Meal ideas, no kitchen

[SailorCentral]

We’re travelling to Germany this summer. We’re staying in a hotel for a week, with breakfast included. We won’t have a kitchen, but there is a small mini bar fridge in the room. We had planned on eating out a lot.

However, now something has come up and made a huge dent in our finances. We need to budget a lot more for this trip. Has anyone got any good ideas of how to do this? There is a supermarket nearby, so I was thinking of making picnics etc. Might get bored of that quickly though, especially when we need lunch and dinner.

How about pot noodles/pasta/cup soup etc - the ones where you just fill it up with boiling water. Guessing you'll have a kettle in the hotel!

Make sure you eat a hot breakfast so you don't mind a cold lunch as much!

Is the accommodation cancel-able, and swap for AirBnB or apartment?

If you can cancel and change accommodation I’d do that.
Because a week of eating in your room will be stressful.

eating in hotel rooms makes mess. One night fair enough, but bathrooms aren’t kitchens, the sink shouldn’t be used for washing up,
youlll have to dispose of food and packaging waste.
You need to have washing up liquid, tea towels, plates and cutlery.
what a faff.

Cancelling and getting self catering accommodation seems like the best solution.

There aren’t very many options you can make in a hotel room that aren’t somewhat miserable. I would opt for a very basic lunch eg just homemade sandwiches. Don’t go for coffees or buy snacks while you are out. You could alternate a basic homemade sandwich for lunch and dinner out with a cheap fast food lunch (eg a 99p McDonalds burger, German sausage from a stand) and a nice picnic supper. You could buy salad and a pudding in a supermarket to eat with a large shared takeaway pizza or a family box of chicken nuggets or with a side/starter from a takeaway eg samosas or chicken fried rice.

If you are cash strapped, I'd only have little cakes/pastries, biscuits and chocolatey type things to have with hot drinks in the room. Anything else is depressingly messy overall.

Seek out local delis and coffee shops where the locals go. You will probably spend the same amount anyway buying bits and pieces as you would getting cheap eats at a local place.

I'd have a massive breakfast, as late in the morning as you can, and then go straight to dinner (maybe with a snack in the afternoon)

Take a little from breakfast too? Like fruit for later?

Summer so picnics out should be fine - cheese, meats, fruit and bread - there is a huge variety you should be able to manage form local supermarkets - and then just a snack in the evening

Cheap cafe for lunchtime meal might be possible some days also

Take some Plastic plates and cutlery to make it less messy

Sorry but pot noodles does not equal holiday. Go to the the local market or go and get a bag of chips.

Are you travelling by car ? A small microwave would enable you to reheat ready-meals.

I would probably make breakfast your main meal of the day but might be worth contacting hotel to see if you could change breakfast for lunch.

Have a late lunch. Look at things like ready made quiches and salad, hot food counter stuff. Maybe a takeaway portion of chips.

If your room has a fridge try and take bread rolls, cold meat and fruit for the evening.

Whereabouts are you going? Places like supermarkets and stations do good cheap meals in some places

Some great ideas, thanks. I hadn’t even considered the mess!! I’ve mentioned cancelling and finding a self catering apartment but it was a flat out no from DH. I’m also really looking forward to this hotel so am keen to make it work. The hotel has a large garden leading onto the lake so, weather permitting, we’ll eat outside.

You may not necessarily have a cooked breakfast in non-chain hotels in Germany, so don't count on it.

You can get filled rolls in most bakeries for lunch. Or go to a supermarket and buy rolls, sliced cheese, cold cuts. There are normally also plenty of things like coleslaw or similar things available plus fruit (cut or whole).

Bring cutlery and a sharp pocket knife in your hold luggage and you are fine. Buy a pack of paper plates and you are sorted.

There are plenty of pizza places you can get a take away, you will find fast food stalls/restaurants "Imbiss", selling chips, sausages, schnitzel or plenty of Döner Kebab places.

Depending on the hotel you may have a small fridge you can use or even a guest lounge with a fridge/sink/kettle. We stayed in one which catered for hikers and they offered it so we could make ourselves lunch to take on the hike.

I would take a small vegetable parer type knife and a mini chopping board rather than a pocket knife. Buy paper plates when you get there. I might borrow cutlery at breakfast, if it were me… 🙈

Don't expect a kettle unless your room description says tea and coffee making facilities in room. Not sure about Germany but we have found it rare to have a kettle in hotels in both France and Spain not just in hotels but even in self catering apartments it isn't a given.If you're driving take a travel kettle.
I've done it for one night but not more. For a start the mini bar fridge isn't usually cold enough to keep stuff fresh for long.

We’ve done this, but got food from supermarket and ate out picnic style, didn’t bother with butter, but just got rolls, ham and sliced cheese, loose tomatoes or salad bag, anything that doesn’t need cutting or spreading.

Good point. Tea and coffee facilities in a room is quite a British thing. None of the hotels I stay in in Germany, Austria or Switzerland have them or fridges.

Check that you can eat your own food outside, lots of hotels don’t allow this.

The big German hotdog/sausages could be a good inexpensive and filling meal when you are out and about.

Breakfast may well be a continental breakfast.

Check out the deli counter at the supermarket, although in all honesty if you hardly plan on eating out then eating picnic food with no utensils may not be much fun. Where as switching to a self catering place would work.

Bread, cheese, cooked meats, fruit ... take a cool bag and some freezer packs with you and a couple of plastic plates and knives. Also a Cork screw/bottle opener.

Maybe split the difference, and do half the time SC and half in the hotel. Trying to prepare food in the hotel room would be miserable (and difficult), and the antithesis of being on holiday. All the good points about being in a nice hotel would be offset by trying to scrape together meals every day.

And if you're not going to eat out, what are you going to do all evening? Sit in your hotel room?

If you have a few months to prepare, can you make changes here to facilitate a better time there? (ie every takeaway you might have had at home = a meal out on holiday, etc)

Do you have a budget for the week?

Are you able to see what they provide for breakfast on their website, or on trip advisor? If it's their typical continental breakfast (cheese/meats/boiled eggs), then tbe sorts of things you might have for a picnic will become very repetitive.

Depending where you are, there might be places selling takeaway whole roast chickens, hotdogs and pizza. German supermarkets typically sell a variety of ready made salads.

Pubs and Italian restaurants are often more reasonable than here, depending on where you are.

But if you have a cancellation option, I agree with PPs to try to swap to SC as the only value you are getting from a hotel is breakfast - and you could easily take cereal with you for that, keep meat and cheese in the fridge and make sandwiches for lunch.
How does your anti-self catering DH suggest you feed yourselves on a budget with no facilities? I personally wouldn't rely on a hotel room fridge for keeping meats & cheese safely.

Check out 'cheap eats' on tripadvisor for where you're staying, there might be some good spots to get cheap evening meals.

Also, depending where you are, there might be a Grillplatz (public bbq) in a nearby park or along the hiking trails. A lot of them you can just rock up and use if they're free, but some you might need to book in advance.

If there is one nearby, Lidl bakery is good for lunch. We often picnic for lunch when on holiday in Europe and then 'eat out' for dinner. There are normally plenty of places to grab a takeaway pizza/sausage/schnitzel and fries relatively cheaply as well.