Today we were at a special afternoon high tea meets gala event, held at The Empress Palace Ballroom in Surrey.
This was a fundraiser hosted by and in support of Options Community Services. They are a non-profit charity based in Surrey, British Columbia, and are dedicated to supporting families, youth, and individuals across the South Fraser region. This includes housing and homelessness support by operating low-barrier emergency shelters and managing transitional beds. They run Habitat Housing Society to provide affordable housing options to low-income families and individuals managing mental health conditions. They operate local mental health outreach programs like the Fraser Health Crisis Line, which provides urgent emotional support and suicide prevention services. They host home-based withdrawal management and detox programs, that allows individuals to access medically supervised, culturally competent substance use recovery, directly within their homes. They offer support systems to help refugees and new immigrants integrate into the community, including language translation, interpretation, and custom resource clinics. And they also regularly hosts family resource programs like resume clinics, youth transitioning support, and domestic violence prevention campaigns.
So this weekend’s High Fashion & High Tea: Mardi Gras” event was to help them gather the funds needed to do some of the above.
We arrived in the height of the afternoon for my first high tea gala. We were invited to dress to impress in Mardi Gras theme. I, along with a handful of others did this by dawning New Orlean’s colours of green, purple, and gold; and wearing harlequin masks, common to the theme.
This theme was abundant throughout the hall with a decorative tree strung with beads and masks. There were also pockets of such flourishes situated around the room, which were great for taking photos in front of. There was also a Photo Booth that printed out photos as keepsakes of the day, and palm reading telling you your fortune for $20.
As guests trickled in we were welcomed to the sight of models dressed in Victorian era ball gowns, also themed to Mardi Gras’ colours and flourishes. They moved about the space like livings bars with glasses of sparkling wine attached to their costumes. We were invited to claim one of these glasses for ourselves, and in doing so lightening their load.
They were still setting up the tea towers when we arrived, working on them tier by tier. As a result, our tower, to be shared amongst those at our table ended up being pilfered before we even got to it. When we took our seats, empty cups remained and you could see that there wouldn’t be enough of each item for each person. This was disappointing considering that there wasn’t a lot of food to begin with and everything was already served cold. Thankfully the banquet staff were on it and able to reconstruct our towers, however they didn’t have any more of the cup desserts, to replace the ones already eaten. I found this self behaviour surprising considering the context of the evening.
The cucumber sandwich had a good amount of cream cheese, offering a crisp and fresh start. The egg salad sandwich was similar with the same tea toast, but with a creamy boiled egg mash instead. The turkey and cheese mini croissant sandwich was the most fulsome bite, but nothing memorable.
The second tier was intentionally served last as hot appetizers. A handful of vegetarian spring rolls cut in half and served with a bowl of sweet chilli for dipping into. I found them similar to the ones I buy frozen from grocery stores. The chicken kebab looked like a neon orange sausage, also sliced in half. Served as it, it felt incomplete and like an afterthought.
Most of the attention was put into the dessert plate that crowned the tower draped in beads and decorated with iconic Mardi Gras visuals.
The mini cupcakes came in vanilla and chocolate, each topped with a swirl of frosting in green, purple, and gold. The custard fruit tart only had half a grape on it. It was mostly crust and a runny custard that spilled when you picked the piece up.
And we didn’t get to try both the vanilla bean cheesecake and the salted caramel truffle because these were the ones that were taken off of our tower.
In truth if I paid the ~$150 for the ticket to attend and missed out on 2 out of the 7 components of my tea service I would be disappointed. They were 28% of our meal.
As for the actual tea, it wasn’t served in pots for each guest to have and pour themselves at the table. Instead, banquet staff came around with push trolleys pouring said tea from heated decanters. They had chai or the option of English breakfast, early grey, or orange pekoe as tea bags.
The event was advertised as being 4 hours. We didn’t start into our meal until 1.5 hours in, and then it only took 15 minutes to finish eating. So the rest of the time we were just sitting, waiting, and watching.
The live entertainment would have been better suited to a seated, plated and coursed dinner. As the time in between bites and the transition between courses would have had our attention drawn to the stage. Instead our host had to ask for quiet and attention as pickets of conversation quickly erupted between lulls.
The entertainment included a 4 person New Orleans-style band to open the evening; speeches from our MC, Nira Arora ofVirgin FM Mornings; a fashion show by top local South Asian designer Davi-Bains Gill who combined Indian tradition with modern approaches; and a magic show that was the highlight of the evening for me.
Sadly Options had prepared a video testimonial of the good that their organization does for the community, but there were technical difficulties and it wasn’t able to play. As an impromptu backup plan, the audience member who was featured in said video was put on the spot, asking her to tell the room full of attendees her first hand experience of being helped by Options Community Services.
The remainder of the programming was dedicated to the live auction and the plea for open donations. Here proceeds would be directed to support their next affordable housing initiative, as they work toward raising the remaining $1.1 million needed to build homes for women and children fleeing violence in Surrey. BC.
In short this was a unique way to get a first hand look at all the good this organization does and the community it directly serves.
