I had to go back to Sydney early from my New Zealand trip so I can sit an exam and since I hadn’t had any luck finding the quite space I needed to read the text books I’d lugged around with me thus far I booked myself two days in Harbour View room at the Hilton Auckland (I got a good deal at wotif). The hotel itself is smaller than I thought and felt cramped every time I walked through the lobby but the rest of the hotel is quite spacious. The room I was in had a very large marble bathroom with separate bath and shower, the rest of the room contained a king size bed, 32” LCD TV and DVD player and a desk. Then there was the balcony - the same size as the room itself! The only complaint with it is that even though there are double sliding doors opening on to it, there was a concrete pillar in the middle of them making getting outside a little awkward and blocked the view from inside.

I hadn’t had breakfast that morning so once I settled into the room, opened all the draws and flicked all the light switches I had a look at the room service menu. There was all of the standard fare you get at the Hilton plus the specialised items from the hotels restaurant. I ordered the Nasi Goreng, just a light meal. Presented well, the rice moulded in a bowl and turned out into the plate with a fried egg across the top, tomato and cucumber slices fanned around the edge and individual bowls of chili paste, soy and dried fish so they could all be added to taste, a single large prawn cracker and three small chicken satay skewers to the side. Flavour wise it was more subtle than I’m used to, all of the flavours were balanced so it was a clearly deliberate choice and it certainly wasn’t bland per se but I could see a lot of people thinking it was.

The second night I stayed I went to White, the hotel’s restaurant with Italian chef Cristiano De Martin running the show. You can see his European training and years of dedicated practice in the way every dish was executed, starting with the produce then preparation and cooking then finally the presentation. De Martin’s dedication to his food extends to joint venture called Homegrown with NZ primary producers to source the best ingredients. I can’t see any losers here, especially as I get presented with my first course.

Starting off with Heart of the Desert saffron infused carrot soup with parsley foam it’s not surprising De Martin highlights one of his Homegrown partners in Heart of the Desert saffron. Who knew that NZ can grow it given 90% of the world production is from Iran? The soup itself was good blending the more complex earthier kiwi saffron standing up against fresh sweet carrots. The parsley foam was wispy and delicate adding a level of texture and evening out the parsley flavour so that no mouthful could ever be overpowed with a herb than can taste like grass if you get a mouthful of it unexpectedly.

Contrasting the soup’s delicate flavour profile is the Northland kingfish carpaccio, spiced shallots with citrus and sesame dressing and mini coriander leaves hitting you with an incredible burst starting out with the lime that is made palatable with the shallots, coriander and sesame on the finish. Without any one of these the dish wouldn’t balance but here all of the flavours are inline leaving you with the amazingly fresh kingfish carpaccio. The mouthfeel of the slightly oily kingfish sliced paper thin and served raw as it melds itself with the rest of the flavours creating one of those moments you sit up and pay attention to what you’re eating.

I love duck and I eat it quite often but until now I hadn’t actually had the chance to make or try tea smoked duck. I made tea smoked snapper a few weeks ago as a trial before I give it ago on duck. Now I’ve got a gold standard to aim for. A salad of tea smoked duck resting on crisp filo pastry, pistachio, celery and grapes with a blueberry and riesling verjus dressing was a familiar yet different taste. Smoking the duck adds a soft undertone to each bite that while you can tell it is there, at no point does it distract you from the duck itself or any other ingredient. Pistachio as a nut has an odd flavour that wouldn’t have worked if the duck wasn’t smoked. A lesser chef would have either used hazelnut that I think would have enhanced the smoke and overpowered the rest of the salad or blanched almods simply for texture. The filo pastry was disappointing, it seemed more like a layer of cardboard where I was expecting the salad to be perched on top of individual layers of delicate filo. Did you notice something missing in the picture? When I was served the dish I thought it was odd but there isn’t a black/purple drizzle across the top. I’m not sure how they did it, but blueberry skin wasn’t in the ingredient list for the dressing so it’s is perfectly clear. The two black half circles are grapes.

Scallops are tender pillows of shellfish that have a sweeter meat than crayfish. Their intense flavour, despite that they’re physically delicate, means they can carry other strong flavours and De Martin picked almost a surf and turf with Spirits Bay scallops seared with crispy pancetta, apple pureé and a snow pea salad with cabernet sauvignon vinegar glaze. Even before the plate lands you can smell the pancetta and the bacon instinct kicks in and your nose is in the air trying to breathe it all in. The pancetta releases so much of it’s flavour as it’s friend in the pan next to the scallops that they seem to soak it up like a sponge. The drizzle of glaze on the plate was incredibly intense and perfect for cutting through the pancetta’s fat so you can reclaim the scallop’s individuality.

