Review: Reef Playacar hotel, Mexico

 

The Reef Playacar,  Playa del Carmen, Mexico

  

After an exhausting but very interesting tour with Kuoni around Mayan sites in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, we were ready for 5 days of luxury in our all-inclusive hotel at the end. Unfortunately, that isn’t what we got – at first anyway!

 

 

At reception on arrival we were told that drinks were not replaced in the fridge in the room, we did not have wifi and we did not have access to every bar and restaurant without paying an extra charge, which was disappointing as we hadn't realised there were different levels of all inclusive.

 

We were told that for an extra $18 (US) a day we could stay in the same standard room but have wifi, soft drinks in the room and access to the other bars and restaurants, or for an extra $25 each a day we could have all that plus move to a premium room near the pool. We decided to go away and think about it. As we got to our room, we saw a very drunk young man being ‘helped’ back to his room by security which made our hearts sink. I know all inclusive means plenty of alcohol but as this was a Kuoni-recommended hotel, we were expecting something quite exclusive and high-end, probably full of older couples (much like our tour group) – not American frat boys.

 

breakfast buffet

 

We took our suitcases to our room and up two flights of stairs – there were no porters to help – and I was a bit disappointed at the quality of the room, average at best – I had been expecting something like the Dreams resort at Tulum where we had spent our first night before the tour.

 

We went to have a look at the pool – there were two, one with a swim-up bar, and the other with a net for ball games. It’s worth knowing that you don’t need to bring a towel which I hadn’t realised – you are given a plastic card which you exchange for a towel and at the end of your stay if you haven’t got your plastic card (which you receive back when you return the towel) you are charged, which seems a pretty good system. You do need to put a towel on a sunlounger before breakfast though if you want to be sure to get one around the pool.

 

The similar cards that you are given for access to your room on the other hand were not so good- every time we went out and came back to our room, one or sometimes both of the cards had stopped working and we had to go back to reception to get them reset!

 

 

Unfortunately the pool with the bar was quite rowdy (it was about 5pm so I imagine people had been drinking all day) and there were several people smoking – despite the ‘no smoking’ signs. I had had enough and went to the reception to complain about the smoking. When I complained to the hotel concierge Christian about the smoking, he shrugged and said “I can’t tell them what to do, it’s not a kindergarten.” I was amazed he had said that and explained it would spoil my holiday as I did not want to swim in the pool with people smoking cigarettes in the pool and pointed out I had paid a lot of money for this holiday. Christian said: “they have also paid a lot of money and will be upset if we tell them to stop.” He didn’t seem to care at all.

 

I pointed out these guests were breaking the hotel’s own rules, which are clearly shown on no-smoking signs around the resort. Christian admitted that if he did tell the smokers to stop, they would only start again when he left the pool area. Eventually he called over his manager and explained, who said that security would go to the pool and tell the smokers to stop, but she echoed Christian’s comments saying they would only start again five minutes later.

lunch

 

On the way back to my room I spotted an abandoned shopping trolley in the undergrowth which was still there the next day – no doubt from someone’s night out in town!

 

The Reef has six ‘restaurants and eateries’ though one of these is a very basic ice cream bar. I’d read it was only open between 4 and 6pm so went at 4 expecting a queue but there was nobody else there; later a couple of kids turned up. There was a fairly limited choice of ice cream and it really wasn’t anything special.

 

snack bar

 

There is a deli snack bar by the pool, which serves burgers, hot dogs, pizza and chips. We had a burger and chips for lunch on our second day which was fine – there’s also a self-service machine where you can get ice cream at any time but it was dreadful – chocolate flavour but tasted very watery and as it melted it looked more like water than ice cream running down the side of the cone.

 

ice cream machine

 

Cenote is an outdoor café serving tea, coffee and finger sandwiches, but I didn’t actually see this café in the two days that we were there. Looking back I do remember seeing a seating area that must have been the café but I didn’t realise it served food.

buffet restaurant

 

So as far as dinner was concerned we had a choice of Chula Vista – the main buffet restaurant which overlooks the pool – Botticelli, an Italian restaurant with a dress code of no sandals, shorts or sleeveless tops; Terraza Grill, a ‘gourmet restaurant’ which is limited to people with premium rooms but if you have a standard room you can eat there anyway with a $6 per person surcharge; it has the same dress code.

