jamesclay, Author at Time for a coffee

December 18, 2025

The Street Taverna

I was working in our Bristol office and I headed out to the Temple Quay street food market. As it was a Tuesday there wasn’t as many choices as there are on a Thursday. I decided I would have a halloumi wrap from The Street Taverna. This is a nice thick wrap with halloumi, salad and fries.

I did enjoy the wrap; the halloumi was tasty, the chips were nice and crispy. I also enjoyed the flat bread as well. As with my previous wrap from The Street Taverna sure if the chips added anything to the wrap. I am glad I went with the halloumi.

December 17, 2025

Bento Box

It’s no wonder sometimes when I go to Bristol and there is a street food market if She Sells Streetfood (was She Sells Sushi) is there I will go with a bento box. I enjoy the food and I think one of the reasons I like it is that it’s not a sandwich or a wrap.

This time, I went with a bento box containing the Beef Donburi and the Tan Tan Udon. This was the same combination I had before. As this was a bento box the Tan Tan Udon came in a smaller cardboard bowl than if you ordered the full size version, alongside was the Beef Donburi.

I’ve always enjoyed the Beef Donburi and this was delicious as usual. The beef was beautifully tender, full of flavour. It goes so well with the sticky rice. I do like the addition of the (new) cucumber salad.

Last time I really enjoyed the Tan Tan Udon, so was looking forward to eating that again. The Tan Tan Udon was udon noodles in a creamy sesame broth with spicy ground pork, Asian greens and spring onions. It was excellent and delicious. The creamy broth was superb, full of flavour, thicker than a normal broth (hence the creamy). Nice noodles and the spicy ground pork just added to this one tasty bowl of food.

I do like this food.

December 15, 2025December 14, 2025

Braised pork ribs with Pedro Ximenez bbq glaze

When I’m in London, I often choose the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. I find it offers great value, as it’s always significantly cheaper than hotels in the city, yet still provides an easy and quick commute from West Ealing station.

Their restaurant menu changes on a regular basis and when I do stay I do like to try new things. The braised pork ribs with Pedro Ximenez bbq glaze were something I hadn’t seen before and I did like the sound of them.

The plate consisted of three large ribs.

Though the ribs were tasty, they weren’t very meaty. The glaze was delicious, however the ribs were mainly bone and what felt like minimal meat. The pork was also a little chewy as well. So, though they were tasty, I did feel that they were a little bit unimpressive. Not something I would order again.

December 14, 2025

Cheese Scone at Hanbury Hall

I don’t always have a cheese scone when I visit a National Trust property, but it is usually my go to snack when getting a coffee after walking around the house and grounds of the place I am visiting.

I had just enjoyed the 1970s and 1980s themed Christmas at Hanbury Hall and was about to head home, when I thought a snack would be nice. I wasn’t really in the mood for anything sweet, so I got myself a cheese scone. It was fresh, light and cheesy. I would have preferred it warm, but that wasn’t an option that was offered. Tasty scone, very nice.

December 12, 2025December 11, 2025

Merguez sausages with onions

I was staying at the Casa Hotel in Amsterdam and I looked over the menu. I decided I would have the merguez sausages with onions. I do like merguez sausages and have cooked them myself many times.

The plate arrived and there were two merguez sausages on a bed of cooked onions and pepper.

The merguez sausages were similar to ones I have had before, most similar to the ones I bought in France recently when I was there on holiday.

Overall a nice dish of food and so much better than the calamari that I ordered at the same time.

December 11, 2025

Grilled spatchcock chicken

I was staying at the Drayton Court Hotel in London. One of the hotels I regularly stay at in London is the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. It’s a easy trip from West Ealing station to the heart of London and is always significantly cheaper than central London hotels.

Looking over the menu and deciding to go with something different I chose the grilled spatchcock chicken with endive & herb salad, hazelnuts & chilli oil. I liked the sound of the salad and I did think grilled chicken would be nice, especially as I assumed it would be cooked on the chargrill.

I was intrigued by the plate of food which arrived on my table. I wasn’t quite sure at first what I had been served, but eventually worked out that this was a spatchcocked poussin sized chicken. I cooked grilled chicken quite a lot and I felt that this grilled chicken could have been cooked with more care. I will say though the endive & herb salad, hazelnuts & chilli oil was very nice. I do like hazelnuts in salad and they added flavour and text sure to this salad. Though described as endive & herb salad, I couldn’t see any herbs in my salad. It was a great salad, the chicken though was something of a disappointment.

December 10, 2025December 9, 2025

Well they were terrible

I sometimes have the expectation that food in hotels abroad should be better than I find from UK hotels. It’s probably an unrealistic expectation and I really shouldn’t be making that assumption. Likewise, not all hotels are the same, so as with the UK there are probably hotels which are better on the continent and there are more than likely hotels with are not very good.

