Breakfast at Residence Inn by Marriott New York Downtown Manhattan/World Trade Center Area

Another day, another hotel stay.  In this case, another Residence Inn, which means included breakfast for all.  While domestic Residence Inn free breakfast never comes close to rivaling the breakfast I get in other parts of the world with my status, some locations do an actually decent enough job, like the Residence Inn in Cambridge, MA, that surprised me with the variety and constant change from day to day.  I cannot say the same for the Residence Inn I stayed at in Manhattan, near World Trade Center.  

Breakfast was a crazy time every day, with a space not seemingly designed for the crowds, with bottlenecks abound.  The wait for the elevators at breakfast time was even worse.  The lackluster experience was pretty on par with everything else I experienced at this hotel, which included really shabby rooms in need of updates (literally every door frame or painted surface had paint hunks missing, there were weird patches on the walls, the wallpaper was peeling off, nothing was actually clean, with visible debris around the corners of the room and under and around everything, the linens smelt awful, etc, etc).  Anyway, this isn't Julie's hotel review blog, but, yeah, I don't recommend this hotel at all.

And now, back to the food and drink review.  I can solidly say: meh.  I was there for 8 days, tried a variety of items, and only found one that I liked in the entire time.

Starbucks Machine.

There were two Starbucks branded drink makers that made a variety of espresso beverages, coffee, chai and hot chocolate. Two choices for regular coffee beans, plus classic Pike Place decaf were available.

One machine was broken.  The other was sloooooow.  It took a fair number of steps for each guest to actually get to the button to "zomg, give me my drink already", and then it was quite slow at grinding beans, brewing, etc.  Given how truly awful the big urns of brewed coffee (regular only) on the side was, this meant quite the queue.  I saw people routinely give up, and say to their partner, "I think there is a Dunkin Donuts across the street, let's just go".

Anyway, I had both the regular and decaf coffees from the machine.  All were almost passable, but not particularly good.  

Apple and Orange Juice.
Water Dispenser.

The buffet starts with dispensers with two kinds of juice, classic apple or orange.  There is also an in-counter faucet controlled by a display on the side for chilled, sparkling, or elderflower (!) water.  I appreciated having what I assume is filtered sparkling water on tap.  Sadly, the breakfast room is closed after breakfast service, so I couldn't use it to fill bottles later in the day and the faucet is too low to fill a water bottle, which seemed intentional.  You could only fill their tiny little glasses, no extra water for you!

Cold Brew, Oat Milk, 2% Milk

This Residence Inn went slightly above and beyond, with a pitcher of cold brew, and oat milk.  (Strangely no soy milk, which I'd think is more common? ) The big dispenser had 2% regular milk, and nonfat was further down in individual bottles.

It turned out that that cold brew was only there one morning.  I never saw it again in my 8 night stay.

Cereal: Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Kashi Granola.

The cereal was in those annoying dispensers that either 1) jam up, 2) dump way too much at once, or 3) crush the contents.  All basic cereals, nothing particularly interesting.  I wished the corn flakes weren't frosted, and that the granola wasn't so full of super hard pellets of sugared raisins, but, it was at least a reliable option.

Oatmeal.

The standard pot of hot oatmeal and toppings was on offer.  I do like the walnuts they have, but, boo, no chocolate chips (like most Residence Inn locations have).  Only nuts, seeds, dried fruit.  Not even cinnamon to put on top! (the shaker was cocoa powder).

Yogurt & Milks.

In the little fridge was Chobani greek yogurt and a few flavors of lowfat creamy Danon yogurt, along with non-fat milk, both regular and chocolate.  I tried the chocolate milk on a whim one day, it was, well, chocolate milk.  The yogurt was all cloying sweet and fake tasting.

The only fruit to go with the yogurt was whole apples and oranges.  No berries, no melons, no pineapple.  Just whole fruits.

Bagels.

In a city known for bagels of course they had bagels, but I think these were just generic mass produced bready kind.  No bread or english muffins, just bagels.  Toasters were on the side to toast, and, judging from other guest's comments, seemed to not really toast at all, just, lightly warm.  There was always a long, long line for the toaster slots too.

Peanut butter, jam, s & p.

The usual suspects were on offer as spreads: Jif creamy PB, Smucker's brand jam.  Grab n go individual packets made it easy and mess free in the spreads area.  Not a very compelling lineup, particularly when I've seen RI locations with fancier jams (and a big lineup of them), plus come on, not even fairly standard Nutella?  Just peanut butter and jelly.

Cream cheese, butter.

At least the cream cheese (plain only, regular or low fat) and butter were properly kept cold.

Scrambled Egg Whites.

The hot bar had 4 items, two were eggs, either whites and regular, scrambled.  These never changed.  No fried eggs, no poached eggs, etc.  Just scrambled.

