Hadley's Hotel

My Husband's work Christmas Party was held at Hadley's Hotel. They have an award winning restaurant, 1834, and when I check the menu online - as you do, I was looking forward to the evening. A wonderful Tasmanian menu with lots of lovely choices. Now seating 150 people in a restaurant like that is not usually the way it's done, and why I thought we would eat in the restaurant I have no idea, and so we were in a function room and dinner was a buffet. And typical buffet food it was.

We sat at tables of 10 with Christmas crackers, bread and Christmas coloured serviettes.

On each table was a buffet menu. The Entree Buffet listed 11 items, the Main Course Buffet listed 5 item and the Dessert Buffet listed 5 items. We were then told that there was only one buffet and then desserts would be served later. So we queued with our plates.

The turkey and pork (my favourite) were being hand carved as we waited, and we waited! As I stood and watched over my husband's shoulder, I decided the slow and laborious process to cut some dry looking meat wasn't worth the wait so I passed on to the chicken legs. These may have been nice warm, but over cooked chicken legs, served cold are just a bit too hard to handle.

Now I know this is starting to sound fussy, but in situations like this I usually bypass all the cold meat. There was ham, salami, silverside and pastrami. This is supermarket produce that I use to make the boys' lunches and I don't waste good eating space with these items.

This is a little bit of almost everything from the buffet.

Next in line was crumbed fish. That is it front right in the above photo. It was salmon! Who crumbs and deep fries salmon! What a waste of beautiful fish. It was over cooked and dry.

Then it was a line up of the usual suspect; potato salad, green salad, roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, cauliflower cheese, and garden vegetables. The price paid for this dinner included wine, beer and soft drink. Not much use to me as I don't drink, so I certainly don't feel I got value for my money.

I did however listen to the band. While they played 80's hits that I recognised and watching three grown men sing ABBA's Mama Mia, it would have been nice, given the circumstances, if the band members had given the appearance of showering and getting changed before taking the stage. They looked like they had spent a casual day at home catching up on those odd jobs before heading off to the gig. But ask anyone who knows me; I do like people to make a bit of an effort for the appropriate situation.

Plum Pudding, Kahlua Cheesecake, Duo of Chocolate Mousse Gateau.

Having been on the other side of a restaurant I have a pretty good idea what has come out of a tin and a packet. I gave the pavlova a miss, it is not one of my favourite desserts. The plum pudding was fine. You can't really go wrong serving up slices of tinned pudding. The other two, I'm sure were mix and set. The Kahlua Cheesecake was a cold set, gelatine base dessert - and I liked it because for some reason it was a bit salty and appealed to me on a plate of desserts.

So there is was, a lot of money, and I mean a lot, to eat basic buffet food and cheap wine.

But I still want to try their restaurant.