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 7 - A dissapointing Day
London Hotel Quarantine Food Blog: Day 7 Tuesday Menu v2
Tuesday quarantine food could be summed up as a day of disappointing meals.
Breakfast
The usual giant sized pieces of fruit salad were delivered to the door at a slightly later time than usual, this had started over the weekend and I had put it down to fewer staff at the weekend but I think it must actually be a change in the order in which the kitchen was serving floors. The accompanying yogurt was no longer cold but the additional boiled eggs and cheese were still welcome, and of course the croissant which had always been good.
I noticed that the fresh fruit which I had specifically requested in replacement of the hot breakfast was missing, but I had no complaints since over the last week I had been gathering up a few extra pieces of fruit each day. I presume that when I submitted the menu order for this week the previous breakfast arrangement had been overwritten with new instructions and that was why I was now receiving eggs and cheese instead of fruit.
Lunch
Unusually today there was no soup. Today’s lunch was BBQ Chicken Panini and a salad. The panini (bread) itself was lovely and there was certainly plenty of BBQ flavour, the sauce was full of smoky BBQ flavour making the whole thing taste more like a smoked vienna than a chicken (even though the label assured me the content was 22% chicken).
The salad was exactly what you would expect, as long as you liked lettuce tomato and cucumber then you would be happy. In stark contrast to the evening meals the potato salad was completely bland and could have benefited from a pinch of salt. On reflection the salad would have made a good filling for the panini either in addition to or as a replacement to the chicken, but too late now!
I was actually full just after eating the panini, so I just picked at the salad, and tempted though I was by the kit-kat I stored that away for an afternoon snack.
Dinner
So this marks the 1 week anniversary of arriving in quarantine, and sadly this was a very disappointing evening meal, far below the usual standard, accompanied by a J2O which had not been chilled.
If you can remember back on day 0 (arrival day) I arrived late and while I was initially impressed that a hot meal was still promptly provided I was disappointed in the meal itself, so when the menu options for the following week came through I decided to change things up and order the butternut risotto. I was actually quite looking forward to it since I like butternut.
In all honesty when I took off the lid to reveal the insipid looking plate of food underneath I was disappointed since there was no sign of any butternut in fact it looked more like rice pudding with chunks of beans and leeks to me than risotto. In it’s favour it was very creamy but even though I tried my best to imagine it I couldn’t even taste a hint of butternut, I couldn’t even taste the beans of leeks which I know were there because I could see them. The strongest flavour on the plate was in fact the lettuce garnish which I found rather sad. It was far from filling, but thankfully I still had a large part of my lunchtime salad to eat.
I rather wish I had given the steak pie from day 0 another chance, I suspect that I would have enjoyed it much more now that I was not tired and dehydrated like I was on the first day.
Dessert was a rather stodgy baked vanilla cheesecake, it was edible but not a patch on the light and fluffy desserts I had come to expect as part of the dinner tray. The cheesecake had an almost powdery texture to it rather than being smooth and the biscuit base was chewy.
What will tomorrows food bring? UK Quarantine Food Diary Day 8
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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