When breakfast is included in the room rate of the hotel or resort property at which you are staying, that can be both convenient and save time. Sometimes breakfast is included at an additional charge — or perhaps no breakfast is available at all. If you are faced with no hotel breakfast, try this…
No Hotel Breakfast? Try This.
…go to a local grocery store or supermarket to purchase provisions for the start of the day.
I could have purchased breakfast as an option when I stayed at the Holiday Inn A55 Chester West hotel property in Chester — which is located in North Wales…
…but instead, we decided to pick up items at the local supermarket that were genuinely from Wales on the advice of Deb, who was the person behind the front desk at the Holiday Inn who recommended that we go to a nearby Morrison Supermarket and try some Bara Brith, which is a traditional Welsh tea bread that is flavored with tea, dried fruits, and spices. We followed her recommendation to sample Bara Brith and other foods that are of Welsh heritage.
The Bara Brith combined a spicy flavour with the sweet fruit that was baked within it.
It was not dense like a fruit cake and did not resemble a raisin bread. This very moist baked good holds its own, as it is distinguishable from similar confections.
A package of six Welsh cakes was also purchased. Welsh cakes are a traditional sweet bread in Wales that usually contains currants and spices which somewhat resembles a pancake; but they are thicker and smaller in diameter. Both the Welsh cakes and the Bara Brith were “made in the heart of Snowdonia”, which is a region that is located in the eastern part of Wales.
A slice of Dragon Welsh extra mature cheddar cheese, which British milk was used. Whether that milk was from Wales or England was fine, as we were not far from the border at that time.
The smoked salmon was an interesting find. The price was reduced because it needed to be sold that day, which was fine with me: the flavor of smoked fish usually gets better as it ages, in my opinion. The salmon was smoked over oak in kilns in Grimsby, which is a fishing port on the Lincolnshire coast in England about which Elton John sang on his 1974 album Caribou.
British raspberries were purchased to round out this breakfast.
Final Boarding Call
The total cost of breakfast for two people was $17.38 in United States dollars. We really enjoyed the experience.
Patronizing a local supermarket or grocery store — or a bakery or other local specialty shop — has benefits over dining in a traditional restaurant, as you:
- Can save money
- Can potentially save time if you need to eat while you are traveling
- Get to sample your choice of foods — as many or as few in quantity as you want — and each person can choose their own items of which they are interested
- Can experience a substantially vaster variety of food and beverages from supermarkets than restaurants
- Can be assured of from where the food originated
- Get to mingle among local people and get a taste of what life is like in the area which you are visiting
Consider this idea during at least one day of a future trip of yours when traveling.
All photographs ©2024 by Brian Cohen.
