NDK 2022: Food

This con I decided to also keep a food journal so that con goers can see the types of food you can get and what the con food experience is like.

Day 1

With no time to grab breakfast at home we had to grab it at the hotel. Mommy Geek didn't feel like walking far so we hit up the little food shop/Starbucks.

Breakfast

The quiche was really small and even with the rice crispy treat I was still hungry. The rice crispy treat was really good. Normally Mommy Geek does not normally like things key lime flavored, but she actually liked the rice crispy treat. It had just a hint of lime and was not over powering like a lot of key lime can be.

Lunch

This was one of the worst things I have ever eaten in my life. It was supposed to de drunken noodles, but I've had the dish in the past and this dried out vomit was not drunken noodles. Yes it was that bad. I only got a few bites in before I had to stop eating it. Because of how expensive it was I decided to carry it around for awhile to try and eat some more later, but while in the dealer's room the smell of it was getting to me so much I just went over and through them both out (yes I had two, Mommy Geek couldn't eat hers as well and would not walk near me while I was carrying them). I have never thrown out that expensive of food before, but it was one of the worst food experiences in my life. This TikTok video I recorded before I had to just give up eating them: https://www.tiktok.com/@geekedcolorado/video/7138878772958448942?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 .

Dinner

For dinner I decided to try one of their hot grab and go sandwiches. It had very little filling and was mostly bread. I ended up throwing away a good chunk of the bread because of how dry it was.

Day 2

Breakfast

This morning we decided to try and have breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel that offered a buffet. The buffet was $25 and from the prices at the Gaylord hotel it seemed like the "best value" this place has to offer. At the same time I have tried breakfast buffets at other con hotels and they have been cheaper. Like for Anime Onsen the buffet at that hotel was only $18.99. 

Round 1

The food was about average, but the avocado toast was burnt. The hash had a weird sauce that was broken.

Round 2

Tried the avocado toast again. Not as burnt, but not cooked right either.

Dirty dishes stacking up with no bussing.

When we got the bill they auto charged us $9 in tip. 

We were only two people, you have to get your own food, and the service wasn't that great. We had to ask for drink refills because our server wasn't on top of it and that with bussing tables is all they were doing. When I spoke to the Manger I explained the situation and she did take off the auto tip. We did still leave a tip, but one that matched the service. Restaurants that auto charge tips allow their servers to provide bad service. It's also bad for servers because it will mean that it will be auto taxed where as cash left to servers doesn't have to deal with that. Doing auto tipping is just all around bad customer service and just made for another bad food experience at the hotel.

Lunch

Around lunch time I met up with some friends so we could go look for the NDK cafe. All the signs we found said it was on the veranda, but we actually found it in the back of the registration room. It was really confusing to find and the signs were misleading. I didn't order any food myself, but helped one of my friends finish off the pizza she had ordered. This was a little more like average food and even with that it was way better then what the hotel offered and was cheaper. I think this food had to come from outside of the hotel. My friends also tried some of the Asian offerings and said that those were ok as well and a better food experience then they had with other con food at the hotel.

Dinner?

Dinner....if you can call it dinner was just a stop at the Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino. Even with me asking for extra syrup it was still really bland. I also had been snacking on some rice crackers and tomato crackers I had brought with me.

Day 3

Breakfast                                                        

After the food experiences at the hotel we decided it would be best to just grab food on our way. Since we left super early we stopped at a gas station to grab something.

All of this was a little less then the price of one sandwich at the hotel. After this we just skipped eating for the rest of the day. The con on Sunday is mostly over by 5pm and we decided we would just grab dinner after we left for the day.

Dinner

For dinner we stopped at the Moonlight Diner that we had seen driving to and from the con. It's actually a nice little place that has large portions for good prices. Actually the Gaylord hotel could learn a lot from this place.

Picture from Julia's (Chief Geek's) Google Local Guide Review. https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/100288914062993878571/reviews/@39.8098928,-104.7717157,9z/data=!4m3!8m2!3m1!1e1?hl=en-US

So this was my food at the con. Was it the healthiest?.... NO. During cons I know that I will not be eating healthy and that both before and after the con I need to be extra careful in what I eat. Cost drives a lot of my food choices as I would argue it does for a lot of people. Healthy food is not cheap food. At the same time fast food is also not normally healthy food and that is another thing that goes with a con.

As an additional side is these pictures below (not something I ate, but something I saw the hotel selling):

These are both examples of where the Gaylord was charging high prices for containers of food that weren't even half full. I don't know if the workers were putting so little food in them on purpose or if they just got sloppy and weren't paying attention to what they were doing, but this is not ok. These photos were from the grab and go section in their coffee shop/cafe. This is not ok. So based on the food experiences at this year's con the Gaylord would get a F-.