Hi guys sorry for the delay between posts, blogger has been stuffing up and not allowing me to put videos on. The KFC blog is not far away and a review of a restaurant in town, for the time being here is my attempt to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon.

Wellington Public Hospital-dining experience from an inpatient

I’ve gone and dislocated my hip so I have been given the opportunity to rate the food at Wellington public hospital. Being in the public system still recovering from a recession I did not expect much. I will give an overall rating based on 4 meals because honestly they all taste pretty much the same.

Saturday night dinner

I was admitted late so missed out on the fresh courses so had to have a nuked frozen meal. The dish tonight was roast lamb, mash and vegetables, and it was microwaved hmmmm. So everything was against them from the start. The only way they could pull off a decent roast lamb frozen meal is if they worked at Nasa or if I had suffered a brain haemorrhage which severely damaged the taste centres in my cerebral cortex. The “roast lamb” arrived in patties accompanied by mash and typical mixed vegetables. If they put the lamb between some burger buns and chucked some Big Mac sauce on it, then it would have been semi legit. Not even my haziness from the truck load of painkillers I was on could cover my distaste for this meal. One positive from the meal was that it came with ice cream afterwards with some cubed jelly, a minimal amount but enough to cheer me up.

Sunday Breakfast

Can’t be bothered putting this into sentences.
Porridge-Water mixed with a bit of flour I think
Toast-appalling toast to jam ratio
Coffee-Good for instant


Sunday lunch

After a less than satisfying breakfast I was looking forward to the “sausage hotpot” with a side of pumpkin soup. What I got was devilled sausages public hospital style. It consisted of sizzlers (I think) cooked in a sauce that seemed like a fancy tomato sauce. It was served with a side of carrots and broccoli, with no mash. What a debacle. Mash is the foundation of devilled sausages; you cripple the dish without it. Then again this was supposed to be a ‘sausage hotpot’ but it didn’t come in any kind of pot so who knows what was going on. What is with this hospital and chucking fancy names on ratty meals?
There was no pumpkin soup with my meal; apparently I did not miss much. My ward mate described it as water drained through a pumpkin with a dash of whatever was coming out of my other ward mate’s catheter.


Sunday night dinner

A fresh meal tonight! No excuses for this meal.
I ordered chicken and on first appearance the chicken aspect of the meal looked similar to what my cat Mozart regurgitates after it scoffs herself silly. A point of hilarity here, the dish was called Tahitian chicken on the piece of paper that comes with the meal. What was the point in trying to add an authentic element to it like that when it was blatantly chucked together from an expired Wattie’s can? Worth noting however was the pumpkin mash which had a good consistency unlike the potato mash which had the consistency of porridge. They did include beans with this meal as well and accordingly to the old guy opposite me, are quite expensive this time of year. He was just transferred from neurology though…
One of the other dudes in my ward had scrambled eggs, I would have been well satisfied with that meal.
I once again received ice cream with this meal exactly the same as the night before except for a different flavoured jelly that was a little denser. Geez I need some more Ketamine.

Overall the food does serve its purpose-it keeps you alive…just.
This sort of food brings back memories of airline food. Both systems with strict budgets which is evident in the taste, both have meals with fancy names that make you think you’re going to get a kick-arse meal but leave you very disappointed, and both are eaten in company you wish wasn’t there. This rating will not be pretty. Further blogs could compare hospital and airline food because they are in a whole different league to normal food (in a bad way).

Rating

Taste- .5/4 stars
Appearance- 1/4 stars
Originality-1/4 stars
Overall-2.5/12 stars

The reason why appearance gets a whole star is that they were served on a plastic platter which always added an element of surprise to it. This excitement did not last long and always ended in bitter disappointment. Kinda like at Christmas when I open presents from Grandma expecting something awesome (sorry Gran!).

Afternoon Tea provided by the Maori health crew

Well it's been a while! I have had nothing to really blog about lately because med school has been average at giving us free stuff, luckily Maori health came to the rescue.

This free afternoon tea was a much needed relief from an afternoon where I would have preferred to have contracted Fournier's disease. On first appearance there was a good variety especially for an afternoon tea (were they trying to make up for something?). On offer was salmon and chicken buns, cold crumbed chicken breasts, club sandwiches, some funny pudding things, and bread with various dips (fancy!).
The club sandwiches had standard fillings but their potentially good flavour was masked by the amount of mustard that was lathered on, simple mistake. On a more positive note the salmon buns gave me a semi. There was a good salmon:salad:bun ratio making them very tasty.
I tried the chicken, it was cold, kinda dry but a nice addition to the afternoon tea. I am never one to complain about more meat being on offer.
The bread and assorted dips were very impressive and I unfortunately had to double dip here in order to try all the dips with one piece of bread (sorry guys!). Very original tasty dips with good quality bread.
Last I tried the pudding things. I went halves with Rob cause I had eaten a fair bit and was reaching capacity. I didn't even know what was going on with these things. It was like a mushy apple crumble cake thing with a berry base which provided some flavour. This afternoon tea was clearly not focussed on the sweet side of things.