The Assistant Manager (who did an amazing job all night) disagreed with the chef on his choice of wine for a number of dishes and I either saw her point or agreed completely. This time I only saw her point. She gave me some of the listed wine, a Cloudy Bay ‘08 Sauvignon Blanc, and the wine she thought was best, a Brancott ‘07 Sauvignon Blanc, both from the Malborough. I’m sorry to say I wouldn’t have said either were a perfect match but then I can’t say what would have been either. The Cloudy Bay was good at balancing the glaze and pancetta but destroyed the apple and scallop where as the Brancott was obliterated by the fat. Given the focus of this dish was scallops, not pancetta I’d have erred on the side of caution and taken the Bancott as the manager suggested.

A Kaffir Lime sorbet broke the meal. It tasted like the only possible way you could have that much lime flavour in a that glass was if someone froze and blended the lime itself. It had such a fresh taste to it, probably enhanced by the fact it was frozen, but it could have easily been the smell of a fresh picked lime. My guess is it was probably oil from the skin being sprayed in to and incorporated with the mix.






The headline of the show for an international hotel in NZ was of course the Hawke’s Bay lamb loin roasted with garden herbs, parsnip créme and crisps, manuka smoked olives, lemon and Te Arai Extra Virgin emulsion. The lamb was cooked a touch longer than I’d have liked but within tolerances for medium-rare so it did benefit from the olive oil and parsnip mash for moistness. That’s not to say it wasn’t full of flavour; I’d say the kiwi’s have made a good go at it. Infact given the better farming and grazing weather in NZ for the past few years, their lambs might just be better than the Australians. For now. Picking up some of the smoked olives with the lamb made for a nice way to extend the otherwise limited range of flavours on the plate, the parsnips and olive oil seemed to take on a new life. Half way through I’d ran out and wished there were more, olives, not parsnip.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the names of the two cheeses served on this course but they seemed along the lines of a mature cheddar and a firmer white mould cheese along the lines of a costello perhaps? As I was dining alone, I think I received a hastily cut down portion. There was just simply not enough cheese to try all of the condiments with at least one cheese, there weren’t even enough wafers. Still, it was nice for a course designed to transition your palette from red meat to dessert.




Of course, at the end of any meal you can’t go past dessert and what a dessert. The menu called for a chef’s selection and I don’t think there was anything left he hadn’t selected. When this course came up I was offered an extra glass of wine because there had been ‘an issue’ in the kitchen and I would have to wait an extra 10 minutes or so. What I think it was is that they couldn’t figure out how to present a dessert platter that’s designed for two people to a single person when most of the items are either slivers anyway or single units. Half a scoop of ice-cream anyone? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that if there were two people that I would have been disappointed with the portion size, there are four separate desserts for heavens sake but to cut them down further would have been unsightly. Which is why I got a dessert platter for two! It goes without saying that every single one of these desserts were delicious and flavour packed. No surprises in the taste, they were almost concentrated in their own flavour. So clockwise from the back we’ve got an apple galette topped with vanilla ice cream, vanilla panna-cotta with raspberry compote, lemon cheesecake, dark chocolate hazelnut torte with a scoop of hazelnut ice-cream.


I ordered an espresso to go with the petit four which was basically a sphere of pear and cream that finished the meal as I sat and waited for it to move itself below my centre of gravity and chatted to an Australian couple that also had the degustation whom asked me how I enjoyed it and gave them my Red Whisk business card so they can come and look at the pictures. My sincerest apologies have to go to them for the delay in posting this article.

All in all, I really quite enjoyed visiting (and not as their guest, this was fully funded by The Red Whisk). Next time I visit Auckland I’m going to have to stay at the Hilton again. As far as international standards go the Hilton here is above the average. Sure there are some things that could be done better but they’re probably not going to be picked up or worried over by your average consumer. As for the restaurant, the service of the assistant manager scored herself a very generous tip for her friendly yet professional service keeping the person dining alone who didn’t bring a book to read company, her generosity in pouring wine and offering not only and alternative to the listed wines, but both!



Hilton Auckland and White Restaurant
Princess Wharf. 147 Quay Street
Auckland. 1010
NEW ZEALAND

Tags:Degustation, Hilton, Auckland, New Zealand, Review, Restaurant, Wine, Fish, Soup, Scallops, Duck, Dessert

The point of the trip to New Zealand this year was to celebrate my mother's 50th birthday, so while my Aunts little monkeys were at school we took a trip out to one of NZ's top rated wineries, Mills Reef, in the Bay of Plenty region not far from Tauranga in the town of Bethlehem.