 

We went to the buffet to have a look but by this point my boyfriend had decided the hotel was far too downmarket for what he was expecting and said he would prefer one of the ‘proper’ restaurants. We had made sure we adhered to the dress code and went to Botticelli, the Italian place – only to find that nobody else in there had bothered with the dress code and the staff didn’t seem to mind.

 

tuna steak

 

I was surprised to see that even though the place is supposed to be all-inclusive, there was a $20 surcharge if you wanted to order the steak! So instead my boyfriend had a chicken breast stuffed with ham and cheese, which he said was quite nice, but it was supposed to come with rice and instead came with mashed potatoes which he said tasted like they were instant. I had tuna steak, which arrived medium as I had requested, and it was pretty good. When you order the house wine there’s no pouring a little to let you taste it first, you just get what you’re given. They are very generous with the refills though.

cannoli

 

 

For dessert my boyfriend ordere a chocolate cake that was supposed to have sauce in the middle which it said on the menu would take ten minutes to make, which we were fine with, but it came after literally one minute and had no sauce in the middle – I think they must have had it already made and standing around which meant the gooey middle had set. I had cannoli with a praline cream which was very good – I think my meal was much more successful than his!

 

Given how many people were around the pool earlier I was expecting the bars to be very busy in the evenings but we did a circuit of the complex and couldn’t find more than about a dozen people!Either they all get taxis into Cancun to go clubbing or because they are drinking all day they are passed out in their rooms! We had a pleasant drink in the cocktail lounge bar, once we had found it – it’s actually above reception and you have to go up a flight of stairs which isn’t signposted.

 

another breakfast

 

As we were very disappointed by the hotel compared to the standard we were expecting and what we had paid for our Kuoni package, we had complained to the rep as soon as we got there – in particular after the way the concierge spoke to me about the smoking issue – and asked to move hotels. We were of course willing to pay the difference, and the rep asked which hotel we would like to move to. As we had no wifi, we went to the hotel reception where we had seen two computers for guest use (for a charge of course). I asked how we logged in and was told dismissively “Oh, the computers don’t work”. Great!

 

When our Kuoni tour had finished I remembered we had dropped one couple off at a hotel with a discreet sign by the gate saying it was part of the Leading Hotels of the World group – so when we spoke to our rep again we asked to move there. He spoke to the head office and the new hotel and rang us back shortly to say it was fine; there was a room at the other hotel we could have. Unfortunately, it then took the Reef nearly 36 hours to confirm that we could leave without being charged for the remainder of our stay, which meant another day and night in a hotel we really wanted to get out of.

 

cheese fondue

 

I spent part of the day by the pool (the one with the net for ball games which wasn’t actually used while I was there- but luckily there was nobody drinking or smoking in this pool) and my boyfriend preferred to stay in our air-conditioned room. We went for breakfast at the buffet restaurant which wasn’t bad at all, and for lunch he joined me outside and we had a burger from the snack bar.

 

lobster

 

That evening we decided to eat in the most upmarket restaurant there, Terraza Grill. The menu was actually very similar to the Italian restaurant we had already been in; my boyfriend had the steak for a $22 surcharge as he really wanted a nice meal – and by that point we were hoping it would be our last meal at the Reef. For that reason I decided to have the lobster for an extra $55, but it came in two halves and one half had been oversalted so badly it was almost inedible - very disappointing at that price (well, at any price!) but by this point I thought it wasn't worth complaining. We had a nice starter of melted cheese with nachos to dip in  and for dessert I had some sort of tequila-infused cake which I can’t remember the name of that was quite nice.

tequila cake

 

Thankfully the next morning we heard from our Kuoni rep who had finally managed to sort out a change of hotel, and we were to be picked up at midday.  If you want somewhere you can drink as much as you like as cheaply as possible, and your room is just somewhere you will sleep off your hangover, then maybe this hotel is fine. But for the luxury break we were expecting it quite simply wasn’t good enough.

