For rather complicated financial reasons, I was involved in a conference in Monaco based on the Meridien Beach Hotel. I was told that it was excellent, and I should expect better than the Arts Hotel in Barcelona.
In the event, the Meridien is a victim of its own success and that of Monte Carlo. The hotel is comfortable enough, but is very crowded. The security appear to be somewhat lax at nights, and after the event one or two stories of 'night business operations' emerged which should not have been a feature of this kind of hotel.
But enough of that, because we are only here to discuss the hotness of food.
Because we were a big group, apart from breakfast, all meals were served buffet style. This makes a lot of sense, but I have always commented in the past that this is a good way to guarantee that food is not hot, and in warm climates with mass catering can lead to public health issues.
It was raining when we arrived so this shows the town at its worst.
Breakfast is always an important hotel meal for me as it tells me a lot about what is going on. There are two litmus tests. Smoked salmon and sparkling wine. Presence of both of these is the mark of a top notch buffet breakfast. Whilst the smoked salmon was there, but I could not find the wine. I went and asked and I was told that if I wanted sparkling wine I would have to buy it from the bar.
The picture above would seem to suggest that there was a chef freshly cooking eggs. And in a way it was true. It was possible to get an omelette with a wait, but fried eggs came out randomly and were left standing. Other typical components of the hot buffet were in cast Iron dishes on hotplates and were generally not adequately hot, scoring a 6.8 on average on the CHOF. However the uncooked components of breakfast were excellent, with some novel items and little tasters of smoothies and so on. Bread and cheese, naturally were excellent, and overall, I would say that the quality of ingredients and cooking were excellent, but mostly could not be maintained hot. Monte is still in the grip of a construction bonanza, and so the favoured place for breakfast, overlooking the Mediterranean, was spoiled by building works on the adjacent site
For one evening, the hotel put on a eastern/middle eastern buffet with freshly cooked dishes and I have to say that this was probably the best meal for me and also the hottest as you could grab stuff straight out of the pan/grill.
This shows mixed noodles, scallops, spring role and brochette of chicken and beef. This was tasty hot and delicious and was probably the best meal I had in Monte.
Whilst there may have been issues with the hotness of buffet food, if you wanted cold food, no problem. Lunch buffets were highly attractive with sample of addictive tasters where one could have gone a bit crazy.
The food at all times was attractive and high quality, simply let down by the problem of catering for 100 people in the open. I will get over it. I make my generalisation in title because the same things applied wherever we went in the town: excellent food but only adequately warm. It must be a Mediterranean thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment