When traveling, room service can be a guilty pleasure. Sometimes you want to lounge around in the morning and have food come directly to you. Unfortunately, this convenient food doesn’t live up to the price tag that comes along with it.
There is a simple reason for this. The food can continue to steam under the lids that cover the dishes. This can make eggs or fried food soggy by the time it reaches your room.
Insiders recommend passing on five room service items for this reason. Here’s what they recommend avoiding:
Spaghetti and meatballs
Pasta water can dilute the sauce. But, if you’re still craving this dish despite that fact, Kelly Merritt, author of The Everything Family Guide to Budget Travel and FLIGHT has a solution.“If I see pasta and meatballs on a room service menu, I love to order a side of crust, crispy, buttery bread and a side of meatballs. This is almost always enough to be filling and the best part is you get the savory [fix] without the pasta water diluting the sauce.” Ask for any cheese (like mozzarella or Parmesan) to be served on the side.
Fried Food
Vented lids cause fried foods to become soggy on the way up to your room. You can try to avoid this by asking for extra crispy fries, but you are still at the mercy of the staff. You risk getting burned and soggy fries.
Steamed Vegetables
Veggies can quickly go limp under the lid as your food is being brought up from the kitchen. “Items like broccoli and even squash and carrots sweat under a hospitality cover and become nothing more than flat colors on a plate by the time they reach a guest room,” advises Merritt. If you have a craving for veggies, perhaps try a salad or some hummus.
Pizza
“Many people will not order fried food off of a room service menu because chances are, it won’t be very crispy when it arrives. I feel this way about ordering pizza,” adds Gian Nicola Colucci, Executive Chef at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. “Unless the hotel has an Italian Restaurant or is known for its pizza, there is a good chance that it will be previously frozen or a bit tired from sitting under a heat lamp.” If you want pizza, perhaps order it from a pizzeria that delivers.
Eggs
“Eggs can get cold pretty quickly. Stick to pancakes, French toast or hot cereals, which retain their heat longer and don’t suffer too much from the steam buildup,” Skipp Worden, Executive Chef at the Westin Jekyll Island in Georgia reports.
There are plenty of other options for room service. Another option would be to have food delivered from an outside restaurant.
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Source: Southern Living