Tag: novotel

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Crispy Calamari

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.

Crispy Calamari

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.

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Cheeseburger and Chips

Arriving late into Birmingham for an event the next day, I was hungry, and the restaurant at the Novotel was still open so I popped in for a bite to eat. There were others eating in the restaurant, so I was not the only person who had probably just arrived feeling hungry. I was given a nice warm welcome and given a menu to peruse. The menu was in my view a standard hotel restaurant menu with some standard hotel fare. In the end I went with some calamari for a starter. For the main course I went with a cheeseburger and chips.

This was a rather good burger, with a full of flavour burger, nice thick bacon, melted cheese, slices of tomato and gem lettuce. The chips were crispy and fluffy on the inside (I think I would have preferred fries though). The bun was nice as well.

Overall I did enjoy the burger and the chips. 

Posted on

Calamari

Arriving late into Birmingham for an event the next day, I was hungry, and the restaurant at the Novotel was still open so I popped in for a bite to eat. There were others eating in the restaurant, so I was not the only person who had probably just arrived feeling hungry. I was given a nice warm welcome and given a menu to peruse. The menu was in my view a standard hotel restaurant menu with some standard hotel fare. In the end I went with some calamari for a starter.

This was some pieces of battered deep fried squid with mayonnaise and some mixed lettuce leaves.

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.