After your strictures as to excessive addiction to writing of, and partaking of, rich and delicate food--strictures prompted, I fear, by my cousin John--I feel some diffidence in writing of the dinners served at these hotels. Yet I must say that from experience I have found that at all three hotels the tables are well served; the dinner of the _table d'hôte_ being in each case five shillings in price.
For an instance, at the Grand Hotel on the day of my inquiry, among other delicacies, whitebait, and the curry of Madras, pheasants, and the toothsome pigeon were served; while at the Métropole _dominos de foie gras_ would have tempted your appetite, and you would have ended a capital dinner with partridges and various sweets. This is how you would have fared at the Hotel Victoria:--
Canapés de caviar Moscovite. Consommé Marquise. Crème Chantilly. Sole Montreuil. Blanchailles à la Diable. Zéphires de faisan Princesse. Tournedos Ventadour. Selle de mouton au laver. Dindonneau Baltimore. Haricots verts sautés au beurre. Pommes fondantes. Pluviers dorés bardés sur croûtes. Salades panachées. Mince pies. Biscuits glacés vanille. Langue de chat. Dessert.
I need scarcely say, my dear aunt, how pleased I shall be to be of any service to you and my cousin Judith during your stay in the Metropolis, and remain, your very dutiful and obliged NEPHEW.
"The best dinner in London, sir!" was what our fathers always added when, with a touch of gratification, they used to tell of having been asked to dine on the Queen's Guard at St. James's; and nowadays, when the art of dinner-giving has come to be very generally understood, the man who likes good cooking and good company still feels very pleased to be asked to dinner by one of the officers of the guard, for the old renown is still justified, and there is a fascination in the surroundings that is not to be obtained by unlimited money spent in any restaurant.
Past the illuminated clock of the Palace, the hands of which mark five minutes to eight, in through an arched gate, across one of the courts, and in a narrow passage where a window gives a glimpse of long rows of burnished pots and pans, is a black-painted door with, on the door-jamb, a legend of black on white telling that this is the officers' guard.