Mills Reef is hardly a stable but if the attitude of the staff on the restaurant is anything to go by then jebus himself was born here and it was our privilege to be on sacred ground but more on that in a minute. Going along Moffat Road and seeing the grounds appear before you is impressive with manicured lawns and rows of trees all leading up to the main building and it's own formal gardens but this is a working site. All of the processing, bottling and distribution happen here even though all of the grapes are bought and shipped from the not so far away Hawks Bay.

As you walk up from the car park the first door on the left is the tasting room so we went there first. As a tip for those visiting a winery with it's own restaurant, here's a good place to try a sip of a few things before you try and match them to your lunch and give you a chance to mull over which bottles you pick up.

Mills Reef Winery, 143 Moffat Road, Bethlahem New Zealand

In the tasting room we met Ken, the cellar manager who ever so patiently walked my family through not only their range but the tasting process (lightest and brightest to heaviest and darkest). From what I could tell all of the prices for the wine were quite reasonable where as the souvenirs had souvenir prices.

After a few uhms and ahs we took a price list and headed for the empty restaurant. There was a choice of the outdoor terrace or inside a dining/function room. The enormous main dining room was having the air-conditioning replaced before summer. Not to worry because ir was spring after all and we chose a table on the terrace in the shade. Just like everyone else did but being outside the noise wasn't an issue and the tables were well spaced anyway. After the stop-off in the tasting room I picked my entrée and main based on their recommended wines and everyone else chose the recommended glass. I wanted to see how they stood up to good quality food and thankfully what came out of the kitchen was great. Luckily I was really only interest in their red wine because the restaurants fish order hadn't arrived to meet the demand of their predominantly fish based menu.

Going around the table my mother had their seafood trio and the Pinot Gris, a slight alteration due to the lack of fish she had a king prawn, scallops and a piece of salmon; my brother had the oysters and my aunt had the bread and dukka which surprised me. For such a simple sounding entrée the chef added a bit of flair throwing in a couple of different types of cibatta and more than just a simple dukka, there was some great avocado oil, tapenade and homemade pesto too. I had the chicken liver paté with truffles crostini and the Cab Melot, or at least that's what I ordered. Instead I got garlic crostini that worked very well and I wouldn't have had any complaints if only I hadn't ordered truffles. That and if I didn't have to wait 10 minutes and actually need to get up from by seat, walk through a construction site and find the wait staff and ask them for our wine. Even though there were a few people in the restaurant by that stage I find it hard to believe a winery restaurant forgot to bring the wine.


Seafood Trio - Prawn, Salmon and Scallop


Cibatta with Dukka, Avocado Oil, Tapenade and Pesto


Chicken Liver and Cognac Paté and Fig Jam with Garlic Crostini

Main course ran smoother, Mum had the strawberry and asparagus salad with Kaimai Brie and a glass of the Sav Blanc which was tasty and exploration in vegetarian texture more than flavour, my brother had two giant lamb shanks that were cut above the knee and were so tender the meat would have literally fallen off the bone if he'd picked it up washed down with the Cab Sav. The meat was good quality lamb but seemed a little bland on it's own and relied in the jus to carry it. Mind you I only picked at his leftovers, so the most of the meat could have been fine. My Aunts Cajun chicken Caesar salad was generous, well seasoned. I had the lamb fillet that was cooked to a perfect pink with a blue cheese and pear salad with a walderberry jus, much like my favourite duck salad. The lamb itself seemed under seasoned but balanced out with some cracked pepper and the jus. The Merlot Malbec was a perfect match.


Asparagus, Strawberry, Avocado and Kaimai Brie


Warm Lamb Fillet, Watercress and Baby Spinach Salad with Pear, Cashew, Kikorangi Blue and Walderberry Syrup


Lamb Shanks Braised with Wholegrain Mustard on Green Pea and Potato Mash

Dessert. Only mother and I had dessert, her with the mandarin and cinnamon spring rolls which looked delicious and I had the 'ode to the lemon' which was a set of three lemon desserts starting with a lemon curd in a bitter chocolate case the size of a patty-pan, a lemon cremé brûlée in an espresso cup and a scoop of lemon ice cream in a parfait glass. All of which matched brilliantly in their own way to the riesling ice wine. If only it was delivered with the course. As the waitress walked off I called out "um, and our wine?" She flicked her nose up and walked off in acknowledgement. I waited. I waited. Again I got up and asked for my wine yet again. The excuse was they were waiting for the others coffee to be made before they bought out all of the drinks. Pity my ice cream had melted and my crem brule was cold by the time it arrived.

The location, food and wine at Mills Reef are nothing to complain about but the attitude and service of the restaurant wait staff really left more a lot to be desired.


