Big Breakfast of the Week: 3 Monarch Restaurant, Hotel Zaza, Houston



We have already examined the Martinis at the Hotel Zaza in Houston but now lets examine their breakfast! 

Triple P had arrived at the hotel at an unearthly 6.30 am having taken an overnight flight from Bogota.  Amazingly the hotel let us check in straight away so we were able to have a rest before descending to the Monarch Restaurant for a leisurely breakfast some hours later.


The terrace from the main restaurant


The restaurant itself doubles as a bar in the evening but has a nice terrace where you can sit outside but under cover.  One thing that was instantly in its favour was that there was no buffet, everything was a la carte. They had the usual porridge (or oatmeal as Americans call it), tropical fruit, yoghurt etc.  On the cooked side you could have had Eggs Benedict, omelette, corned beef hash, waffles, steak and eggs (very Mission Control, that), a hot sandwich, pancakes or tacos.  Triple P had the two eggs, any style with bacon or sausage (actually we had both) and potatoes which was priced at $12 (although we expect they added a supplement).

Accomapnying this we had a (very good indeed) pot of tea which, we think we are right in saying, was actually made with leaves (they had a good range) for $4 and a red grapefruit juice which was also $4.

Overall it was...OK.  We don't think that potatoes should really be served with a cooked breakfast and we are not sure about peppers (and especially asparagus!) either.  We had a bit of local colour with an accompanying dish of chilli sauce which we didn't touch.  The bacon was the usual fatty, brittle stuff that North Americans seem to think is edible (rather than it being used to cover a turkey when cooking which is all it is good for).

I think that overall it only gets a 6/10 (and that is mainly for the tea).