A few years ago, I went through what I now refer to as the ‘nuptial era’ – a year or two when I had to attend on average five weddings a year.  This involved having to stay in various hotels, on top of the usual present and outfit buying.  Now, some years down the line, married myself and thus with an increased circle of friends, we have now reached the ‘big birthday bash’ era.  One by one, starting with H’s friends, parties for the big 4-0 are coming around.  And again, hotels are being booked as the invites are received.

Which brings me to the Village Hotel in Leeds, one of a chain of many.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother blogging about a hotel, particularly one chosen more for its bed than its catering, but our food experience there was so astounding (and not in a good way) that I couldn’t leave it without comment.

We had one of those awkward few hours ‘between parties’ to fill when we arrived.  We’d left a 2-year old’s afternoon birthday party with cake and triangular sandwiches, to drive over to Leeds to attend a 40th with all the alcoholic refreshment that involves.  Having checked in, we were too late to join some friends for a curry but too early to get ready to go out.  The receptionist told us the restaurant was very busy, if not fully booked.  So we decided to order some room service to ‘line our stomachs’ in readiness for the many drinks to come. We weren’t expecting much, just some inoffensive pasta and a veggie burger.

‘Certainly madam, it’ll be 30-40 minutes.’  Fine, no problem.  We sat and read the paper, watched the football on TV, unpacked, etc.  After an hour we rang again.  They’d lost the order.  If we still wanted it we were told it would take 20 minutes.  Fair enough, but we pointed out we were due to go out in 30 minutes.  We were offered the chance to be ‘fast tracked’ through the restaurant but that didn’t really solve the problem.  So in the end they offered to rustle up some cheese sandwiches for us on the house, which they duly did.

I’m not quite sure how to describe how tasteless the sandwiches were but it was a good job they were free.  Imagine the blandest of bland cheddar, then imagine it many times more bland than that…and then more so.  It was like eating slightly softened candle wax but with less flavour.  We resorted to adding the mayonnaise sachets to try and add flavour.  I couldn’t even bring myself to finish mine.  And the crisps to go with it, although of the posh beetroot/carrot/parsnip variety, were obviously the ends of a few half finished packets – all those dusty bits and broken pieces you lick up at the end with the tip of a finger.

So it filled a hole, and was just enough to soak up the odd drink (or several) that we managed to dispose of that evening.  Thankfully we managed to just avoid hangover territory, which was a blessing, as we then had breakfast to deal with.

It was impressively bad.  Having been told breakfast was 9am to 11am but to avoid 10am as this was the busiest time, we aimed for 9.30am.  There was already a queue when we got there.  After half an hour!  On reflection I think the issue is the restaurant area simply isn’t big enough to cope.  Not enough tables.  Bizarrely they used a side area with about six tables as an overflow waiting area when the queue got too big.  Er…why not use these tables to… I don’t know…eat at?

The queuing turned out to be the best bit.  We were eventually seated at a corner table.  With a great view of the waitress station, of piles of dirty plates waiting to be removed, carriers of dirty cutlery, and a constant stream of waitresses scraping slops into an open bin.  Nice.

Then there was the cutlery and crockery on our table.  I don’t think I picked up anything that was clean.  I changed a dirty spoon at the waitress station for a clean one (so it had its uses).  The milk jug – dirty.  Coffee cup – dirty.  Plate from the serving station – dried egg.

And then the food.  If someone had offered me that room service cheese sandwich I would have gratefully accepted.  It may have been the first time I have involuntarily screwed up my face when tasting something – the scrambled egg was tasteless and wetly rubbery.  I decided to get a fried egg instead, on seeing a fresh batch arrive.  They looked good.  On closer inspection, H & I both decided that scraping off the top layer of raw egg white was probably best before we tried to eat them.  Mmmm.  H’s ‘cooked tomato’ was also totally uncooked.  The remainder of the cooked breakfast that we tried – beans, mushrooms and fried potatoes – was ok thankfully.  And H’s yoghurt/cereal/fruit combo looked healthy.  But if it wasn’t for the fact we’d already paid for the breakfast with our room, neither of us would have bothered.

We made full use of our hotel ‘prize draw’ comment card when we checked out – hopefully we won’t win the top prize of a weekend break at their hotel.  I don’t think we’ll be checking back in in a hurry and if we do, it will be room only.   Thankfully, the next couple of 40th parties are close enough to home to not need a hotel – or breakfast.

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