Nectarine and Honey Spring Rolls rolled in Cinnamon Sugar served with Blueberry Syrup and Vanilla Ice Cream


Burnt Lemon Curd, Lemon Crem Brule and Lemon Ice Cream

Tags:Salad, Chicken, Lamb, Lamb Shanks, Paté, Prawns, Scallops, Lemon, Ice Cream, New Zealand, Wine, Review, Restaurant, Travel

Today is the Queen’s Birthday public holiday in Australia (except WA) and I bet she had a lavish breakfast in bed served on a silver tea tray with delicatley poached eggs, toast soliders and a pot of tea to celebrate.

This little black duck though had to walk for hours around the centre of Adelaide CBD to find somewhere that was open and serving breakfast.

Scoozi - Big Breakfast

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Tags:Adelaide, Breakfast, Review, Restaurant

When I get run into the ground at my day job I try and get away for the weekend to relax and unwind and this weekend saw me wing it to Melbourne and land at the Sofitel. I've written before about my less than five-star experiences in Brisbane with the Accor owned company but the Melbourne version has a much better track record. The rooms are well fitted out, complete with dvd players, surround sound and an iPod connection controlled by the touch-screen remote next to the bed and then there is the club lounge which is in a world of it's own. How many hotels have a fireplace on the 35th floor?

On the nights I was there the lounge was mostly quiet, perfect for a book and a gin and tonic and enjoying the open bar and evening canapés or the sweeter petit fours of an evening with a hot chocolate. Some company would have been nice too.

Sofitel Melbourne Club Lounge

Breakfast is a hybrid buffet and à la carte, having scrambled eggs, bacon fruit and cereal on the bar and a slightly changing menu of a 'big breakfast', eggs benedict etc. I'd highly recommend the ricotta hotcakes.

Pine Nut and Honey Ricotta Hotcakes @ Sofitel Club Lounge, Melbourne

Those of you who know me, and those of you that finish reading this sentence know that I love coffee. Most of you even know that I like *ahem* a drink or two. So when I hit the Atrium Bar at the Sofitel Melbourne the night I landed I started to relax, To understand the atmosphere in this bar you need to appreciate the layout of the Sofitel Melbourne. Even though the reception is based on the lower floors the hotel itself does not start until the 35th floor, perched on top of an office tower. This is where you'll find the Atrium Bar and it's skylight another 15 floors above.

Atrium Bar @ Sofitel Melbourne

I went through a couple of drinks, starting with a fig and scotch martini that was nice except I'm not the biggest fan of scotch - the figs almost made up for it. I ended up with heaven in a glass with an espresso martini. Goddamn it was good, heck, it even had crema thick and frothy enough to hold up whole beans... It wasn't like any of the other espresso martini's I've had before, this had a dash of frangelico in it I think.

I think I've found a reason to dust off my own martini glasses.

Espresso Martini - Sofitel Melbourne

Tags:Sofitel, Melbourne, Martini, Coffee, Atrium Bar, Lounge, Club Lounge, Review

This past weekend I flew over to Perth and stayed at the Intercontinental at Burswood. I went for a standard river view room from Wotif, running around $250 a night which might seem a little steep but compared to my recent visit Sofitel Brisbane I can’t complain. It was a big room, well laid out with an enormous bathroom, with a bath that had a view of the TV. The only thing that could have made that bath any better was a few water jets and a larger TV to look at.

I had a room-service dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and all of us were blown away with the quality and value. We had two soups, two fillet steaks with prawns and a sirloin with roast veg, all for around $135 and that really is great value.

My sister-in-law had a tom yum soup ($15) that was perfectly balanced hot-sour, not too much oil and with giant prawns resting as a surprise on the bottom of the bowl while I had the wonton noodle soup ($13) that was amazing; the broth was clear, golden and delicately flavoured and the wontons were the best I’ve ever had. The wonton skins were perfectly white, delicately thin and a perfect mouthful of prawn and I think scallop meat. When I saw it presented I was a little disappointed that there weren’t any egg noodles in the bottom and no seafood free-floating on top but once I tasted it all of that was forgiven. I can tell that I’ll be trying all winter to re-create this soup.

Wonton Noodle Soup, Intercontinental Burswood

As for the main courses my sister-in-law and I both chose the fillet steak with prawns and wedges and my brother had the sirloin with roasted vegetables (all around $35). All of us, as with the soups were extremely impressed. The steaks were generous, all over 500g and the sirloin I’d suggest was pushing 750g and even with the ride up from the kitchen to our room they were perfectly cooked just how we’d ordered them and all butter soft.

Sirloin and Roast Vegetables, Intercontinental Burswood

The only thing I missed from the meal, not that we’d ordered it, was a bottle of water on the table; for an order this size it would have been a nice touch but I won’t fault them for not providing one. The one litre bottle of Evian in the mini-bar was $8.