Next up was a rotating breakfast meat of the day.  The day it was sausage patties I heard multiple guests complaining there was no bacon.  The next day, it was labelled as sausage, but was in fact bacon.  It seemed to only ever be the pork sausage patties that looked highly processed and limp, or the bacon.

There were never any breakfast hot potatoes of any kind, no hash browns, home fries, or anything like that.

Daily Special: Liege Waffles.

The last item in the hot buffet did rotate.  On weekends, it was waffles.

So, um, these were a surprise.  Not because omg there was something decent in the buffet, but because of the noticeable absence of *the* signature Residence Inn self-serve waffle station.  I actually looked around, checked around the corner, thinking I really must be somehow missing it (like, in Cambridge, MA, where it really was in another room entirely).   But, nope, this RI does not allow you to make a horrible mess everywhere and burn your own waffles.

Now, those signature waffles are never actually anything special, even if you do cook them properly, but even otherwise "meh" RI locations tend to have a great toppings lineup for the waffles.  Flavored syrups, fruit compotes, and always, always whipped cream.  I was counting on being able to get a cup full of whipped cream at breakfast!  But alas, no whipped cream.  In fact, the only topping for the waffles was packets of pancake syrup, and it was only there on waffle day.

That said, these were liege waffles, and thus, syrup isn't actually needed, as they have pearl sugar baked in.  I was particularly excited as I got a fresh batch of the waffles my first day.  They were ... soft.  At least not over cooked and dried out, but, this kind of waffle is not supposed to be floppy.  And these were floppy.  The base flavor was fine, and they did have pearl sugar studding them, but, presumably being kept hot in a steam tray did them no service.  I pondered sticking one in the bagel toaster ...

Overall, still ***, but, would get another half star if actually lightly crisp.

Update: The next weekend, the waffles were back.  They were not just soft this time, but also wet and gummy.  Sadness, as these really could be good, but this steam tray does them no justice. **.

Daily Special: Sausage Biscuit.

On Monday, I went eager to snag a liege waffle and found that slot now housed packaged sausage biscuits with cheese.  Lukewarm.  It turns out, this 4th hot dish was a rotating special, so waffles weren't actually available daily (only weekends I was told).

Sausage Biscuit: Unwrapped.

"Our Cheddar Sausage Biscuit is made with our classic, scratch made Mason Dixie® Cheddar Biscuit and nitrite/nitrate free sausage and ready in just 90 seconds."

I didn't try the sausage biscuit the first day, but, when it came back 2 days later, and I literally wanted nothing else from the buffet, I decided to brave it.

It was worse than I thought it would be.

The biscuits were both dried out and moist at the same time.  More like soggy I guess, due to the steam inside the plastic wrapper.  But they were hard/dry as if overcooked as well.  I did not taste the cheddar cheese, that was supposed to be inside the biscuit part.  They had no tang either, no buttermilk or anything slightly classy about these.  They tasted like soggy hard compressed cardboard.  Not good. *.

And the sausage?  A thin, chewy patty.  Tasted highly processed (I know all sausage is obviously processed, but, these were very processed). *.

Truly nothing redeeming about this. *.

Daily Special: Swiss Cheese & Spinach Crustless Quiche.

The third day, the breakfast special was packaged crustless quiche.

It was soggy.  Lukewarm.  Had no real flavor.  Did not like. *.

Egg, chorizo, & cheddar breakfast burrito.

"For the True Southwestern Morning."

Another day, another "special" pre-made packaged item.  This one came from Green Chile Food Company, who make a variety of burritos, both breakfast and regular.  The breakfast burritos feature eggs and most include hash browns and cheese, along with a variety of breakfast meats (bacon, sausage, chorizo, beef, etc).  Regular burritos include the standards like pork carnitas, chicken fajita, steak and jalapeno, bean & cheese, etc.  Our special was the egg, chorizo, and cheddar version.

I didn't try this the first time it showed up, after the other specials failed so miserably, but when it returned the very next day, I grabbed one out of curiosity/boredom.

Ir was actually considerably better than I was expecting.  The flour tortilla was soft and not dried out.  The fillings well distributed, warm, and comforting.  The cheese was nicely melted.  The chorizo bits were flavorful.  Soft bits of scrambled egg and shredded potatoes rounded it out.  The roasted corn and other zesty "southwest" inspired ingredients gave it a ton of flavor.  Basically, good textures, good flavors, and truly not bad.  No additional sauce required either.

It did leave me feeling *very* weighed down, as this is a heartier item for breakfast than I normally would have, and I wished I had my griddle to toast the exterior on, but, I wasn't upset I ate it.  I wouldn't get another unless really craving something like it though.  ***.