Hey, you never told us how it worked out with the bacon roll for NCL-LHR.

Full English instead as per the pics

The bacon roll was cancelled as it was trumped by the op up and a full English

Finished off my highlife cafe sampling with the �when in Rome� Pinot Grigio and although nothing outstanding I�d be happy to drink it again.




Excellent flight across the board. Crew were great, seat was as good as CE, food and drink were more than adequate. The middle empty seat made it perfect. Maybe next year I need to do a few more Euro Traveller flights and see if this is the norm or an exception.

I love Bucharest arrivals. From stepping off the plane to standing on the pavement outside it was less than 10 minutes. That�s probably the best time achievable for a LHR arrival as it is quite a long walk with multiple travelators along the route but I don�t think it has ever topped 20 minutes.

Caught the driver by surprise because he was tracking the flight and still 5 minutes out from the airport when I hit kerbside. that was fine, no issues for me watching the the world go by for a few minutes.

The drive to the Radisson was roughly 30 minutes through some quite heavy traffic which my driver said was typical for a Friday afternoon.

Weather here in Bucharest is overcast and warm, a definite step up from rainy Newcastle so hopefully that holds for the weekend, not checked the forecast yet.

Time to check in and see what room type I�ve got for this weekend

Radisson continue to treat me well. Upgrade to a suite for this weekend and a spread of goodies including a bottle of fizz. Methinks these guys are getting to know me far too well











Dickie Duck was absent from last weeks photos even though he travelled with me. Correcting that mistake early this week.


Unpacked, sorted out all the tech, organised my life, and now it is time for a trip to the executive lounge for coffee and maybe fizz before I need to hit the road in an hour and a little bits time to get over to the restaurant I’ve booked for tonight. Honestly, I could probably pass and have an early night but then I’d probably never get the chance to try this establishment and the fear of missing out is strong today

The ET exit row is always a good option (curtain roulette needs to be considered). Having an empty seat next to you is very much a lottery - can be grabbed by those with high status (and less sense? desperate for legroom? ) before airport control and Theoretical Seating blocks kick in. On a really full flight it will go anyway...

Thanks again for the TR, which is as weeel written as always! Looking forward to some of the EDI sectors, as this is something I've often considered, before eventually going for the boring nearby NCL option.

Ah, the joys of writing literally on the fly and on my phone. I�m weeely grateful for you pointing out my spelting errors

I resemble those remarks

Out of idle curiosity I popped into the lounge to see what this evenings food options were and, surprise, no starch






I guess the little pots of chicken rice count as starch, just about!

Time to hit the pavement for the 20 minute walk over to tonight�s restaurant

Hanu Berarilor, what to say… a bit of a mixed bag to be honest. I ate in the orangerie which suffers from the curse of mood lighting and is very dimly lit. They try to offset this with LED table lamps but the lamps have a very short throw distance. I would have preferred to sit outside but that was fully booked.





Service was good and attentive but overly so at the start when, after delivering a drink, the waiter stood at my shoulder waiting to take my order. This, of course, made me read even slower. Once the place started to fill up he was kept busy with all the other tables so maybe he was just bored, I was eating very early for Bucharest.

The ursus tank beer was very good however the food was also a mixed bag. I ordered the “hot pan” which was billed as stir fried chicken, beef, and pork, with chilli… it was so overcooked that the chicken was chewy and the pork was rock hard. On the other hand I also ordered the BBQ ribs and these were amazing, and a massive portion size.



BBQ ribs. That is a full size dinner knife of the left edge of the board

Hot pan

Ursus Tank

BBQ ribs no more, just ribs

Total price was �30 for everything and I am completely full and verging on a meat coma!

A Bolt back to the hotel as I didn’t fancy waddling all the way back, and now in the exec lounge with a coffee and a whisky and will soon be departing for my bed.

Late start tomorrow, dentist not until 11am, and then expecting it to be the rest of the day in the chair. right now it’s goodnight from me and proceedings will recommence at breakfast.

The rib plate alone looks enough for me... good for you to reduce that to bones alone.

What is the booking situation like for your Bucharest dinners? Long in advance or more ad-hoc?

The ribs were enough for me too, the portion size was unexpected! The overcooked dish went mostly uneaten. For this one I booked earlier this week and seating times were limited to early or late. Same is true for Caru ce Bere, booking neatly 2 weeks ahead and still some times and locations were unavailable. Generally I�ve found you can just walk in but these last few weeks I�m ticking off sone of the more popular places so for those I�d recommend booking well in advance if you want specific times and locations in the restaurants.

After a decent enough but not completely satisfying nights sleep it is 7am in a still dark bucharest and I have just watched the very orange and gibbous moon set behind the skyline.

kick starting the day with a Cortado to get the heart beating, and the standard coffee and orange juice… no fizz in this lounge, not that I would partake today with the dentists looming!





The lounge breakfast layout looks much the same although the hot options seem to have been enhanced down slightly, I’m sure there used to be starch…I’m become starch obsessed



Some interesting experiments been taking place in the lab looking at those flasks!



Where’s the potato gone?

A little back story - when I got home last week and was flicking through the photos from the trip I came across the eggs Benedict that you may recall due to it’s remarkable resemblance to an egg McMuffin. In a moment of puckishness I sent it to the food and beverage manager along with stock photos of both an eggs Benedict and a McDonalds McMuffin and asking which she felt it most closely resembled . This caused slightly more furore than I could have anticipated as it somehow landed on the GMs desk!

After a couple of emails back and forth with both the F&B manager and the Director of Rooms during the week, when I checked in the receptionist asked me to wait a second whilst she called someone and the Director of Rooms came out to talk to me. A fairly long conversation ensued, one probably not best suited to the end of a ten hour fizz fuelled trip

And the reason for this little story is, breakfast today is going to be eggs Benedict Mk II upon which I shall now cast my jaundiced eye!

Fabo.sk you are absolutely right, and I thought I had, maybe I didn�t submit the update. This is what happened.

The IFL came along and asked whether I still wanted the highlife order and I said it depended on whether there was a meal loaded for me as I know sometimes with gate upgrades there is no catering. She said it was no problem so I asked if it could be cancelled. A couple of calls between the front and the back of the plane and they decided that it should be marked as non-delivered. She also asked laughingly if I wanted the plastic champagne glass and I said �only if I can have it for the Castelnau�

And the reason I just went looking for that non-existent update is, I paid for the food and drink using Avios. I know that is a terrible use of Avios but BA was being BA and refusing multiple credit cards and so as it was only 2,000 or so Avios I ran out of patience and took the easy path. I just checked my account and the Avios have been returned, along with another 5,000 for an unasked for �Service Recovery� credit! BA works in mysterious ways