It looks like Agent Triple P is going to be off on his travels again later this month so it's probably time for a another foreign big breakfast review.
Le Beaulieu in the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi is a restaurant with a long heritage. The restaurant has been in its current location ever since the hotel opened in 1901. The hotel has recently been sensitively renovated keeping all of its colonial style whilst bringing the facilities up to a level that Triple P has rarely seen elsewhere.
Outside the restaurant is a pavement cafe: very French!Normally we don't like hotel restaurants that have to serve breakfast lunch and dinner but Le Beaulieu doesn't have the canteen elements of many modern multi-purpose hotel restaurants and for breakfast the setting is exquisite with a cool and relaxing atmosphere. Less formal breakfast is available in the nearby L'Orangerie.
As usual, Agent Triple P likes to start breakfast with tea and grapefruit juice. This always throws waiters around the world who expect everyone to have coffee and orange juice, annoyingly! The grapefruit juice was, unusually, white but none the worse for that. The tea was nicely served but suffered from French style (UHT we suspect) milk.
Our companion's breakfast illustrates how she stays so slim and gorgeous! The grapefruit segements were massive! The usual selection of Asian, continental and cooked breakfasts were available. The selection was quite good without being exceptional. The sausages were slightly unusual in taste but were excellent. The bacon was streaky but not cooked into carbonised sticks like most international hotels. This is sort of the worst of both worlds. Streaky bacon in the UK is largely used for covering a turkey to prevent it burning. No self respecting English person would actually eat it! Back bacon is proper bacon which is cooked so that it is still soft not crispy. The baked beans didn't have that weird spicy taste you often get in Asia and the tomatoes, mushrooms and hash browns were just perfect.
Eggs were cooked fresh by a helpful young lady and were particularly good. All in all one of the nicer hotel restaurants Agent Triple P has had breakfast in of late. A pretty good selection and excellent service let down by the strange milk and dubious bacon.
Still, gets a good 7/10