 

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Beach Fun Birthday Card

I love outline stickers when it comes to sentiments but they can be hard to use when it comes to actual shapes and pictures. Do you stick them directly onto the card? Or some kind of cardboard backing? And they are often gold, which isn’t a colour I usually use on greetings cards – other than Christmas cards.

 

I once bought a plastic folder for keeping outline stickers in, that came with 20 sets of stickers already. So there are a few sheets I’ve never found all that much use for, including one of beach images. I think this would be quite useful in scrapbooking to make a holiday page but it’s been a long time since I’ve had a beach holiday!

 

Instead, I decided to use them on a birthday card for a friend who has her birthday in August. I wanted to use yellow card to go with the gold stickers but thought they would get a bit lost on a card that was completely yellow, so instead I chose a piece of backing paper with fine coloured dots, as it made me think a little bit of sand. I used that to cover a standard card blank, and mounted a rectangle of yellow card with lacy edges (I think this is a Tattered Lace die cut, which I bought from Ebay) onto that.

 

As well as some beach images like a sandcastle, deckchair, beach ball and shells, I added the words ‘summer fun’ and ‘sun’ as I thought that was related to birthdays as well as holidays. I also put a wave sticker along the bottom of the card but it doesn’t particularly stand out and I think it may have been better without.

 

To make it clear this was a birthday card I used a little banner die-cut from another pack saying ‘on your birthday’ at the top.

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Sonic the Hedgehog Bas-Relief

Bas-relief in cake decorating is rather like applique in sewing or decoupage in card making – it’s a method of building up a flat picture to give a three-dimensional effect. The name bas-relief actually comes from sculpture and carving but is a common technique in cake decorating.

 

 We covered this in the final session of my cake decorating course at South Thames College. As usual I was running late as I had to stay longer than expected at work, so when I arrived, people were colouring their sugarpaste already. The tutor Bridgette had provided a selection of templates – black line drawings printed on A4 paper – including Hello Kitty and Super Mario. Hello Kitty looked quite simple (though the final effect from those who did it) and I wanted something a bit more challenging.

 

I spotted Sonic the Hedgehog which I remembered from computer games of the 1980s (though I never had any Sonic games) – my boyfriend is into computer games and while these days it’s more Call of Duty (and Lego Marvel Superheroes which even I like playing!) I thought Sonic might be a good birthday cake topper to make for him one day.

 

We mixed a little tylose (CMC) powder into the sugarpaste to stiffen it; you don’t need to use expensive flower paste as you don’t need to roll it out that thin, but you do need the icing to be a little harder than regular sugarpaste or fondant.

 

Bridgette had helpfully given me a sheet with exact quantities I needed of each colour so I added gel colour to my icing and weighed out the right amounts.
 

I started off with the head, and cut out Sonic’s head from the template with a pair of scissors. I laid that on top of my blue sugarpaste/CMC mix and cut around it with a knife.

You can put the bas-relief straight onto an iced cake but mine was going onto a cake board which I had already covered with fondant.

 

Place the head on first then cut out the other shapes and place them on top, to build up the layers. The flesh-coloured portion around the mouth was actually rolled into a sausage shape and flattened slightly, rather than cutting out a flat piece.

 

 

For the white parts on the arms and legs, roll some small sausage shapes, cut to the same length and bend over to make an arch.

 

The ear is cut from flat pieces but then added to the head in a standing-up position.

 

 

I think he looks pretty good, don't you?

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Afternoon Tea at Coworth Park, Ascot

 

 

I was trying to figure out why the view seemed familiar. Standing on the white-pillared terrace looking out across the gardens towards the polo tent in the distance, I knew I hadn’t been here before, so why did I recognise it? Then it hit me with a mixture of gratification and shame – I’d seen it on Made In Chelsea. I was standing where some of London’s finest toffs (you have to admit they are hysterical) had drunk champagne and watched the polo.