I was staying at the Casa Hotel in Amsterdam and I looked over the menu. I decided I would have the calamari.

I anticipated that this might be freshly cooked squid at best, or similar to the crispy squid I had at Novotel at worst. However, it was neither of these, it was heavily battered squid rings.

These were, well to be frank, they were terrible. The batter was too thick, you couldn’t taste the squid. I really didn’t enjoy them and didn’t finish the bowl.

December 9, 2025

Poached Eggs on Smashed Avocado

One of the nice features of staying at the Drayton Court Hotel is that the breakfast choice is really good. Yes, you can go down the traditional full English breakfast (and I would be misleading you if I didn’t say that was my usual order). However this time I decided to try something slightly different and went with the smashed avocado on toast, with poached eggs and a harissa dressing. I wasn’t entirely confident about the harissa dressing, as this was breakfast, however in an attempt to try something different I decided to go ahead and have the poached eggs.

I have to say the plate that arrived looked impressive. There was the crunchy toasted slide of sourdough topped with the mashed avocado. On top of that were two soft poached eggs, and slicing them open allowed the runny yolks to spill onto the avocado and the toast. The harissa dressing did in my opinion enhance the dish, adding something that I think would otherwise be missing and it would be a rather plain dish. Both the avocado and the poached eggs needed something to bring them alive on the plate.

All in all, I did enjoy my breakfast. It was a nice change from the full English I would normally have at the Drayton Court Hotel.

December 8, 2025December 9, 2025

Back to Chateau-X

Back in November 2023 I was attending a conference in Glasgow at the Scottish Event Campus. I looked on Google maps in the surrounding area, Finnieston, to see what restaurants were local to the hotel. Chateau-X which was not too far from my hotel did an early week special where they do steak and frites for just £10. I had a fantastic plate of food and wrote it up on the blog.

This was an excellent meal, and great value for money. I certainly would go again. In the end I did, a couple of days later and had lunch there.

I always planned if I was in the area again that I would go back to Chateau-X. In the end I didn’t get to the conference again in November 2024 so didn’t get the chance to have steak and frites once more.

In October 2025 I was back in Glasgow for a different conference and realised that Chateau-X wasn’t too far from the hotel where I was staying. I headed off to the restaurant to get a late lunch. As it was a Wednesday I could get their now infamous steak frites deal. Later in the week there is a more substantial menu available, with more choices of steaks and prices to match.

As it was mid afternoon, there was plenty of space, I know though from experience that this is a popular venue, so if you are going in the evening, it makes sense to book a table.

I looked over the menu, though the deal has gone up in price, it is now £15, you do get a side with the deal. Back in 2023 I ordered an additional side to my £10 deal.

I went with the Flat Iron Frites. For my side I went with the Tobacco Onions, for my sauce I went with the Bone Marrow Jus.

It wasn’t long before my skillet arrived with my sliced flat iron steak, frites, the bone marrow jus, and the tobacco onions on the side.

This was just as good as I remember from my previous visit. The only difference was back then I had gone for garlic butter, this time I had gone with the bone marrow jus.

The steak was tasty, tender and full of flavour. The fries were crispy. I also released the tobacco onions, crispy strings of onion, delicious.

However, the stare of the show for me, was the amazing bone marrow jus, which was just incredible, deep intense flavour, perfect with the steak and for dipping the fries in.

This was an excellent meal and like last time great value for money. I hope to get back there real soon.

December 7, 2025

Pretty Coffee

I was in Amsterdam for a conference and was staying at the Hotel Casa which is close to Amstelstation.

I hadn’t been able to book breakfast with my hotel booking and I wasn’t willing to pay €17.50 for a buffet breakfast, which if my other Dutch experiences were anything to go by it wasn’t going to be that good value for money. So, after getting washed and dressed I headed out to the nearby Jumbo supermarket. I got four croissant for €1, some orange juice, and I got some more Illy espresso capsules for the hotel room coffee machine, all for €7.31. Bargain!

On one of the following days, my plan was to head to the supermarket to get some croissant and an orange juice. However, it was pouring with rain. So, I went to the hotel café for a flat white and croissant.

They did make a very pretty coffee.

Either I left it too long as I ate my croissant, or they didn’t pre-heat the cup, as the coffee wasn’t very hot when I came to drink it. Difficult to really judge how good or bad the coffee was, as it wasn’t at the right temperature. They did give me a biscuit though, which I didn’t really want as it was first thing in the morning. So, not really sure about my overall verdict, okay it was pretty.