The next morning I ordered the “Burswood Breakfast” from room service as the buffet breakfast wasn’t included in my rate. It was $35 and again I couldn’t find fault with it. My family had breakfast at the buffet and the report was they would have been more than happy with just what I’d received. A choice of eggs with a mountain of bacon, sausages and tomato, fruit platter, toast, several spreads a croissant and a Danish with juice and tea or coffee. Each morning I had it I could only get through half. If you’re a light eater, you could possibly split this with someone else if you ordered an extra pastry and juice. Some how, the poached eggs on my first morning were delivered perfectly cooked with soft runny yolks and the scrambled eggs on the second day were tender, rich and creamy while the bacon was a good mix of soft and crispy.

Burswood Breakfast, Intercontinental, Burswood

Next tim I head to Perth I’m going to have to stay again, hopefully with a little more forward planning I’ll be able to book a club room and check out their lounge.

Tags:Intercontinental, Burswood, Travel, Hotel, Room Service, Beef, Steak, Soup, Breakfast

This past weekend I went to Perth for the birthdays of several members of my family (including my own). I booked my flights last minute and had to end up flying via Melbourne and damn the food was sub standard, even for airline food but more so for business class.

On the flight to Melbourne I had a steak sandwich that had rock hard bread and piping hot steak and what were meant to be fried onions and rocket. Simply awful. The flight to Perth was great, I sat next to a really great woman named Michelle and we chatted the whole flight over. Again the food was quite awful, I had a barramundi with an unidentifiable brown mush spread across the top of it. I took pictures of both of these but they really aren't worth publishing. The bonus was the small tub of Maggie Beer's Passionfruit Ice Cream and dessert wine (Noble One I think). Damn it was nice. Almost as good as the leg room on the upper deck of a 747-300. I stretched out and couldn't touch the seat in-front of me with my feet.

Maggie Beer's Passionfruit Ice Cream

The flight home was a long red-eye on the lower deck with considerably less leg room. The food was better but not by much. The cabin lights were ambient, so the picture is sort of funky. James Morrison was sitting a few rows in-front of me.

Business Class Supper on Qantas Under Ambient Light

Tags:Qantas, Business Classs, Ice Cream, Dairy, Maggie Beer, Perth

For the second time running when I checked into the Sofitel Brisbane, something stood out and it wasn’t the multimillion dollar upgrade of their ground floor bar and restaurant. In fact, neither of them stood out at all through either of my stays here. What did stand out though was the clerk that’s checked me in on both of my stays here; Michelle. There is something to be said about efficient and competent professional service and the entire Sofitel front of house staff are, though Michelle was different – she smiled, she was genuinely cheerful and happy to help. The rest of them bordered on clinical; almost as if they were reading from a well rehearsed script and giving out the same vibes that a call centre operator gives when they’ve just had enough for the day and clearly want to get you out of the way as fast as they can so they can go back to their soduku. I can honestly say Michelle was the only front of house staff member I ever saw smile and not only that, everyone I saw walk away after she served them was smiling too. To that point, the concierge service I feel was average, they did make 2 out of 3 restaurant bookings for me (the third was closed so they can’t be faulted) but when I asked some questions requiring local knowledge the service fell sharply. I asked for an arts supply store because I needed a new sketch book; 10 minutes later after they went through the yellow pages I got a call in my room telling me the nearest store was a 30 minutes train ride away in the suburbs. To his benefit he did tell me which train to catch and how to get there, but the nearest arts supply store is just a few blocks away down one of the streets the hotel borders. Why didn't they just goggle it and give me the answer on the spot?

Sofitel Looking from Post Office Square and across Anzac Square

By no means was Michelle from the front desk the only pleasant and friendly staff member at the Sofitel. The staff in the club lounge were excellent, happy and cheerful and even remembered Miles and I when we came back over a month after our first visit. Heck, they even smiled while they cleaned up the plate of scrambled eggs Miles dropped on the floor half asleep one morning. Speaking of the scrambled eggs, the club lounge breakfasts are quite nice in their own right; they have all of the basics, but then, only the basics. Fronting up for breakfast are scrabbled eggs, mushrooms & bacon in the bain-marie and a good selection of fruit, yoghurt, and a few cereals and juices and some pastries; plus champagne on weekends. I’d liked to have seen more but I’m happy with what they provided. I guess if they did have more no one with access to the club lounge would fork out the $30 for the “interactive” breakfast at Thyme² which had everything from eggs benedict to custom made omelettes.

Club Lounge Breakfast at the Sofitel Brisbane

Evening drinks and canapés at the club lounge were much better than the breakfasts, a good selection of cold items, sushi, an antipasti platter, petit fours and some warm items ranging from samosas, spring rolls, curry puffs etc (two different hot items per night, cold items are the same). The hot food again wasn’t anything extraordinary, all from a packet, but I guess the fact that there were free wines, beers and spirits made up for it considering the prices at the Cuvee Bar downstairs. The view on dusk can't be beat too! The club lounge is a perfect way to start an evening and I would highly recommend a visit here.

