I was in Birmingham for a conference and I was staying at the Novotel, a hotel I have stayed at before.
I realised I had ordered the calamari from here before back in October 2022. Back then I wrote:
It was actually quite nice, the squid was really tender and the batter was crispy. You could tell it wasn’t made fresh, but this was late evening in a hotel. However, I did enjoy the dish.
The dish I got this time was very similar (maybe not as well presented). This was a simple dish of crispy coated squid pieces served with some salad leaves and mayonnaise.
Not an amazing plate of food, but sometimes when you have squid from a hotel, you get battered rubbery squid rings. This dish was much better than that. The pre-battered squid was probably cooked from frozen, to keep things easy and simple for the hotel restaurant. It wasn’t the busiest place, so cooking stuff from fresh probably isn’t an option. I guess I get spoilt when I have the freshly cooked squid in a crispy coating from the likes of King Fin or La Lola in Bristol. However, I wasn’t in Bristol, so that’s that.