Review of Quarantine UK - A Managed Quarantine Experience in 2021
Things you may find useful to know before you go into hotel quarantine in the UK based on my stay in a Quarantine Hotel in London
UK Hotel Quarantine Food Diary Day 9 - Not as good as last week
London Hotel Quarantine Food Blog: Day 9 Thursday Menu v2
Breakfast
Hurrah! Breakfast this morning was exactly what I would have expected it to be, although it was only delivered at 9am by which point I was starving!
All the usual “side dishes” were there, fruit salad, yogurt (vanilla, one of my favourites) pastry in the form a croissant and a juice, and in addition the hot breakfast was replaced with 2 hard boiled eggs and 2 slices of cheese.
So everything was there today, and it was of the usual standard (I have covered this in detail previously so will not bore you with those details again). I do still wonder every morning though what I am supposed to do with the tomato sauce which if you check through all my previous days you will see I received every day even when breakfast was just fruit, yogurt and criossant!
On a side note I did call room service today and asked them to cancel the 2 boiled eggs and cheese for tomorrow so tune in to the next Quarantine Food Blog to see what happens.
Lunch
On todays lunch menu was Tuna Melt Ciabatta with a Mozzarella and Pesto Past salad, Fresh fruit and a chocolate bar which today was a kit-kat. Good choice, hard to go wrong with a kit-kat.
Let’s start with the salad, mozzarella and pesto pasta. Well what can I say? I really don’t see the point of this combo, to me it was just 2 flavourless items on a bed of salad leaves with some sun-dried tomatoes on the side. The label distinctly said cherry tomatoes but my salad today came only with sun-dried tomatoes. Most of my salad went back to the kitchen untouched, but it was edible and the pasta was filling if you needed a filler.
The tuna melt ciabatta was the centre piece of todays lunch, and the ciabatta itself was lovely and soft in the middle, and it appeared to be well heated through (unlike last Thursday when the cheese hadn't melted at all). The problem is that meals like this soon go cold and once the cheese is no longer melted it becomes more of a tuna chew rather than a tuna melt. The flavour of the tuna did come through though, despite the addition of what seemed to be excessive amounts of raw red onion which was actually quite sweet and did add flavour, it did however reminded me a bit of Tuesdays BBQ chicken ciabatta which tasted like hot dog! If you like onions though then this would definitely be a plus for you.
As usual today’s lunch came with a fizzy drink (Pepsi Max) which I had requested be replaced with a fruit juice instead, there has definitely been some confusion with this (see tonight’s Dinner section for more details).
Dinner
Yum! Tonight’s dinner was the type of dinner I would enjoy any night.
Like last night this is a repeat order for me, this being the second Thursday dinner of my 10 day quarantine, and the first thing that struck me was the beautiful chocolate aroma emanating from the dessert, but patience is a virtue first to the main course.
On lifting the lid I immediately noticed that this was a completely different cut of steak to the one I had last week, much thinner and flatter. I was concerned that it might be a bit tough but thankfully although it was a little overdone for my taste being braised steak it was still melt in the mouth so no complaints there. The accompanying veg was delicious too, sweet new potatoes and baby carrots. I would have liked to see more veg like this during my stay. To top it off there was a thin gravy drizzled over just in case anything was a little dry. This braised steak with new potatos and carrots was one of my favourite main courses on the whole quarantine menu.
The dessert was a chocolate lovers dream. A creamy chocolate mousse on top of a crunchy chocolate biscuit base topped with a rich dark chocolate sauce. I’m not a huge chocolate fan but eating up this dessert was no problem! It was not too sweet and it was certainly rich, but somehow I managed to eat it all more or less in one sitting.
So earlier I mentioned the confusion regarding drink orders, let me explain. When I put my new menu order in for the week starting on Monday I requested that the how breakfast be replaced with fresh fruit (instead I got 2 boiled eggs and 2 slices of cheese each morning, with or without additional fresh fruit) and that the fizzy drinks be replaced with fruit juice.
So up until today the fizzy drink had continued to turn up at lunch time, and I have continued to put it to one side, however last night for the first time the usual J2O which accompanies dinner was replaced with 2 fruit juices. Last night I thought maybe this was just a one off, but tonight I got the same thing and I noticed that the tray waiting outside another door had a J2O on it, so hence I think this is a special order for me. Not exactly what I asked for but definitely an improvement, as to why it only started on Wednesday night rather than Monday I have no idea, a different chef in charge reading the orders?
I wait with baited breath to see what tomorrows lucky meal dip will bring, join me then. UK Quarantine Food Diary Day 10
To find out more about what is included in your UK hotel quarantine and how it all works read my full review of managed hotel quarantine here.
If you just want a quick summary of how the food works in UK qaurantine and what it is like then read my Overview of UK Quarantine Food here.
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