Tasman View Southland Hotel 111 Revell Street Hokitika Phone 344

Press, 26 February 1986, Page 30

Tasman View Southland Hotel 111 Revell Street Hokitika Phone 344

By

JOHN BROOKS

It Is a bit of a culture shock to return to Hokitika after an absence of several years and discover what the Teen family has created at the rear of the Southland Hotel, in Revell street. The hotel still presents a bland, almost undistinguished front to pedestrians in the country’s crookedest main street. Behind the bars and lounges, however, a mini Shangri-La has arisen on a strip where rusted corrugated iron walls have stared bleakly at the tempestuos Tasman for more than a century. The Tasman View operates under the umbrella of the Southland Hotel, but has its separate identity. If Hokitika is experiencing one of its rare nocturnal downpours, the

restaurant can be reached in comfort by trekking through the saloon bar, the lounge bar and the snack bar of the hotel. This can take a little time. The only thing missing inside this impressive establishment is a beaming receptionist to check bookings in ’ the plush foyer and point the way upstairs. It is only a minor hiccup, because at the top of the broad, carpeted ascent diners are greeted affably by a female maitre d; as three Cantabrians, curiously dubbed Doocan, Kewpie and Glassy by their friends, discovered. Doocan, who is bilingual, muttered "sacre bleu” when shown to his seat by a member of the opposite sex. But he conceded the point when reminded that he was about to dine in a town which