 

 

 

I don’t normally hang out in such illustrious places. We were at Coworth Park, Ascot – which is part of the Dorchester hotel group, and everything you might expect from that name. We were there for a 60^th birthday afternoon tea and it couldn’t have been better. The service was exemplary – our servers were just the right amount of chatty when it was clear we were celebrating (for instance recommending cocktails) but were also very polite and attentive in an unobtrusive way.

 

 

We arrived early and as it was a warm sunny day, sat outside on the terrace enjoying a cocktail. When we were ready for afternoon tea we moved into the conservatory, which we had all to ourselves, even though we were not a large group (four people).

 

 

This was a very traditional afternoon tea, with some modern touches but it wasn’t trying for novelty like some places do. We began with a selection of finger sandwiches – they brought a separate platter for the vegetarian in our group – and then moved on to the scones, which were very tasty but quite small. Strangely I decided that the scones we had at Esseborne Manor – where afternoon tea was far cheaper – were actually nicer!

 

 

The cakes were delicious and again fairly traditional with a twist. There was a red velvet cake with cream and a square of some kind of compressed strawberry (I’m trying to remember now if this was actually a piece of white chocolate with strawberry on top); mini raspberry tarts; mini lemon drizzle cake and a chocolate and coffee torte with a chocolate-covered coffee bean on top. There was a huge selection of teas as well. The crockery is so pretty as well, what do you think?

 

  

 

Afternoon tea at Coworth Park is priced at £29 per person – which is less than you pay in central London, but this hotel was outstanding and definitely worth coming to. With a glass of champagne it’s £42.50 which is somewhat pricier, and the cocktails we had beforehand weren’t cheap (around the £10 mark each I think) but they were amazing. The hotel is so beautiful that I couldn’t resist picking up a wedding leaflet on the way out… well, a girl can dream!

 

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New Baby Card Neutral Colours

Two of my friends were due to have babies within a month of each other (though as it turned out, the first one was early and came in July rather than August!) and I really wanted to be able to send them hand made cards. I made a boy and a girl card, and then only had time to make one more – but didn’t know if either baby would be a boy or a girl. In case they both turned out to be the same gender I needed to make a neutral-coloured card. These are nice anyway because people don’t always want pink for a girl and blue for a boy!

 

The main picture on this card is another one of my ‘odds and ends’. It’s actually a piece cut from a wallpaper border – the kind you put along a plain wall in a child’s bedroom. You can get free samples of borders and while I wouldn’t advocate going around B&Q with a pair of scissors and your craft box, when we were shopping there once and buying curtains, curtain rails and so on, I took a sample of the border. I then found it about a year later and thought it would make a perfect new baby card.

 

The border had a bunny design; one image was framed in a square and this is what I used in the centre of the card. There was another rabbit next to it wch I cut out, and stuck on with an adhesive pad to raise it slightly, and overlapped it with the corner of the square image.

 

I used a square white card blank and covered it with a piece of backing paper from a Papermania pack; the curves and triangles made me think of grass so it went well with the rabbit image but I only realised afterwards that I have the paper upside down as it is bunting! Never mind…

 

I had a pack of coloured letters I bought from the Works which are a bit too informal for most of my cards but I thought it worked well here and I had the right letters left to make the word ‘baby’. I then added a rub-on transfer word saying ‘congratulations’ at the bottom.

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Tabby Cat Birthday Cake

Since I’m on holiday and wanted to schedule a few posts for when I was away I thought I would share this with you. Isn’t it brilliant?

 

My sister made this cake for my birthday, using an idea and instructions from a brilliant cake decorating book I got her from Sainsbury’s that only cost £5 for a big hardback with lots of colour photos. I think her cake has a very professional finish even though she is quite new to covering cakes with fondant. The stripes look perfect and the cake was so cute! The cake underneath was delicious too – a Victoria sponge.

 

I’m so used to making my own birthday cake - I don’t get many opportunities to make big cakes and I usually don’t want someone else stealing my glory! I think I would feel the same about a wedding cake but that’s a bigger challenge). But in this instance I’d been really busy and we popped in to see my family for a day right before we went on holiday – so it was lovely that she made this for me! I might have to let someone else make a birthday cake for me in future!
 

