine style. Their celebrated desserts counter could be a Cape Cod tourist attraction on its own merits. Lorna took the first slice out of the white cake in the foreground here, but I couldn't help her and she had to finish it at home. With fresh, hot tea, after a drive in the rain... yeah, that was pretty good!