DO NOT CATER FOR AMERICANS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 136, 5 March 1938, Page 10

DO NOT CATER FOR AMERICANS

Tourist’s Indictment Of Dominion Hotels LIQUOR AND COFFEE CRITICISED Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, March 4. “When I go back to America, I shall send a lot of our people over to New Zealanl, but. I shall tell them to bring their own liquor,” said Mr. Adrian van Sinderen, one of a party of American tourists, who are visiting the Dominion. While giving ungrudging praise to the scenery and to the hospitality of the people, he spoke very unfavourably of the liquor supplied in the hotels. “Your bar-tenders are awful,” he said. “If a bar-tender in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York served some of the cocktails we have been given here, he would go out on his ear. You are looking for a lot of American trade, but you don’t cater for it. If you came to the United States we would try to sell you something all the time, and please you in doing it. But you do not. cater for high-class travel.” Mr. van Sinderen complained that his party had been served with champagne at Waiho that, was not even iced. In America champagne was served with “a lot of ice.” The bottle was surrounded with ice and water, but in New Zealand it was considered sufficient to place the bottle in a shallow “potato dish,” with a few pieces of ice around the bottom. “Ordering three bottles of champagne is good business,” he said, “and there should be better service,” Manhattan cocktails served in New Zealand hotels, he added, all came out of a bottle, ready mixed, instead of being mixed on each occasion. Coffee “Terrible.” He went on to attack the coffee, which he described as “absolutely terrible.’” “Here are people in our party who have been drinking coffee for the last 40 years, and have to drink tea all the time now because the coffee is so awful,” he said. “Otherwise the service in the hotels is beautiful. The beds are comfortable and the beef and lamb are good, though I guess you don’t have many green vegetables out here.” Mr. van Sinderen’s final suggestion was that three or four hotels should get together and employ a good barman to show them how to mix drinks. They would find it would pay them, as they would be able to please the American tourists. But he was emphatic that Americans should be recommended to bring their own liquor, “gin, whisky, and everything,” although he admitted that very good whisky was obtainable. “But I don’t want it to be thought that I am going away with nothing but a grouch against the liquor,” he added. “The scenery is gorgeous and we have received hospitable and kindly treatment from everybody in the islands.’’