2/17/2011 Scenic Suites Dining Room, Queenstown, New Zealand

our 1st night we wanted to turn in early, especially after a nice 3hour tramp up the queenstown hill and another shower. we didn't really want to walk back into town, even though it was only 3 blocks away. 3 downhill blocks away. so we opted to dine in the hotel dining room.

now this is not my travel blog, and i'm sure this post will actually be referenced by, if not duplicated there, but i should say i had no problem in any aspect of the hotel side of things. the room was quiet, clean, the water in the 4 showers we took was hot and plentiful. the bed was comfortable and the front desk staff friendly and helpful.

their failure was letting the restaurant include 1 specific dish on their menu. a dish that should never have been allowed to be plated. matt and i agree it's usually best to inform the kitchen at the time of the instance when something is seriously not right. but this was so bad we just couldn't think of what to say. i hope they understand when they receive word via this web post.

but for now you'll have to wait...dinner started out fine. there was a nice little view from our table (above).

1st up was the seasonal soup for us both. pumpkin in this case. it was pretty good. a dollup of creme fraiche under the little pile of chives would've help visuallly, and we did have to add a good bit of salt to it to help the flavors bloom. i'm used to chef doing this, but if i have to do it so be it.

i had the ripe roma tomato and basil tart on flaky pastry.

i would've chosen a different tomato. romas, at least the ones we get, are great flavors but good for sauces and stews, not baked stuff or platings. and the pastry - filo. there's also a balsamic reduction around the edge.

i bit too much basil but at least it wasn't killed by steam or blanching.

this was actually quite a nice dish. very tasty, the filo was perfect - crispy not burnt around the edges and while not crisp underneath all those tomatoes it wasn't gooey from their juices. matt wishes he had ordered this.

but he didn't. he ordered the beetroot gnocchi with goat cheese, rocket and toasted walnuts. it's the 1st time i think i've known him to order the vegetarian option. and to be fair a beet gnocchi doesn't sound bad. this however, wasn't fit to eat.

in matt's own words "this was the worst dish i ever paid for".

to start it wasn't actually beet gnocchi - they were doughy balls with no beet in them at all. the goat cheese was in the form of large balls - and was the saltiest thing he says he ever tasted, unless he was actually tasting salts. there was a beet-ish type of sauce on top under all the rocket which looks a lot like my basil doesn't it? (is rocket a basil? i honestly don't know, but i didn't think it was). oh. and the walnuts - they had passed their 'use by' date by at least a few years. he said they were just this side of rancid.

so while i would recommend the scenic suites hotel to anyone without question, i will definitely warn them to stay away from this dish if it's on the menu and order the tomato basil tart instead. sorry SSH, you dropped the ball on this one. the good news? it gave matt inspiration to make a beetroot gnocchi in the near future to showcase what it ought to be.