Hotels in the UK

A Premier Breakfast deserving the name!

Working in Wokingham for a couple of days and needed somewhere to stay. The Premier Inn website told me the closest was the hotel in Bracknell that I stayed in recently, so I decided to look to see what else was available. I ended up in the Premier Inn Reading South (Grazeley Green). It’s not the closest, but I really didn’t want to stay in the same hotel as last time.

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It took a few minutes for my order to be taken, but it seemed that other people’s food came out fairly quickly, so I wasn’t overly hopeful about what I was about to receive. What did arrive was two perfectly egg-shaped, poached eggs that were cooked to perfection with nice and crispy hash browns. If I wanted to be picky, in my search for perfection, the breakfast here just needs to be served on hot plates to keep everything warm. If I wanted to be even pickier, it would be good if there was black pepper on the tables.

I don’t normally comment on the evening meals, but last night the food was really good for a pub attached to a Premier Inn. It is part of the Chef & Brewer chain, and these are normally better than the usual places that are associated with Premier Inns.

Sadly, I was only staying here for one night, but I will be staying here again the next time I’m in this part of the country.

Could this be the worst breakfast ever?

I’ve stayed at a different Premier Inn in Bracknell before, and I seem to recall that the eggs weren’t great there so I wasn’t disappointed that I couldn’t get a room there for my trip this week.

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I ordered the usual two poached eggs, bacon, mushrooms and hash browns and they arrived very quickly. Impressed so far!! That, however, is as good as it gets. The mushrooms, both of them, looked like they had been dehydrated! They were dry and wrinkled on the outside. On the inside they looked OK, but I have no idea what they tasted like because they looked disgusting and I couldn’t face even trying to eat them.

Now for the main event, the poached eggs. The story simply gets worse. One of the eggs didn’t seem to have a yolk. It did have a yolk when it was cooked, but when it was “thrown” onto my plate, it seems that it burst and spread itself over the place.  The other one wasn’t poached properly, but cooked in a shallow bath so that it looked like a fried egg!  Poaching eggs is not difficult, so why do the Premier Inn breakfast chefs have so many problems cooking them?

Bad news is that I’m staying here again tonight.  I won’t get my hopes up for better eggs tomorrow.

Best eggs at Best Western Lamphey Court Hotel?

In the absence of any rooms at the nearest Premier Inn, I’m spending a couple of nights at the interesting Lamphey Court Hotel between Tenby and Pembroke Dock and looking forward to see what breakfast brings.

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The Welsh breakfast allegedly has bacon, sausage, tomato, mushrooms, hash browns and an egg (of your choice). So, of course, I chose poached egg. As I expected, the singular sausage and bacon were accompanied by a good pile of mushrooms, but only one hash brown… disappointed with the menu that suggested more than one! Anyway, the poached egg is what you’re interested in.

The poached egg itself was fabulous! A proper poached egg, perfectly cooked and not swimming in water! It could only have been better with a grinding of black pepper.

Hope that I get the same tomorrow!

Good eggs in Bracknell?

As you already know, poached eggs in Premier Inn breakfasts can be a bit variable in quality.  I stayed at the Premier Inn Bracknell Twin Bridges for a couple of nights this week and, of course, that means two breakfasts.

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The both mornings, the eggs seemed to be reasonably well cooked, although not as good as the Irish eggs in the last post.  On the positive side, there was black pepper on the breakfast tables, and I can’t have poached eggs without a good grind of black pepper!  On the negative side was the amount of water sitting around the eggs on the plate.  Come on Premier Inn, it’s not difficult to drain the eggs a bit before putting them on the plate!

I discovered why there was water with the eggs.  After I’d mopped up the water with a napkin, I tried to lift them on top of the hash browns as seems to be my normal way of eating them.  The eggs fell apart completely!  Not so well poached eggs after all.

I’m back there again on Monday night; wish me luck!

Interesting week at the Premier Inn

It’s been a while since I last posted, but I’ve had no breakfasts worth writing about since staying at Restaurant Sat Bains!

Last week I ended up staying at the Premier Inn, Cheadle Royal for 4 nights in a row.  Lucky me, I hear you saying, well, I was lucky that I added the 4th night because breakfast on Friday morning had the best poached eggs of the week, but more of that later!  So, let me tell you about a mixed poached egg experience.

On Tuesday, the eggs both looked fine, although they’d been poached in a shallow pan.  They only looked fine, one was good the other was somewhat overcooked.

Wednesday and Thursday brought identical looking eggs to Tuesday, but both were cooked perfectly!  I was beginning to wonder whether this Premier Inn uses the same chef every day, and then on Friday, we clearly had a different chef.

Breakfast on Friday included two, almost perfectly poached eggs, cooked the proper way, in a deep pan!

I wonder if I should find out who the chef was on Friday morning and only stay here when he or she is on duty 🙂

If you would like to review your hotel breakfast experiences, just let me know!!

Holiday Inn, Reading West

I’ve stayed here a number of times over the last couple of years and, unlike my staple Premier Inns, the breakfast is neither a buffet nor generous!  So, why do I stay here?  The staff, mostly!  

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I’ll get straight to the point.  I stayed here for a couple of nights and so had a couple of breakfasts here.  First day, I forgot to ask for the bacon to be cooked how I like it… not nice, and neither was the poached egg (yes, singular!).  The egg was watery and the yolk and white seemed to have had an argument in the pan of water and we’re desperately trying to get away from each other.  Day two, I forgot about the bacon again!  As for the egg, at least the kitchen was consistent…  less watery but still falling apart.  I do like to find something positive to say, though!  At least, on both days, the yolks were nice and runny!

I need to remember next time that I stay here, ask for the bacon well done and see if I can’t have two poached eggs!

More Premier Inn experiences

It’s been a while but I’ve been busy looking for perfect perfect poached eggs!

Since my last post, I’ve spent almost a week in Germany, but chickened out of trying to get my head around what might be the right German for poached eggs!  But, back in the UK, I’ve been back to the Premier Inn Cheadle Royal and the Premier Inn, Stockport Central.  

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Unlike last time in Cheadle, the poached eggs were really disappointing: shallow-poached and overcooked.  The rest of the breakfast was good, though.  So, what was I expecting from the Premier Inn in Stockport.  I’ve stayed there before, but couldn’t remember what the breakfast was like.  The good news is that the kitchen here knows how to poach eggs.  Have I finally found the perfect Premier Inn breakfast?  Almost!  The eggs were slightly overcooked for my liking, but not too far off being the best I’ve had at a Premier Inn!  I guess that this may be my Premier Inn of choice in this bit of the North West.  Less handy for work, but better for breakfast.

Isn’t breakfast the most important meal of the day?