Ibis - Birmingham Airport

What is it with dull, middle of the road hotel chains that means their food is less what the punters want and more of what they think the punters want?

Take the below example. From left to right; Pork Pate with apple, wholemeal bread roll and salad. Or, as I prefer to look at it: unpleasantly sweet, unexpectedly sweet and bugger me how much vinegar is in that?

This seems to to represent an attempt at standardising the food offering across mainstream tastes while justifying an international view of high class gastronomy by serving it on a poncey tile. To be honest, it's not the taste that I really have a problem with. It's the fact that they are just not honest about what it is that they are serving. This is not haute cuisine. It's not even hot cuisine. It's bland, sweet mass market catering covered in a dressing that would make most fish and chip shops blush (see my thoughts on the fate of vinegar in the UK Fish and Chip Shop industry here).

And that was before I got my main course. At this point, I'll admit I am a BBQ fan. Last year I managed to break out the grill in February but so far this year I've been too busy. I also fulfilled a very long held dream to fly to Memphis and experience the Memphis in May BBQ World Championships. I try several dry rub recipes a year and with a large amount of self justification and no further basis whatsoever, I like to think that I know a little bit about the subject. On this premise, I never order BBQ from large scale kitchens such as this as they inevitably suffer from the exact same fate as described above - they are what the British expect BBQ to be. On this occasion, I had an issue simply because there was nothing else on the menu that caught my eye so by the time the waitress came to ask me for my order, I had nothing else to tell her. Caught by default. Well, in this case BBQ represented a sugar coated, paper thin rack of standardised measured ribs which, when eaten gave me a serious sugar-high. 

I couldn't believe meat could be this sweet. And then, follow that up with the salad, The chef must have heard my cry of surprise when I tasted the mixed leaf starter and decided: 'he didn't really like the dressing, no problem I'll switch to the sweet one'. Yes my friend, that was clearly what was required - more sugar. No need for pudding, I paid, staggered up to my room and suffered for the next three hours while my body tried to decide what to do with all the sucrose coursing through my blood stream.

I'm sure BBQ and it's rightful place in the food chain will be explored in a later post but right now, I'm tired and can't be bothered.

Interesting footnote: this night was my first experience of watching a bloke do a runner without paying. He ordered up a starter, steak and bottle of vino before finishing with a coffee and legging it. Initially staff seemed quite non-plussed, as they thought he had simply gone to his room but as it unfolded they got rather irate before resigning themselves to the inevitable. A lesson for us all there.