Holidaymaker's 'nightmare' Corfu hotel stay where there was 'no English food'
Holidaymaker's 'nightmare' Corfu hotel stay where there was 'no English food'
Isn't "English food" just an amalgamation of foods from cultures they subjugated in the past, and beef?
I read somewhere that England still eats like they're still hiding out from the Blitz. Seemed accurate.
You joke, but yes the limited food availability before (WW1, Great Depression), during, and after World War 2 has had a lasting and profound effect on England's cuisine in particular.
It was never as well respected internationally as other European cuisines, consisting mainly of hearty soups, stews, savory pies, puddings, and roasts, but it's identity shifted dramatically during that time, often incorporating more international flavors and giving up on most of the needed longer (and less fuel efficient) cooking times.
Funnily enough many of those traditions were maintained more cohesively in some of the further-a-field colonies like Australia.
With the seasonings removed
Hey now, that’s reducing English food to an extremely narrow stereotype… You forgot to mention that they also boil their meats, or turn everything into pies.
How could they not have English food like pizza, curry, or kebabs??
The article says they had kebobs but claimed she couldn't eat them yet wanted sausages and bacon for breakfast.
There's 3 sort of sections to British food.
Basically, there is a lot of really good British food about. We also set the baseline for a lot of the comparisons, making us look bland by comparison. The London restaurant industry also does a complete number on tourists, making us look even worse.
Chicken Tikka Masala was invented in Scotland, by a Scottish chef of Indian descent, in the 1970s. Cleopatra ate curry.
You forgot the fourth section: yellow / brown with beans.
Only taking the piss of course.
Scotch egg is peak for me. Incredible invention. 99% sure that's British? Introduced to me by an English man anyway.
Used to love smoked kippers as a child. Different English man introduced me to them. They strike me as a very British thing also.
Never quite got the Yorkshire with a roast thing myself but my sister lives over there and is fully converted on them. I mean they're good like but I'd happily live without them.
Got gifted an Eccles cake by a lovely Scouser I know last year. Also delish with a mug of tea.
I do love a good pastie too (is that Greggs or am I mixing up?).
Chinese curry, however, is a British invention, bizarrely.
Don't forget soggy, vinegar drenched chips.
Comes with being the winner, every time
No, it's instant soups and cookies.
We got chips one day. One day out of the whole lot.
This will be the biggest nail in the coffin of the Lido Corfu Sun Hotel management in their crimes against humanity trial.
NEVER FORGET!
Pretty dumb of her to not travel with a can of beans and a jar of mayonnaise
That sounds a little spicy for a typical Brit.
In my experience it's the Dutch travelling with their own mayo, they don't like the French stuff (too spicy).
Sounds like a pretty typically stupid tourist. I mean who goes somewhere foreign to eat foreign food? Oh wait, anyone who wants to try out new stuff. If you only want to eat the same things you always do, then stay home.
That's what I do. I (American) stay local and eat what I like. I don't fly to a foreign country and get mad that the food is weird and nobody speaks English. Unlike so many other entitled, stupid people.
Has anybody ever been on an all-inclusive, agency organized group trip that wasn’t mid at best?
These are all about penny-fucking, and ripping off tourists. I look at the pictures in the article and get PTSD from memories of some childhood trip to Bulgaria. At least we had the excuse of being a working family from a poor ex-socialist country, and any beach and hotel was fancy to us. But somebody from a developed country in 2025 pays for something like this, I don’t know what to say to them.
They could open their browser and book a cheaper trip, staying in an apartment on some Greek or Italian beach, and eating the best local foods. But these old British boomers are lazy and also probably incapable of grilling a salmon steak if their life depended on it. Or at least lift up their asses and walk 200 meters to a restaurant nearby, with edible food.
I would rather keep working in the office during a hot summer week, than go on a trip like this with half a dozen relatives.
I have, more than once. Although I do pay extra care to book resorts known for the quality of their catering. But yes, you xan have a huge buffet with restaurant quality food. That also means you see a dozen cooks standing behind the buffet preparing the food, and pricing reflects this as well.
