Pie and Mash

Prior to flying out to Berlin I was staying at The Thistle hotel close to Heathrow Terminal 5. I picked this hotel as it was convenient to the airport and they had autonomous pods that carried you from the hotel to the terminal. They also served dinner. When I looked over the menu there was a choice of things to have. For my starter I had the smoked haddock fish cake. After a disappointing chicken burger I had had the night before, I looked over the menu for my main course. I decided I would go with pie and ordered the steak and ale pie, with creamy mash potatoes, garden peas, carrots, and gravy.

pie and mash

The plate did look quite nice, and was well presented. The pie crust was a little soft for me, but the filling was meaty and tasty. The mash was quite creamy and the veg was cooked okay. The gravy was a little thin for me, and I could have done with more, but it did help make the dish.

Overall I had really quite low expectations for this dish, but in the end did enjoy the dish.

The hotel was convenient for Heathrow, but the food is pretty abysmal, especially for the amount you are charged. It is like poor quality pub food, but at hotel prices. I think if I need to stay at Heathrow again, I would probably choose a different hotel.

A disappointing fishcake

Prior to flying out to Berlin I was staying at The Thistle hotel close to Heathrow Terminal 5. I picked this hotel as it was convenient to the airport and they had autonomous pods that carried you from the hotel to the terminal. They also served dinner. When I looked over the menu there was a choice of things to have. For my starter I had the smoked haddock fish cake, which was served with a soft poached egg, and spinach.

I kind of knew that I was going to be disappointed with this dish, in the main because of the disappointing chicken burger I had had the night before. 

Yes I was disappointed. 

The fish cake coating was hard and crunchy rather than crispy. There was very little smoked haddock flavour. 

It was a soft poached egg. I did think they might serve it on wilted spinach,  no it was served on just some plain spinach leaves, which did wilt slightly from the heat of the egg.

I do wonder why they serve food like this, and why they think that they don’t need to worry about it. My guess is that most of their clientele were either people like me who have dinner as part of their hotel deal, or are staying there for one night before flying out and have little choice but to eat in the hotel, and don’t want to to travel somewhere else to eat.

Well, that was terrible!

Prior to flying out to Berlin I was staying at The Thistle hotel close to Heathrow Terminal 5. I picked this hotel as it was convenient to the airport and they had autonomous pods that carried you from the hotel to the terminal. They also served dinner.

When I looked over the menu there was a choice of things to have. For my starter I had the prawn cocktail.

Over the menu there were quite a few choices, but in the end I went with the fried buttermilk chicken burger. This was described as a crispy golden crumbed chicken escalope, toasted brioche bun, pickled cabbage slaw, mayo, lettuce & tomato.

Sounded quite good, but this is what I got!

fried buttermilk chicken burger. This was described as a crispy golden crumbed chicken escalope, toasted brioche bun, pickled cabbage slaw, mayo, lettuce & tomato

First impressions was that this might be okay, but it wasn’t.

On the good side, the chips were nice, the roll was fresh.

However, the chicken escalope was overcooked and was more crunchy than crispy. I would expect the 99p chicken burger from McDonalds would be better than what I got. As with my prawn cocktail I do think that they could have spent some time and effort to make this an outstanding dish, but they didn’t.

I really should have complained, but it was late and I didn’t think it was worth the effort. I am also not sure what they could do about it as well.

Back to the 1970s

Prior to flying out to Berlin on a business trip I was staying at The Thistle hotel close to Heathrow Terminal 5. I picked this hotel as it was convenient to the airport and they had autonomous pods that carried you from the hotel to the terminal. They also served dinner.

When I looked over the menu there was a choice of things to have, but for one meal I went with the prawn cocktail for my starter.

This was so 1970s, it was a bed of lettuce, cooked prawns and seafood cocktail sauce (or rose marie sauce) with a slice of lemon. Alongside was some toasted buttered brown bread.

Okay this was a 1970s dish, it wasn’t elevated in any way whatsoever. Now and again I do like a prawn cocktail, and this was a simplistic dish, nothing special and nothing to write home about. The prawns were quite bland, and as expected the rose marie sauce overpowered much of the dish. I would have preferred brown bread over toasted bread.

I wasn’t expecting anything special, so as a result I wasn’t disappointed. I do think that they could have spent some time and effort to make this an outstanding dish, but they didn’t.