WHEN it comes to staying in London, the basic rule is the room is pricier as one stays nearer the center of the city. But you can’t eventually save when you stay farther from the city center since you’ll be spending much for expenses in those peculiarly London black taxicabs as you travel through the city day in and day out for the one-week conference which is why you’re here in the Great City in the first place.

Central London is divided into four districts – Bloomsbury, Kensington, Paddington/Hyde Park and Westminster. Budget hotels in Bloomsbury include Generator, Astor Museum Inn Hotel, The Apollo Hotel, Alhambra Hotel and Jesmond Dene Hotel. Midrange hotels are Ridgemount, George Hotel and Avalon Hotel. Five-star hotels are Euston Square Hotel, Sanderson Hotel and St. Martins Lane Hotel. In Kensington, places of accommodation include the Berjaya Eden Park Hotel, Quality Crown Hotel Kensington, The Lord Jim Hotel, K+K Hotel George, The Great Eastern, Astons Apartments, Merlyn Court Hotel and Refresh Accommodation. In the Paddington and Hyde Park area, the budget places of accommodation are Wake Up! London Backpackers Hotel which caters to persons on a road trip only, Bluedaws Hotel and Mitre Mouse Hotel. Midrange hotels include Hyde Park Towers Hotel, Quality Crown Hotel Paddington and Quality Crown Hotel Hyde Park. There’s a four-star hotel there called Hilton London Paddington.

In every luxurious place of accommodation in London, their bar usually serves 159 types of vodka and other spirits and liquor. There are various cuisines splashed there including the local British food and Asian gourmet as well. The most popular recipe in restaurants of inexpensive motels in London is the fish and chips cuisine. Your meal consists of bread crumbs, mashed potatoes and fish of course. But take note, these are first-class fish and most of these are not frozen but are fresh catch from the sea or from the freshwater.

Some motels in London even have their own fish ponds. If they cannot afford to make their place of stay a five-star one, then they can be more indigenous and diligent in offering more unique amenities to their gifts. This is to make the guests, especially the foreign ones, feel that London is not just another urbane city where you’ll get lost but rather a place where nature’s bounties like fish are still abundant. The various fish which will be deep-fried and mixed with butter served in a London motel restaurant are haddock, cod, pollock, coley, plaice, skate, dogfish and other rock salmon, whiting, ray wings, monkfish, hake and scampi. This dish is mainly accompanied with pickled onions, barbecue sauce, brown sauce (which is based on meat stock), burger sauce, tartar sauce, curry sauce, gravy, garlic sauce, chili sauce, cheese, mayonnaise, ketchup, turkey stuffing, lemon and salad cream. Some London motel restaurants offer bonuses on your fish and chips meal such as baked beans, coleslaw, peas, pickled eggs and kidney pudding, among others. Hmm…come to think of it, kidney pudding sounds delicious, right? So if you’ve got the opportunity, stow to London right away.

THE rate of London’s hotel suites steadily increases as the hotel nears the city center. London is actually divided into four urban neighborhoods – Bloomsbury, Kensington, Paddington/Hyde Park and Westminster. In Bloomsbury, the lesser expensive hotels are those near King’s Cross Tube station. In Kensington, one can find four-star hotels. In these four-star hotels, you will usually find elegant British dining restaurants. But one can find the same quality of British food when he or she takes it outside. For 3 pounds, you can already have a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, beans dipped in tomato sauce, coffee or tea and orange juice. Eateries stop serving breakfast after 11 a.m. For 5 pounds, you can already order a McDonald’s. For 8 pounds, you can have a drink at a pub. For 10 pounds, you can indulge in a fine dining Chinese restaurant (that is outside the hotel of course).

For 20 pounds, you can order yourself a bottle of wine at a pub. For 30 pounds, you can have a date in first-class restaurant. By first-class, I mean the air conditioning or the heating is not bad, there is a jazz band playing around or there is an open area in the restaurant which overlooks the city or River Thames and the London night skyline. For 50 pounds plus, you can stay in the restaurant of the five-star hotel where you’re billeted all night and all dawn long. The menu usually consists of cheese salad, breaded fish cakes, cold meat, smoked eel, lobster salad, duck rolls dipped in sweet chili sauce, deep fried prawns dipped in mayonnaise, smoked Scottish salmon, lobster coated in caramelized apple, wild mushroom, warm whiskey bread, Dover Sole fish, shrimps from Morecombe Bay and pies, tiramisu, mousse, Danish pastries, lemon cake, wild forest berries, waffles, pancakes and puddings as dessert. Wines served there consist of champagne, strawberry vodka and passion fruit.
One advantage of eating in these hotel restaurants is that they sell food after you’ve checked out.

Food to go is ideal when you’re embarking either on a plane or train trip or while waiting for your plane back home at Heathrow. Menu that you can select from include bagel, Yorkshire ham, egg salad with grape, walnut dressing, tuna, lobster deep-fried in avocado, roast beef, English mustard wrap, ham and cheese, vegetable sticks, fresh fruit salad, cookies, fruit yoghurt, fresh orange juice, mineral water and a choice of pastries. For an add-on into your four-star or three-star hotel suite, you can request for a Notebook, a scanner, a printer and a fax machine. You can even have your wedding at the hotel with a reasonable price range. The wedding buffet will consist of potato cake with lamb and caviar, ricotta dumplings dipped in chilled tomato sauce and asparagus, among others. Four-star or even three-star hotels usually have their own spa and the spa is equipped with a pool with jet stream, steam rooms, treadmills, body wrap, body scrub, Swedish massage, deep tissue massage, aromatherapy massage, reflexology and facials.