Costco does well, but that's not quite agency-organized. Their travel insurance is also really inexpensive compared to competitors like Travel Guard.
Has anybody ever been on an all-inclusive, agency organized group trip that wasn’t mid at best?
I used to be a store manager for a telecommunications dealer. This was the old days, the cowboy days before smartphones were even a thing (early 2000s). We were still a pretty small company with 12 locations only in two cities, and we were really just the "testing ground" for the parent company who were developing P.O.S. software FOR telecom dealers. So we were kind of their guinea pigs, but were super successful as well.
Anyway, the owners were early thirties brothers with money to burn, so our "manager's conference" was a seven day all-inclusive as a group. We would have one morning of meetings to make it a "tax writeoff" and then be drunk for the rest.
First year I managed for them was the Dominican Republic. Our resort was a six-star flanked on each side by a four star. Our 6-star wrist band got us access to the other two as well. I remember little of most nights except our group inventing a drink that ended up becoming popular with complete strangers, and wanting to go to the other resorts after the golf cart service shut down, so just...borrowing...one.
The next year was Cancun. Not as much fun. Not as memorable. But still pretty fun with it's share of stories.
So i guess in answer to your question. Yes. Absolutely. The two years that I managed for them were the best time I've ever had. No company has ever truly recaptured that for me.
She should have thought ahead and packed some Marmite and toast or a bit of Stilton and some crackers just to be safe, that was common for older people in the 1960's.
She should have chosen a better hotel for her situation. There are hotels in more central locations and hotels that you don't have to walk downhill to the beach.
But that hotel is too dinky to be called all inclusive. And using TUI is not gonna guarantee a good value.
"I have to be careful because I have ulcerative colitis so there's certain things I can't eat."
"There was no bacon. For breakfast there was mozzarella and sliced tomatoes. There was no hot bacon or sausage."
Hotel food always sucks. I was in Corfu last summer. There were plenty of great local restaurants.
Because we didn't do our research, we ended up at a hotel in Mallorca that were filled with people in their 20s partying all night and the included food fitted the price, for instance one night they served thin slices of meat-ish-spam with overcooked greens.
But we didn't let it ruin our holiday!
Not true actually, there are many hotels with excellent food. There is a hotel not far from me where a lot of people go to their restaurant even if they aren't staying at the hotel, it's just a really good restaurant in it's own right.
I've also been on holiday where we had excellent breakfast options in the hotel, even the ones included were very good. You just need to check for those when selecting a hotel. I've definitely had worse meal in some restaurants than I've had in some hotels, there's plenty of overlap there.
Sounds like she had some valid criticism for the hotel as well. All inclusive package, but pay extra for water? Wtf.
But honestly, I have no idea why she would expect English food in Greece. Spain only does it because of all the English tourists, it's not an international standard to serve English food or something.
To provide some context: Corfu received strong British influence in the past and was under the crowns reign for a few decades. It has remained a frequented destination for upper-class British tourism into the early 20th century as I have heard.
Good on them abandoning the dreadful culinary influence of the Brits. A culture so captivated by spices, but one that never thought to get high on their own supply. No no, just keep boiling things
We're in the 21st century.
It was probably bottled water they'd been buying as they didn't want to drink the stuff out the tap.
Didn't want to risk getting ill with her condition I'm presuming.
Yeah but if alcoholic beverages are included in the all-inclusive, why not bottled water? Or at least sell it at a sane price.
She was looking for bacon, sausages and fries, pretty sure greasy food is worse for her condition.
It reads like she didn't check ahead of booking, if you have some sort of allergy, she she appears to, its essential to check ahead.
It also reads like excluding tax, they paid about £600 for flights, transfers, hotel and all inclusive, each. I am not surprised that the food and drink would be closer to the budget end for that price.
I went to the UK recently and my only food allergy is lactose intolerance. JFK I had a hard time finding food that wasn't full of some type of cream. It was a the worst part of a otherwise wonderful trip.