Has anyone ever stayed at the Grand Hotel?
I did recently. Before I go any further, I should say that it is impressive inside, the décor is splendid etc. We were upgraded to a bigger, better room, presumably because I think I made it clear when booking that it was our wedding night. That was appreciated.
Now the grumble. Bearing in mind this is in the context of it being the “most prestigious hotel in Taiwan”, not things I would normally grumble about.
After we arrived, at around 8.30 we needed something to eat. The only options seemed to be the cafe, the northern Chinese restaurant which would have been good but closed at 9, or the “Western restaurant” buffet (closing a little later). So we went for the buffet - apart from anything else, we’d had enough Chinese food for one day at our banquet (or at least I had - as usual at weddings, the bride not getting much to eat).
Firstly, the name of the restaurant was a complete misnomer. There were Japanese dry seaweed salad rolls, Chinese style stir fried vegetables, some broadly Asian meat dishes and salad and fruit. Plus a minimal selection of vegetarian cold cuts (I don’t normally expect much but the ‘best hotel’ should cater for everyone - Buddhists and vegetarians are not unheard of here). Nothing specifically western. After eating, I got a hot drink. Choice of coffee from a jug or green tea or Lipton’s teabags. I don’t know about the green teas they had, but Lipton’s is pretty much baseline for drinkable black tea. I went for coffee and the only cream they had was the standard plastic creamer you get in Subway or wherever else. Needless to say, paper tissues not serviettes.
None of these things would be a problem in themselves, it’s just when staying in the “internationally renowned” Grand Hotel and being charged $1000 a head for the buffet, I felt a little disgruntled.
In the room they had Mr Brown’s three-in-one coffee.
Breakfast was good though.
I can assure you, I did not let this put a damper on our wedding night.
To echo Maoman’s posts, it was a bunch of obasans hitting the cold cabbage, bamboo and pork dishes like piranhas stripping a cow. Still had fun though. There’s something about those faded old hotels.
