Wakatipu Grill-Hilton Hotel

one of the essentials you need when travelling is a sim card with internet, phone calls and text are more of an aside. i bought a $19 prepaid card which charged a $5 sim from vodafone, with 500mb data which was plenty for a few days overseas. it could also make phone calls back to aus with the included minutes. the 4G didn't work very well though. anyways, i easily made up that money through showing an email to get my mum and i a free meal at the most expensive restaurant in the hotel. in our hotel booking, it said "meal plan:room only" and i emailed a person before and she said it included 2 courses at any restaurant, but once checking in, the person said it meant that only the room is paid, and no meals are included. so i then whip out my phone and show the guy the email. half an hour later after "talking with management," the guy gave me a voucher foe free dinner! moral of the story, never hurts to email people, and make sure you have easy internet access whist travelling. there was free wifi in the hotel lobby, but in the rooms its $15 per day, so its more worth to get a sim card.

walking down to the restaurant.

decided to have dinner here after our cruise at Milford Sound on our 2nd day. it's by the lake, so in summer/daylight it's quite pretty, but even at night, there's a gas fireplace outside for drinks and looking at the view. i love restaurants with open kitchens (:

entree: Duck parfait, smoked cherry sphere, olive crostini 19

the last time i had a duck parfait was at The Little Snail, and it was a big slab of parfait and had super grainy texture which made it really hard to finish the whole dish. this dish had a decently sized portion and the parfait was super smooth and you could easily swallow it. loved the crunchiness of the crostini and the slightly smoked cherry sphere to accompany it.

5 hour braised beef short rib, parmesan polenta, ratatouille jus  32

Market fish of the day, caramelised onion mash, tomato buerre blanc, cavolo nero 37

i started off having the beef. they gave you a sharper knife (not a steak knife), but i only used my fork since once you touched the beef, it just fell apart. so tender, hence no knife was used. it looked like a lot of jus at first, but it was the right amount and had the right amount of saltiness. the parmesan polenta reminded me of a slightly healthier potato mash.

then i tried the salmon-yay for crispy skin! cooked perfectly, with the inside still slightly pink. the sauce was nice and buttery but not too heavy

Warm chocolate and beetroot cake, hazelnut praline, sage ice cream 16

even though i'm not a chocolate fan, when i saw sage ice cream, i knew i had to try this dessert. the other dessert option was the chef's selection of ice cream, but it didn't have sage ice cream as a flavour. it did taste like sage, without it being too overpowering. the texture was amazing like any ice cream at restaurants. i think the beetroot was dehydrated, then scattered across th whole dish. i normally don't eat beetroot, but here it was some acidity to cut through the chocolate cake, and added some texture to the dessert. the quenelle on the left side is cream. generally, NZ desserts are no where as sweet compared to australia.

also ordered Mac's green apple and ginger beer drinks ($7 each). these drinks are more flavourful without being too sweet like Australia's soft drinks.

lovely free dinner (: