Museum Meals – Science Museum

A new gallery opened recently in the Science Museum, and a week after Her Majesty sent her first tweet, I wandered in to have a look as well.

As with a lot of large museums, this is a venue with several eateries to choose from, and while I had planned on going to what sounds like the nicer venue I was slightly put off by the glowing tables which sat ill at ease with “warm gallery” induced headache. I’ll save that for another visit.

So off to the cafe that most people probably use, which is sited right by the entrance and the gift shop.

It’s run by the same firm who seems to run a lot of museum cafes and aren’t doing that well in my review stakes, but this place looked a lot better than the previous so maybe I was just unlucky in the past.

The food looked better, although keeping hot meals under hot lamps never works, so I don’t know why companies still persist in doing it. I opted for the roasted sandwich in the end, after having to ask what was in each of them.

A museum full of labels, but they can’t label the sandwiches.

You get a choice of salad with the sandwich, but the notion of putting a hot sandwich on a cold plate half-filled with cold salad reintroduced me to my friend the laws of thermodynamics.

Add in a delay for a coffee to be made, and yeup, half the sarnie was cold by the time I was able to sit down.

Other than that, it was acceptable. A generic roasted sandwich. The bean salad was acceptable, but bland. More a pile of mushy carbs than anything flavoursome. I prefer a bit of spice in my bean salads. It filled a gap, but adequately as opposed to pleasingly.

I’d prefer to have opted for one of the many cafes next to the tube station, but it’s difficult to write reviews of meals in museums that way.

Cost: £9.75 for sandwich, bean salad and coffee

Stars: 2 out of 5

Date: 1st November 2014

Summary: Plenty of quantity, but woefully lacking in flavour or service. Bland, but safe food for the tourist market.

Science Museum Energy Cafe