Museum Hotel

Recently Camille and I stayed in the Museum Hotel in Wellington.  We generally book a suite when we stay here as we like the space to spread out and relax.  We don't travel light and are often encumbered with quite a bit of electronic equipment and we need space to set it up and work etc. The suite was comfortable and reasonably spacious.  It had all the usual bits plus a coffee machine, oven, stove top, washer/dryer, rain shower with a wand head, badly make shower area that caused water to flow over the bathroom floor no matter what.  A nice place to stay though we did have a few niggles.


We couldn't watch any of the pay per view films as we simply couldn't select them.  Apparently something was broken somewhere in the system and it only affected us.  The staff were good and brought up a selection of  dvds for us to pick through.  Most of them were instant rejects but we did end up watching LA Confidential.


When we have stayed here in the past we have eaten at the Hippopotamus restaurant which does produce quite good food.  I have reviewed in the past albeit over 18 months ago.   We didn't dine there this time.  Instead we decided to stick with room service for breakfast.  However, the breakfasts left something to be desired.


The first morning I ordered oeufs a la coque - eggs with spinach and mushrooms baked in cream and served with toast.  Cost $30.00.  The dish was very pleasant, good textures and flavours but the toast was... not up to par.  Two slices of ordinary sliced bread, lightly toasted and then cut in half on the diagonal is not acceptable when I'm pay $30.00 for a breakfast.  For that I expect a decent, real bread not some white sliced crap from a plastic bag.  However, I let it go.


I enjoyed the eggs and so decided to order the same dish on our second morning.  This time I also decided to get a "Speciality Coffee" for an extra $4.00 as well.  I was deeply unimpressed with the result.  The coffee, far from being anything special, arrived in a cardboard cup with a plastic lid and was one of the worst coffees I have ever tasted.  It was extremely bitter and absolutely unpleasant to drink.  In fact, I didn't drink it.  After the first sip it was dumped down the sink.  Had somebody actually dashed out the hotel door to the nearest street vendor to get this coffee?  That's certainly the impression I had from its lovely cardboard container and the vileness of the brew itself.

The oeufs a la coque were a disaster. They were completely uncooked.  It seemed plain to me that the spinach had been wilted, mushrooms sauteed and then assembled with the raw eggs and cream ready for baking.  At this point something went quite wrong and it missed out the 15 minutes of being baked.  You can see the state of the egg white in the photo to the right.  Note also the 'toast'.

A complaint was made and a new breakfast was provided.  I wasn't charged for either breakfast which is somewhat mollifying but it isn't a good way to start a day.

I'm sure all my readers will be pleased to know that we had no lift troubles in this hotel.  They worked exactly as they should do - went up and down without unexpected halts.  Doors opened and closed smoothly.  We didn't get trapped once though I did get jammed in the doors very briefly on one occasion.