Christmas Lunch, Shipping Disasters and the Hadron Collider

In the marine insurance industry based at Lloyds of London there was a tradition that whenever there was a shipping disaster the ‘Lutine Bell’ would be rung to mark the event. The UK hospitality industry does not have a central forum like Lloyds but if it did and also had its own bell that bell’s clapper would be well and truly clapped out on Boxing Day after our Christmas lunch experience.

The Moorhill House Hotel has an idyllic setting in the depths of the New Forest and about a mile away from the village of Burley. There is plenty of parking and as confirmed on various hotel review sites ‘it is dog friendly’.

We arrived at mid-day as advised on our booking confirmation from the hotel. Inside the front entrance is the reception desk which was unmanned. In the reception area there was no one working front of house to meet, greet, take coats, confirm bookings or to answer basic questions. Questions such as ‘Where and when will lunch be served?’ or ‘Where is the bar?’. Despite only being in the building for less than five minutes I would have been very pleased to see the character Norman Bates from the Alfred Hitchcock film appear offer ‘some milk and cookies’ as an alternative ‘welcome’.

Instead of a welcome on a special day, customers were left to find their own ways around the ground floor like members of a nomadic tribe in search of sustenance.

Unaided we found the bar tucked away in a corner. There was a crowd waiting to be served by the two staff on duty. One of them had to disappear. The remaining one got very confused and mixed up the drinks for each of the customers. Memories of Fawlty Towers were resurrected which was not so much a comedy as a documentary for anyone who has worked in the hospitality industry. Her colleague returned just as the bar cleared.

‘What would you like sir?’

‘A scotch and American ginger ale with ice please?’

After a quick search along the shelves I was told ‘We don’t have any ginger ale at all sir’.

The colleague who had just returned was asked to go to try and find some ginger ale.

I ordered a replacement drink for my wife and then it was my turn to order.

‘Could I have a non-alcoholic beer like Becks Blue or Kaliber?’.

Another furtive search and then the inevitable response.

‘We don’t do either of those sir’.

I ordered a replacement drink. Just as I was being given my change the other colleague returned from her quest for ginger ale.

‘We haven’t got any ginger ale but I did find some ginger beer.’

With our glasses in hand we set off to find where lunch was going to be served. We found a room with tables laid out in Christmas style. In the room were a few staff sitting and talking.

‘We won’t be serving lunch for at least another half hour. We’ll come and get you from the lounge’.

We wandered back to a lounge area carrying the accumulated burden of negative omens. In the lounge there were about twenty people who looked like they had come for lunch. After a few minutes one of the ladies from the group nearest us stood up and announced she was going to find out what was happening. She returned with glad tidings; lunch was ready. So, we all migrated to the very room where we had seen all the staff sitting less than five minutes ago.

At the entrance we had to give our name. No blood group or proof of payment; just our name. Then we were given a table number. We were told we would be on table twenty-eight. The only problem was that we could not find that table. More negative omens accumulating. We did find table twenty-six which had our name on it. Our wandering days were finally over.

A family party of twenty covers arrived just after we sat down. They all came in wearing their coats which then had to be taken off and draped over dining chairs. No one from the hotel was there to tell them where to sit on the big table they had been allocated. Chaos ensued as the waiting team struggled through and around mogul like mounds of winter wear trying to find who ordered what and deliver it.

My wife had ordered tomato soup for starters. This arrived in a glazed earthenware bowl which was a fragile attempt to disguise the fact that the soup being served had just come out of a tin and been warmed on the hob or in the microwave. I had the ‘Classic king prawn and crayfish salad’. There were four king prawns sitting on mixed leaf salad being suffocated by a ‘Marie Rose Sauce’ which I suspect was mayonnaise coloured with a tiny few drops of tomato sauce. The prawns were whole but the ‘crayfish’ were just little fragments. Half the soup went back.

And now for the main course.

Our two plates arrived with a flourish and a warning ‘They are very hot’. No they weren’t.

One portion of ‘spiced arancini with red pepper and tarragon. OK, it was presented nicely but much like the glazed earthenware bowl with the tomato soup the presentation disguised dry and tasteless balls of white rice coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Not a trace of mozzarella. Well there might have been if we had brought the cheese equivalent of the Hadron Collider and programmed it to find neutrons of mozzarella let alone flavour. To help flavour things up a bit we added some cranberry sauce but that was fairly bland, but still the arancini refused to get savoury.

Surely the hotel could have lashed out either with a little effort in the kitchens or a little money at their suppliers and served arancini that a diner would have eaten and been happy with?

My menu choice was ‘Roasted free range turkey’. The basic serving consisted of a few roast potatoes, some purple cabbage, a sausage wrapped in bacon and the turkey. Yes, the turkey might have lived a brief free range life. Yes, it was roasted. However, on Christmas Day in a hotel that knows weeks in advance how many covers are having turkey I would at least have expected any meat served to have been freshly carved from a whole carcass. Instead what was served were three thick slices of turkey meat from a spiff. Sorry, that should have said ‘rolled joint’.

The plates were tepid and the food when served one or two degrees cooler.

We both looked at one another and as people who have been married for a long time are so often able to do had reached a mutual decision without even speaking. We placed our cutlery on our plates, folded our serviettes, picked up our coats and left before dessert was served.

This meal, without any drinks, cost £70 per cover and we were extremely disappointed not only at the quality of the food but with the level of service from a hotel with a three star rating. We have eaten at street cafes for a fifth of the price per cover, been made welcome as soon as we crossed the threshold and walked away fully satisfied and these places do not have any ‘star ratings’. I have even eaten at a roadside caravan where the food was fresh and the service brilliant. So, why can’t a venue with the ideal location and facilities achieve the same?