Lower Level of the Club Lounge


Upper Level of the Club Lounge

As for the $6 million dollar upgrade of the hotel recently; the lobby, restaurant and bar as well as the club lounge were extensively upgraded and a quite nice with clean lines and lots of natural materials, the rooms though need some improvement. Sofitel has a concept called “myBed” which is meant to provide a night sleep that will change your life forever, apparently. I understand what they’re trying to achieve, most beds in Australia have hard and overly firm mattresses, but really what you need is a fairly soft mattress that will conform to your body and support it, the bed I have at home is like that and it’s like sleeping in a warm hug. What I got out of the beds here were sore necks and shoulders and the feeling that all of the mattresses were worn out, less like a hug and more like a school camp.

The corner suite we stayed in on the first visit seemed quite tired despite the new furnishings while the club room I stayed in the second time suffered less; though it could have used thicker walls. The couple in the room next to us seemed to enjoy their room quit a lot. They enjoyed it at 3:00am, again at 3:30, 8:30 and 9. They enjoyed it so much that the bottle of water on MY bedside table fell off.

On the whole I’m disappointed with the Sofitel Brisbane, particularly because the few times I’ve stayed in their Melbourne and Sydney counterparts I’ve never had a problem, the beds were huge and comfortable, the staff were excellent and the food was great and well priced. The Sofitel Brisbane is definitely the poor cousin to their bigger city family. When I head north again in a couple of weeks I think I’ll try the Hilton but I’m worried that like the Sofitel, it’s going to be suffering from it’s hurried Expo ’88 construction and lack of a through refurbishment since. I really am worried that the Sofitel Brisbane may still well be the best on offer. If the Hilton doesn’t prove any better Miles is going to have to start coming down here instead. I’ve got a more comfortable bed, a quieter room and better food at home.

Tags:Sofitel, Club Lounge, Thyme2, Lounge, Bar, Restaurant, Wine, Brisbane, Beef, Breakfast, Hotel

The star rating system for hotels doesn’t tell you how good a hotel is, just what it offers and the Sofitel Brisbane is a 5-Star example of it. As I said, they come down to what a hotel offers, is there a hairdryer in the bathroom? Is there an iron the cupboard? How about a gym and pool? The Sofitel gets its 5-star rating because it’s got more than one restaurant/bar but they only have to have them, they don’t need to be any good.

Let’s start with the Cuvee Bar. Every bar everywhere has an unwritten etiquette to follow and it’s always different but not unreasonable and usually boils down to how the manager of the establishment likes his or her staff to act, and that’s it – it’s a guide for the staff, not the patrons. May be it was me, I made the place look untidy or something, but if a customer wants to order a drink from the bar here, they’re promptly dismissed and told to take a seat before an order will be taken. Even if I try making an order I’m still told to take a seat for the waiter to come and take my order. It’s down right rude and even worse; the wait-staff aren’t very knowledgeable with their drinks unlike the bartender I had questions for who told me to go and sit down. Is your apple martini sour or sweet? Could I get a twist of lime instead of lemon? Would you mind not straining the ice from my cocktail? Every question the wait-staff gets that look puppies do when you poke your tongue out at them. Once they scamper off to ask the bartender, they come back and you have a follow-up question. The routine continues until you give up and say “I’ll just have a gin and tonic then” or your presented with a drink you didn’t want and it takes you a few sips to realise that the inept wait-staff have bought you the another table’s drinks; and their bill!

When you finally get your order, the way you want it, it’ll be easier to pay cash than try and charge the drinks to your room. I know it wasn’t this guys first time charging drinks to a room, he’d served me before, but from my seat you could tell he was struggling.

Thyme² is mainly setup for a buffet or as the Sofitelians like to call it, an ‘interactive experience'. I’ve mentioned before that the breakfasts there are great, for $30, serving you everything you’d want in a breakfast. The dinners seem to be the same. Miles and I didn’t have the buffet dinner when we were there, we did see it though. Couples with children, like seagulls taking turns ferrying overflowing plates of oysters, prawns and everything else they could scavenge back to their offspring. For $80 a head (wine not included) if you’ve got the mentality to eat your monies worth its probably good value but we felt like something smaller, so we went for the ala carte menu.

You can tell head chef Marshall Orton has planned for 90% of his clientelé to take the buffet option; it sure looked like they did. I only saw two other tables out of the full restaurant ordering off the menu and a queue for the seafood. The menu is short and has fairly simple dishes from and nothing you wouldn’t expect to see at a pub with the obligatory pad thai, t-bone with chips, fish (roast snapper) and a tandori chicken. It all seemed fairly pedestrian with only Miles’s meal served with any restaurant flare and by that I mean everything was stacked on top of each other. The current menu can be found on the website.

