I was in Edinburgh again recently and while I normally stay on site at my company's premises, lack of space meant I had to find somewhere else. Being conscious of costs I chose the Premier Inn at Edinburgh Park, not far from my company's head office.
The hotel was much like any other Premier Inn - in fact I think they pride themselves on being a very consistent chain. The room was surprisingly big and though the amenities are fairly basic (a soap dispenser rather than miniature bottles for instance), it's what I expected and good value for money.
It was the first time (ever? certainly in a long time) that I've had dinner at a Premier Inn. The menu is vast with things to suit all tastes - it reminded me a little of a Wetherspoons in that respect. They were offering a meal deal for £23.99 including a two-course dinner, drink and breakfast - I decided that was good value for money - normally their cooked breakfast is £8.99 or continental breakfast £6.99. In the end the main course I had was £11.99, the starter (which I could have done without) was £5.45 so effectively my drink was free - it saved a few pounds at least.
I chose the tempura prawns to start which came with a sweet chilli sauce for dipping, but I found the batter too greasy and overpowered the flavour of the prawns - this isn't something I would bother ordering again.
The main course on the other hand was much better. I fancied a pizza and saw they had three main varieties and a 'choose your own' section. I'm very picky about pizza toppings and prefer to make my own combination if possible. I love seafood pizza so chose the prawns and hot smoked salmon flakes (which I've never had on a pizza before -it's usually prawns with tuna) and some red onion. There was a choice of cheese and I went for camembert - a bit weird on pizza perhaps and I wasn't sure what it would be like but I thought Id try it. It was absolutely delicious - more pizzas should come with camembert!
Service was friendly and not that fast - I was starting to wonder what had happened to my pizza at one point -but I'd taken my Kindle since I was dining alone and was quite happy waiting, as all I had to go back to was my laptop upstairs with some work to do in the evening!
Breakfast the next morning offered a reasonable selection of hot and cold foods and 'smoothies' though they tasted a bit watery (which is fine as unlimited jugs of pure fruit smoothies would cost Premier Inn a fortune!). I much prefer a sausage sandwich to a full English (or Scottish) breakfast so that's what I had, with two hash browns on the side and a cup of tea. Check out was almost instantaneous and overall the stay was quite a pleasant experience. This isn't the most central Premier Inn in Edinburgh but good for the airport or a lot of companies that are based on this side of town.