Overall an impressive afternoon tea with only a couple of let downs. These however did not really dull my excitement as a free afternoon tea to me is the same as a big mac voucher to an Ethiopian.

Rating
Taste-2.5/4 stars
Originality-2.5/4 stars
Appearance-2/4stars
Overall-7.5/12 stars

Cake competition at the end of advanced clinical skills

I don't have a lot to say here this event does not really meet the criteria of having food 'provided' as we put all the effort in. We had some wine provided which tasted like it was fresh out of the country cask. There were no beers provided. The med school wasn't really meeting us half way here. The students put a lot of effort in and all we get is shit wine and no beer what a shame.

I was lucky enough to get hold of some images from the cake comp, as you can see a lot of hard work went into these fine creations.

The winner was the H1N1 cake which is pictured first. To all the competitors well done and my birthday is on the 19th of August if you want to put your baking skills to the test again.

Dinner at the Marae

Kai at the Marae is considered tapu or sacred if you would, with this in mind I hoped I could move on from the average afternoon tea to a more sacred dinner.
Playing touch had increased my hunger to "I'm gonna bite someone soon if I don't eat soon." This added on with being last in line while experiencing post shower sweats was fueling my impatient hunger pains.

The selection of meat was good with beef and chicken on offer with also would you believe it seafood salad! This rating had the potential to be bias because of this dish. However there was fruit added to this salad which I felt was unnecessary, since when did fruit apart from lemon go well with creatures of the sea?
The roast potatoes were prepared well and were yellow. Salads were nothing spectacular but were a good addition. Roast pumpkin was on offer and had the orangely fluffy texture I liked but in saying that roast pumpkin isn't exactly rocket science to cook it's actually food science just not that difficult food science.

One major criticism of the meal was the lack of gravy with the roast meat and vegetables. This is the equivalent of sex without a blowjob first, of fish and chips without tomato sauce. I mean they had mayo with the salad so I just couldn't understand the roast without gravy.

Desert was also provided. Strawberries,cream,ice cream,fruit salad and jelly. Not ridiculously fancy stuff but it served it's purpose. The availability of fresh fruit on the tables complimented the desert menu and was a hit with my classmates so has a special audience vote there.

This was a vast improvement on afternoon tea and I can honestly say I did enjoy my meal, but mainly because I was so hungry and was allowed seconds. This is always an easy way to impress me. Leaving this out of the picture and taking into account that this blog is strictly professional this typical Marae meal may not rate that highly as it was not out of this world impressive. Lets see how it went.

Originality- nothing really original here 1/4 stars
Taste-2/4 stars (might have been improved if gravy was provided)
Appearance-1/4 stars
Added star for audience vote
Overall-5/12 stars

An added side note
Several of my classmates came down with food poisoning after the Marae visit. It seemed like my flatmate was having his stomach wrung out like a wet rag. Since I did not come down with food poisoning the rating will not be affected. To all those who came down with food poisoning and spent the weekend winging, harden the fuck up.
Larry

Afternoon Tea at the Marae following the Powhiri

The Kai following the Powhiri should really meet the standards of the initial greeting and welcoming onto the Marae, on this occasion it did not. I was quite hungry as I had a light lunch so was definitely holding out for the free kai.
The selection was crackers with cheese and some relish, a couple of cakes and a solid selection of fruit, kinda what you would get when you do your annual visit to your grandparents for afternoon tea. The pick of the afternoon tea was probably the crackers I really didn't have much to work with here. This was no Porirua Marae (CCW), which had spectacular food.
Apperance-1/4 stars
Originality-1/4 stars
Taste-1/4 stars
Overall- 3/12 stars

Morning Tea-Sponsored by NZMSA

Had a very limited selection today, thanks a lot NZMSA. My flatmate noted that the ginger cake things tasted like they had been made in the Phillipines and then sent over last year.
There also wasn't enough sandwiches of which were pretty stock standard. They just had your average meats and fillings, I could of done pretty similar but better. There isn't much else to comment on here. Aren't you guys meant to be encouraging us to join your society?

Larry's rating
Apparance-1/4 stars
Originality-1/4 stars
Taste-2/4 stars
Overall- 4/12 stars