One nice touch was the appetizer that was served to us, a small ball of duck confit and orange marmalade served on a bed of lettuce. It tasted quite bland an uninteresting, but as it turns out they forgot the orange marmalade on ours. This wasn’t the only thing that was missing from the dishes we were served either. I ended up ordering the t-bone with “a roast tomato ragu and a creamy pepper sauce served with shoestring french fries”. The roast tomato ragu at least had tomato in it but it was just roughly diced fresh tomato in a warmed up pasta sauce – there was no way these tomatoes could have ever seen the inside of an oven; there wasn’t even the slightest hint of caramlisation any good roasted tomato has. The fries seemed to be of the McCain variety, either deep fried at too low a temperature or were left to defrost and get laden with water leaving them soggy. The pepper jus that was served was honestly very nice, rich thick and concentrated with steak, balsamic vinegar and rosemary flavours and would have gone very well with the roasted tomato ragu, if it had had roast tomato in it. Note that I said it was a pepper jus and not a creamy pepper sauce? Guess what was missing. I find it difficult to believe that a restaurant of this size and supposed calibre can deliver very basic dishes so far removed from the menu.

Miles also had the beef. A 120 day grain fed Darling Downs beef filet served with Parisian style butter on green beans and a potato cake. It was well presented, stacked a good six inches high with the same jus that accompanied my steak, minus the pepper, drizzled around the side. The report on it was generally positive, although the potato was a little under done.

To counter balance the average food were some excellent wines, chosen by the Sommelier, Toby Graham, to fill out the wine list. For the main I chose an ‘04 Wantirna Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot (List Price $112, Store Price $60-$70). The wine itself is quite nice and is more complex than you’d expect from just a Cab Sav Merlot, and that’s probably because there’s actually some Cab Franc and Petit Verdot in the bottle too. Overall, the wine has a nice blackcurrant to mulberry flavour with the classic merlot dusty finish. If you’re looking for it in a store, Wantirna Estate is the one with the Michael Leunig cartoons on the labels.

When it came to dessert, I wanted a bottle of something else to go with our Lenôtre Frambrosier’s so I asked Toby for a recommendation. There was the obligatory Noble One, but I thought that the overpowering honey in it would kill the delicate raspberries and cream in the dessert, Toby agreed and recommended the 2005 Grande Maison Semillon Sauvignon Blanc Muscadelle from Monbazillac in France (List Price, $51/375mL, Store price $30/375mL). I found that it had soft hay-like flavour, not grassy at all, it was drier and warm but with a definite floral sweetness that worked well with the dessert.

The Sofitel, being owned by the French Accor group have enlisted, under license, Lenôtre to provide desserts and cakes for its hotels, they look stunning, particularly the signature Frambrosier, which looks like a giant pink lamington topped with fresh raspberries and a raspberry sugar swirl. Within the gayest dessert of all time are layers of sponge cake with a raspberry centre, covered in cream and then a pink coconut (I think it’s pink coconut anyway). Given that it’s a sponge cake with cream and a raspberry centre I was expecting something more like a molleaux which is an individual cake that has a liquid sauce centre that spills out across the plate when you cut into it. The frambrosier certainly had the potential for it. I’m still not sure if what we got was meant to be a molleaux because they were half frozen. The bottom and centre were practically solid with the top had just started to soften. I don’t know if you’ve ever frozen cream but it doesn’t work – large ice crystals form and when you cut into it, it splinters apart. At the very least, these desserts should be served only slightly chilled to show their true potential, and meet their hype.

The highlight of Thyme² has got to be Toby Graham’s wine list and the quite knowledgeable service he provides. Toby has been studying and working with wines for over 15 years and answered all of our questions quickly and with confidence, not only suggesting wines but explaining why he’d suggested them which for mark-ups like these is great because he can help narrow down the choices for you – sure all sommeliers should do this, it’s their job, but Toby does it well.

Tags:Bar, Restaurant, Sofitel, Brisbane

This is the second time that I'm flying business class to Brisbane with Qantas and I have to say the club lounge is a much different experience during peak hour than it was for my previous 11am midweek departure. The demure asian lady that would humbly and politely, but with self respect, that cleared my used glass and plate previously has vanished to be replaced by a rough eastern european woman (perhaps?) that actually grunted when I thanked her for clearing the glass.
Saying that though it still beats being downstairs with the commoners fighting for a bottle of Mount Franklin and the last Whopper. At least here they form an orderly queue to fight for the last re-heated deep fried, umm... I guess it's meant to be a pork dumpling? It's too big for a wonton and it's the wrong shape for a dim sim. Who knows, it was full of reclaimed pork what ever it was.

