Europe Travel Tips. Booking Hotels, Bed and Breakfast, Hostels in Europe. Search Budget flights lowcost.

Booking cheap Hotel in United-kingdom discounted Bed & Breakfast.
Hint & tips restaurants United-kingdom typical dishes

booking cheap hotels in United-kingdom
Travel in united-kingdomUNITED-KINGDOM

Restaurants info. Deals Hotels in United-kingdom & cheap lodging!
Typical dishes, local drinks and United-kingdom specialities.

Eat, cuisine.

Despite jokes and stereotypes, British cuisine has improved greatly over the past few decades. Restaurants and supermarkets in the upper/middle range have consistently high standards, and the choice of international dishes is the best in Europe. However, British eating culture is still in the middle of a transition phase. Unlike their continental neighbours, many (especially poorer) Britons still eat to live rather then live to eat, and as a result, food quality is variable on the budget end of the market.
Chicken tikka masala with rice is sometimes claimed as the UK's most popular dish, though roast beef is a more traditional national dish.
Many large shops, especially department stores, will have a coffee shop or restaurant.
Smoking is now banned in all restaurants, cafés, bars and pubs - there are no exceptions.
Take-aways : A 'take-away' is either a shop supplying prepared meals for people to eat elsewhere, or the meal itself. A very British take-away is the sandwich shop, a popular choice at lunchtimes; they often sell pies and cakes also. Alternatively, most towns and many main road routes have a selection of fast food chains. Various types of take-aways are present in nearly all towns: ranging from fish and chips (genuine "chippies", specialist fish and chip shops, some of which have a "sit down" section, are still very common, but are no longer ubiquitous); to "Indian" (often Bangladeshi) and Chinese shops. Thai and Indonesian takeaways are becoming quite common, and lots of others in bigger towns. Generally the standard of take-aways is good, but the best guide is, as always, to observe what the locals are doing.
Restaurants : Larger towns have a range of restaurants to suit most tastes and you will find a very broad range of different cuisines, including India, China, Thailand, France and Italy. Waiters generally expect a 10% tip and in some places this is automatically listed on your bill. However, if you are dissatisfied with the service in any way, you are under no obligation to pay the service charge.
Balti : One of the most popular types of restaurant in Britain is the Indian restaurant. Most common in certain areas of large cities and not often found directly in city centres or other tourist traps, Indian restaurants serve cuisine commonly known to their customers by the generic term "curry". Common Indian restaurant dishes include Chicken Tikka Masala, Prawn Biryani and the incredibly spicy Vindaloo (of Portuguese origin). A recently fashionable version of curry is known as "balti", possibly named after the metal bowl the food is cooked (and served) in. Balti cuisine, and a number of other commonly served dishes such as the ubiquitous chicken tikka masala, originated in the UK though it is clearly based on food from the Indian subcontinent. Birmingham in the Midlands is considered the balti capital of the UK as this dish was conceived there.

Regional specialities.

  • Black Pudding - a sausage made of congealed pig's blood and rusks cooked in an intestine. Available in all over the UK but a speciality of the north of England and the Black Country, and in actual fact, tastes better then it sounds.
  • Cornish Pasty - beef and vegetables baked in a folded pastry case. Originally a speciality of Cornwall, but now available throughout the UK. Usually very good in Devon and Cornwall, but can be of variable quality elsewhere.
  • Deep Fried Mars Bar - Orignally from Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, but now available in other parts of Scotland and usually by request in fish & chip shops throughout the UK.
  • Haggis - a mixture of sheep innards and oatmeal boiled in a sheep's stomach. Available widely, but a speciality of Scotland. Also available in many supermarkets.
  • Lancashire Hotpot - a hearty vegetable and meat stew. A speciality of Lancashire, but available throughout the UK.
  • Laverbread - a puree made from seaweed, rolled in oatmeal, lightly fried and generally served with bacon rashers, though can be prepared as a vegetarian dish. Available in Swansea and West Wales.
  • Oatcakes - this speciality of Stoke-on-Trent, North Staffordshire and Derbyshire is a large, floppy, oat-based pancake, eaten hot with a savoury filling. Not to be confused with the Scottish oatcake, a sort of biscuit.
  • Potato Bread - a mixture of potatoes, salt, butter and flour. A speciality of Northern Ireland, which when added to a Full English Breakfast (alongside Soda Bread) forms an 'Ulster Fry. This is also known as Potato Cakes in England and Tattie Scones in Scotland.
  • Yorkshire Pudding - a savoury side dish made from unsweetened batter. Squat and round in shape - often served with a roast dinner (consisting of roast potatoes, roast beef and yorkshire puddings). Originally a speciality of Yorkshire, but a popular side-dish throughout the UK.

