London Series: Breakfast at the Sheraton Skyline

I told you I’ll blog about food today … here it is. ๐Ÿ™‚

I stayed in the Sheraton Skyline Hotel in Hayes, just next to the Heathrow Airport. This is very much a business class hotel with very little tourist. It seems to me that people who stays here are very much people who works for the airport or aviation industry.

I had some of my breakfasts in the hotel’s Al Dente Cafe.

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The cafe is very spacious, bright and cheery. I don’t know … to me this makes a difference in setting the day right. I always wanted to have an unrushed morning breakfast in a bright place and a newspaper to catch up on the news. And like to have breakfast alone … hate people talking to me during breakfasts! ๐Ÿ™‚ So this is perfect.

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Service was excellent in the Al Dente Cafe — very prompt and polite. Somehow I wish every place is like this. I noticed that service is much better in such business hotels in that people dresses better and the customers are working professionals. Also, perhaps these type of customers tip better because they could expense the tips. I don’t know …

First came with a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice. The coffee is really strong and smells good. A characteristic of a good cup espresso coffee is the layer of crema … and this has it. It’s a big cup too. Fantastic.

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The breakfast is buffet style. There was a very wide selection and simply too much for anyone to try everything. I had always liked cooked and warm breakfast. This is just what I wanted. Like many good breakfast spread, they even have a station where they prepare omelette the way you want it.

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In North America, the standard condiment is ketchup. I noticed that in England they almost always have both ketchup and mustard. I am no fan of mustard but took a bottle anyway to try and see if I like it … I did not. Can anyone tell me more about using mustard as a condiment? i.e. do you use it like you do with ketchup on meat and eggs?

The only time I know people in Vancouver normally use mustard is on hotdogs.

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I like this station where there are all kinds of English tea. There is even a pot of hot water of some sort that you use to make a pot for yourself. It was pretty neat … the pot was steaming all the time and looked very inviting.

Let’s see … there is a place where you can toast your own bread … I always like that. It also came with a full rack of variety of jams and marmalades. For drinks too, they have milk, Perrier, all kinds of juices, and soft drinks.

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I don’t normally eat a lot in breakfast. I took a bit of stuff from the cold selection. Had a couple of slices of cold smoked salmon — it was OK. Tried also a little bit of the crisp bacon but it was awfully salty. I wondered how people like it so salty — it was as salty as trying to eat a spoonful of salt, no kidding. I also tried, for the heck of it, some cheese, especially blue cheese … this one I did not like.

What I like best is their yogurt — this was awesome. It seems to me that they are made fresh because the foil that covers it is not those airtight ones and the strawberries tasted like they were just prepared a moment ago. It was so good I took another.

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There was another table of pastry … very nice pastries. I did not take any at all because I was full.

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The breakfast was great and the atmosphere is perfect. I normally spend about 45 minutes here, taking my sweet time reading the papers. The downside is that this costs 19 GBP … and that is $43 CAD, excluding tips!! Good thing there’s a thing called expense account.

London is an expensive city.

BTW, I am gonna blog about food again tomorrow … promise. No more museums, tanks, cameras … at least for the next few days. ๐Ÿ™‚

Al Dente Cafe at Sheraton Skyline on Urbanspoon

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  1. Chris

    I have the same fetish for being left alone to read at breakfast! Just let me spread out my paper, bring me my food, and don’t bother me for an hour.

  2. LotusRapper

    Mustard is also used for roast pork medallions, roast beef and sausages ( especially the Eastern European ones) and even on French Fries (or chips as they are called in the UK).

    Wow, 19GBP for breakfast. I would have loaded up on it for the day ๐Ÿ˜€

  3. Rukya, London

    I prefer English Mustard to any other kind – it’s very strong in flavour, so strong that it can clear my stuffy nose (whoops, did I put you off your breakfast?)! I like mixing a teaspoon-full in my mashed potatoes and spreading it in my egg sandwiches.

  4. MammaViv

    Will you share your (photography) secret on how you manage to take pictures indoors and still retain the original colors (ie lighting)? I am “forced” to use the flash indoors and this results in the subjects being ‘lighted’ while the backgrounds are dark. And when I don’t use the flash, all is blurry despite a higher ISO (and no tripod). However, I know of people using a higher ISO without a tripod and they still take gorgeous indoor pictures. Truly an amateur crying for HELP! ๐Ÿ™‚

  5. Ben

    Hi MammaViv: Oh, I have no secrets. I just try to sit in a place where it is well lighted. Mostly I try to get window seat and in this case, I was right under the downlight in the cafe. I normally use an external flash. Although I have a pop-up flash on the camera, it is not powerful enough. I try to not use high ISO if I do not need to. As long as I can get 1/30 sec for food shot I am happy but of course the faster the better. The blurriness of your shots is likely due to camera shake. Get yourself a beanbag or a small tripod, that will help (I don’t have one but will get one some day). If you have a mini tripod with your SD700, you can set your exposure time to as long as you want and the picture will come up sharp. Hope that helps.

  6. Chubbypanda

    I love my expense account. One of the few things that make business trips bearable.

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