Where else would you see anyone wandering around with a plate heaped with such incongruous ingredients as bacon, olives, blueberry waffles and a side order of yoghurt and prunes? Nowhere but at a hotel breakfast, of course. More often than not, the food is inedible, and nothing works properly. The coffee machines always seem to be faulty, although even this is preferable to being served from a silver coffee jug filled with tepid, muddy brown, tasteless water that leaves you hankering after service-station machine coffee.
Then there is the room: inevitably, it is dark and windowless, usually in a basement that smells vaguely of damp underneath the stench of cheap cooking oil. Beware the hotel that serves dinner and then drags out the leftovers for breakfast. I’ve seen the lot: chicken chow mein, schnitzels, even moussaka, on the breakfast buffet. It’s just not right.
The staff are invariably overworked and understandably bad-tempered. And there is something off-putting about having to queue at the various sections, clutching your plate as you stand behind strangers wearing complimentary slippers, their bed hair indicating that they have not yet showered.
That said, I recently had a wonderful breakfast experience in Cadiz, Spain. The room overlooked the ocean and breakfast was served until 11.30 a.m., due to the Spanish habit of eating dinner so late.
The bread was delicious, and there was an abject failure to comply with the first rule of Hotel Breakfast Club – which is that the bread either has to endure the toaster at least three times before it starts turning brown, or it pretty much catches fire the first time around. In addition to the glorious little jars of tomato pulp that allowed me to make my own pan con tomate, there was olive oil on each table and an actual coffee machine that ground the beans (rather than those awful pod things). Also in evidence were heaving plates of Iberico ham, an omelette station, fresh fruit that actually tasted of fruit, real yoghurt, proper honey (complete with honeycomb) and freshly squeezed orange juice. I was in heaven. I sat for an hour just grazing on delightful morsels, and it was a perfect start to the day.
However, when I was in the middle of nowhere in Perthshire recently, it was the usual horror story. Breakfast was included in the cost of the room, so it would’ve been rude not to at least give it a go. It was an expensive hotel, and my breakfast expectations were high; I was hoping for something a bit special. But sadly, it turned out to be the same old same old. Eggs hardening under heat lamps, bacon half raw on one side and burnt on the other, sloppy baked beans and cardboard hash browns. The croissants were cheap and freshly defrosted, and everything looked sad – including me at the end of the meal.
The croissants were cheap and freshly defrosted, and everything looked sad – including me at the end of the meal
My absolute worst-ever breakfast experience was in Nigeria, where hot plates were piled high with gristly beef stew on the bone, hard, sweet loaves of bread and green bananas. Don’t even ask about the coffee. The best was in Mumbai. I was in town working on a grim piece of research, but my start to the day stood me in good stead. There were potato and cauliflower-stuffed parathas, fluffy bhatura (deep-fried flatbread) with a spicy chickpea curry, and an assortment of homemade pickles, chutneys and yoghurt. Then there were crispy dosas served with sambar (lentil stew) and coconut chutney.
Back in Blighty, I recently had the pleasure of breakfast at the Ritz Hotel, Mayfair. It was perfect. I was meeting an overseas visitor who was lucky enough to be staying there. When he invited me to join him for breakfast, I jumped at the chance. The coffee was perfect, the pastries fresh out of the oven and delicious, and the bacon top quality. Cumberland sausage, vine tomatoes and field mushrooms were cooked exactly as they should be – clearly they were all strangers to the heat lamp. Of course this breakfast costs an absolute fortune – but as I wasn’t paying, I simply sat back and watched the rich and famous going about their business. If only every breakfast could be as perfect as that one.
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