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Italian buffet party menu

 

 

It’s the Italian Grand Prix and for Formula 1 Foods this time I’ve got not one Italian recipe, but a whole buffet menu!

 

We had family over for my boyfriend’s birthday earlier this year and I decided to do a buffet with a mixture of hot and cold food. I wanted to make sure there were a few fairly substantial dishes along with things like sausage rolls and hit upon the idea of giving the whole meal an Italian theme. There are so many things that work well for buffets, from pasta dishes to cold antipasti. Here’s a description of what I made and bought (after all who has the time to do an entire buffet from scratch?). As I was also catering for vegetarians I’ve noted which dishes are suitable with (v)

   

Cold food – nibbles and starters:

Bread sticks, aka grissini, with sour cream and chive dip which I bought (v)

 

 

 

Caprese salad of sliced mozzarella, tomatoes and basil leaves, drizzled with oil (v)

 

 

 

Antipasti: red peppers from a jar (v); stuffed olives (v); sliced salami and prosciutto

 

 

  

Hot food: nibbles and starters

Mozzarella sticks: mozzarella pieces in breadcrumbs which I bought from Iceland and cooked in the oven (v)

 

Sausage rolls – not really Italian but my boyfriend wanted them!

 

Garlic bread (v)

 

Mini margherita pizzas, which I bought and cooked in the oven (v).

 

Main dishes

Italian herb chicken mini fillets (from Tesco)

 

Tomato and mozzarella pasta bake (v)

 

Meatballs with farfalle pasta and tomato sauce

 

Tuna, cannellini bean and red onion salad with a mustard dressing (mix olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and garlic to taste). Can also do a portion without tuna for anyone who doesn’t eat fish.

 

 

 

Stuffed peppers, filled with risotto rice and melted mozzarella

 

 

 

Dessert:

Mini Profiteroles from Iceland – these are sometimes known as a French dessert but were apparently invented in Italy

 

Nigella’s cappuccino pavlova

 

 

 

I also served birthday cake, cupcakes and cookies, which you can read about here.

 

  

 I'm sharing this with Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I host, as the theme this month is Italy.

 

 

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Restaurant review: Wahaca, St Paul's, London

Before we booked our holiday to Mexico, my boyfriend had never eaten much Mexican food – and I wasn’t much more familiar than the cuisine than him. I’d only been to Mexican restaurants a couple of times and aside from making fajitas and enchiladas at home I don’t really cook Mexican food either.

 

As we were going to be travelling around as part of a tour group, I knew we often wouldn’t have much – or any – choice of restaurants. It turned out that we had set menus a few times as well, so it was lucky I had introduced my boyfriend to a few dishes in advance.

 

My birthday was right before our holiday so I took the opportunity to get some of my friends together for a birthday meal at Wahaca. Wahaca is the phonetic spelling of Oaxaca, a state in Mexico that is known for its food; masterchef winner Thomasina Miers set up a restaurant by that name in 2007 focusing on Mexican street food. The chain now has a handful of London locations plus one in Cardiff, but you can’t book a table for dinner in any of the London restaurants apart from St. Paul’s. That suited me as a lot of my friends work in the City so it was central for all of us – the restaurant is actually upstairs in the One New Change shopping centre but it feels like a proper restaurant, not a shopping mall food court.

 

The street food idea means the bulk of the menu is small plates with the suggestion of ordering a few per person. There are some larger main courses as well, but as we were a large group we decided to share the street food between us. We did a quick calculation and decided to order one of everything – not something you often get the chance to say to a server!

 

Among the tacos I particularly liked the pork pibil, which is slow-cooked marinaded pork with pink pickled onions, served in a toasted tortilla. The tostadas were open tortillas topped with different things like chicken Caesar or black beans; I loved the sweet potato and feta cheese taquito, which was a rolled-up tortilla. Quesadillas are toasted tortilla sandwiches, filled with things like chicken and cheese. Each dish is priced around £3-£4 and usually contains three of each item so they are easy to share. It was great being able to try different flavours together and to learn the meaning of terms that are usedl I was pleased that the food wasn’t too spicy either. I also sampled a couple of cocktails which were very good!

 

 

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