Herald rating: *
Address: Novotel Hotel, Ellerslie
Phone: (09) 529 9098
www.novotel.co.nz/novotel-ellerslie
Open: 7 days, breakfast, lunch, dinner
From a menu: Salmon rillettes, brioche toast, honey mustard dressing, micro salad $16; Cajun-spiced veal rib, sautéed savoy cabbage, kumara mash, pinot noir-prune reduction $35; Tiramisu, lady sponge fingers, strawberry, chocolate shavings $13.50
Vegetarian: Offerings on menu
Wine list: Kiwi favourites, some Aussie starters
Acacia is the signature restaurant in the Novotel hotel, where mushrooms used to spring up on the outfield of the dear old Ellerslie racecourse, and a business park has now.
I've eaten here before, back in the days when they had the good sense to employ one of
Auckland's great and unsung chefs in-residence. Phil Neverman. He created a remarkable restaurant in an unremarkable area and nurtured a generation of young cooks. But those visits were to judge Acacia for the Monteith's Wild Food Challenge, a somewhat unfair base on which to assess the place and its usual menu. Tonight, Jude
and I are eating and drinking what will be offered if you drop in after the races.
So, let's tick the boxes. Plenty of car parking, always a good start. The architecture is North Korean freeform. Lots of concrete. During the Wild Food Thang, knitted snakes and monkeys swinging from faux palms gave the room more of a warm fuzzy feeling than this Socialist-Brutalist style.
Jude and I began reading the menu. We'd almost got to the end when one, then another wait-person arrived to take orders. We sent them away. They came back.
Jude ordered spring rolls and was surprised when they turned up just before the words had got out of her mouth. "Do you make them here?" she asked, and was assured they did. Sometime earlier in the day, or the week, I'd suggest, and they needed about 30 seconds less. I asked Jude how they tasted, and she said, "Impressive," one of the few times that word has been used in this dining-room.
I had falafel and salad, a frequent meal at home, where Jude rolls and dips and fries Middle Eastern chickpea patties way better than you will drop $15 for them here.
Should I tell you about the mains? Jude felt like steak and fries, which can be the perfect moment in life. Like that joyous ecstasy of soul and timing when Ry Cooder hits the steel-guitar riff across John Hiatt's heartbreak in Lipstick Sunset. Acacia's rendition was more like a cover of Hotel California by an Eagles tribute band.
My rack of lamb, which went to the dogs - literally. We put it in a bag for Hush Puppy and Bianca because it was poorly cooked.
We did not stay for dessert. Jude left with the feeling that dining in Kiwi pubs has not changed since she was a Sixth Form waitress at the Hamilton Hotel; I left with the feeling that after 12 years writing about restaurants in this town I can still be surprised. And not in a good way.
We outlaid $150 but we didn't strike the trifecta at Ellerslie. We got the try-harder.