My flight out, QF548, after boarding at least (the attendant that was relegated to Y Class was quite rude) was splendid under the Cabin Manager I flew with, Julianne. This is the second or third time I've had the privilege of flying with her and I hope I'll be able to again. Service in the business cabin was smooth, efficient and personable, as I'd mentioned before - the simple things of being called by name are the things that really make the difference between service and quality that despite it's industry reputation, factions of Qantas flight crew are actually striving to achieve.

As for the meal, my seat buddy Corey and I we were served a reasonable beef in oyster sauce with jasmine rice and a 'salad'. I say 'salad' because it only just qualified as one. In my opinion a salad needs two ingredients and this only had two different types of lettuce. The spicy asian vinaigrette from Neil Perry that went with it was wonderful, I even put some on the beef because the sauce that had was quite plain. I was actually surprised with the bread roll, it was incredibly soft. I guess Qantas realised they shouldn't arm 200+ passengers with their previous hard as a brick projectiles. The wine was quite nice too - a 2004 Penfolds Shiraz with a deep cherry note.

Tags:Qantas, Club Lounge, Beef, Jasmine Rice, Penfolds, Neil Perry, Shiraz

So here I am, sitting in the domestic Qantas Club lounge at Sydney Airport waiting for my flight to Brisbane. Since it's only midday the champagne premium Australian sparkling wine isn't flowing, but the cold meat and relishes are. I spotted a few little cakes and fresh cut fruit, a few automatic espresso machines and an array of juices (I had tomato). Certainly nothing to write home about but it sure beats sitting in a crowded departure lounge with a thousand screaming babies and worse, tourists. There certainly is an air of civilization. Is it the the quiet chatter on the Qantas jet in Wallabies livery that just taxied past the floor to ceiling windows, talk of the news in Pakistan, the Sydney To Hobart and Jetstar? Or is it that every two minutes a well dressed young lady comes through and clears the plates with unfinished ham sandwiches and half drunken cappuccinos?

Tags:Travel, Qantas, Business Classs, Review, Club Lounge

The cheese platter was washed down by another gin and tonic or three, and since I'd anticipated luxurious room service all day I skipped lunch and my stomach was rumbling. Browsing through the lengthy room service menu I finally settled on the "3 mini-burgers" and some buffalo wings.



The 3 mini burgers were the highlight, but nothing outstanding. It was a nice concept and worked well visually, the problem though was that other than the beef patty, lamb patty and chicken tenderloin on each burger, the rest were identical, a slice of tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise. They relied too heavily on the meat. When your concept is to have three individual burgers, you'd expect you'd do something so each one stood out individually? It would have been an easy fix, some caramelized onion on the beef, a dab or tzatziki instead of the mayo on the lamb, and perhaps some chili on the chicken?

As for the buffalo wings, they hardly rate a mention. They were warm and had a crispy skin with paprika and basic spices.

Breakfast the following morning was back in the club lounge and was equally disappointing as the canapes the night before. Just the stock standard sliced fruit, juices and cereals on the cold side of the buffet and on the warm there was just bacon, hash browns, sausages, scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes. Individually everything was nice enough, but it certainly didn't hold a torch to the Sofitel Melbourne's breakfast buffet, they even had pancakes!

Tags:Room Service, Hilton, Review, Burgers, Chicken, Wings, Travel

Recently I had a bit of bad week, I won't get in to it but the gist is that I had to start cooking for one again... So to cheer myself up I threw caution to the wind and booked myself into a 'Relaxation Suite' in the Hilton Sydney and bought a bottle of Bombay Sapphire to keep me company. The room was brilliant, particularly the enormous bed and the double spa bath with floor to ceiling window and a 26" LCD screen!

But this is a food blog.



Since I was in a suite I had access to the club lounge and complimentary pre-dinner drinks and canapes. Free gin always gets thumbs up as far as I'm concerned, but I'd need more than the couple I had to distract from what they tried to pass off as food. There wasn't anything you wouldn't have found in the freezer section of your local supermarket and with absolutely no attempt at masking that it came from one. I held higher hopes for the room service I was going to order later.

A quick call to room service after the stodge in the club lounge I'd ordered a cheese platter. For about $20 it was a lot better than I expected, the standard cheeses, blue, camembert and cheddar were accounted for along with a good selection of bready things to put the cheese on, wafers, grissini sticks and a few others. What made this so nice were the quality accoutrements. Fresh strawberries, dried apricots, muscatels and dried figs! My favorite.

As for the main meal, we'll get to that next.

Tags:Room Service, Hilton, Review, Cheese, Canapes, Travel