Pub.

The pub (public house) is the most popular place to get a drink in the UK. Even small villages will often have a pub, serving spirits, wines, beers, cider, and alcopops, accompanied by crisps, nuts, and pork scratchings. Many serve snacks or meals. The greater volume of drinks served are various kinds of beer, mainly lagers, bitters, and one particular brand of Stout. People not looking to drink real ale are free to choose a pub just on the basis of location, and character, because most national "smooth" bitters or TV-advertised lagers are available in any non real-ale pub. However, even non-real-ale drinkers often find that they prefer the types of pubs with a range of real ales, because they tend to be more "traditional": with a more individual character and less oriented to juke boxes, games machines, fruit machines, and large crowds. In England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there is now a blanket ban on smoking inside pubs and restaurants, though many pubs have areas outside (often known as "Beer gardens") where smoking is permissable.
British real ales, championed by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), are amongst the best in the world - though people used to colder, blander, fizzier beers may find that the taste needs to be acquired. People looking for real ale will need to select the right pubs, because although a wide range of pubs serve one or two real ales (some of these have only a "token" barrel with low turnover and a strange taste: often, unfortunately, people's first and understandably only experience with "real ale"), only a "real ale pub" will have a wide selection. The phrase "free house" was usually the main indicator for people looking for a good choice of beer, because this indicated that the pub was not owned by a particular brewery and served whatever beer its landlord thought would appeal to their customers. However, this is no longer a significant factor, because most national pub chains are now owned by large conglomerates who deal centrally with brewers and serve the same mass-market brands in all their pubs: these conglomerates (not being breweries) can still call their pubs "free houses".
British people usually follow a kind of un-written code of conduct when in pubs, though types of venue can vary dramatically. Ranging from 'local' pub, usually a quiet place consisting of one or two rooms, to a chain pub (e.g. J.D. Wetherspoons) which are very large rooms capable of holding hundreds of people.

  • Don't tap money on the bar surface to attract the barman's attention.
  • Especially in a 'local' pub, keep your voice down and avoid drawing attention to yourself.
  • It might be best to avoid heated debates about controversial subjects in pubs and bars, if others get involved these can escalate.
  • If you require extra chairs, you may want to take one from another table. If someone is already seated (even if it is only one person seated at a six person table) you must ask if you can take the chair.
  • Waiting patiently at a bar is imperative. Pushing in line will not be tolerated and could lead to confrontation. If someone cuts in line before you, feel free to complain - you should get support from other locals around you.
  • In the male toilets, especially in big pubs or clubs, don't try to strike up conversation or make prolonged eye contact. UK pub toilets are very much "get in and get out" places - some drunks can take a casual remark the wrong way.
Pubs with a good choice of real ales may exhibit almost any pattern of ownership:
  • By a real-ale brewery (in which case the pub will serve all of the beers made by them, and perhaps only one "guest beer").
  • By a national or local pub chain who believe it is possible to serve a range of real ales at reasonable prices (their chain buying power can force down a brewer's margins) in a pub that non-real-ale-fans (often crowds of youths) will be willing to patronise.
  • By an independent landlord committed to real ale (usually the ones with the most idiosyncratic beers, and the hard-core "real ale type" customers).
Many pubs are very old and have traditional names, the "Red Lion" or "King's Arms"; before widespread literacy pubs would be identified by most customers solely by their signs. Recently there has been a trend, strongly resisted in some quarters, towards chain-pubs such as the Hogshead, Slug and Lettuce and those owned by the JD Wetherspoon company. Another recent trend is the gastro-pub, a smartened-up traditional pub with a selection of high-quality food (nearly at restaurant prices).
Beer in pubs is served in pint and half-pint measures, or in bottles. Simply ordering a beer on tap will be interpreted as a request for a pint, eg 'A London Pride, please'. Alternatively 'half a London Pride, please' will get you a half-pint. If you ask for a "half-pint of London Pride" in a noisy pub, you will almost certainly get a pint, because no-one asks for a "half-pint" and the bar person will have thought you said "I'll have a pint of London Pride, please".
Pubs often serve food during the day. Drinks are ordered and paid for at the bar.

| Raccomanded web site:  Travel Moldova