Emphasis on food for Le Meridien holidays programme
Guyana Chronicle
December 5, 2003
LE MERIDIEN Pegasus Hotel, in Kingston, Georgetown, heralded the festive season Wednesday at media briefing in its lobby already transformed into a Christmas village, including a gigantic Christmas tree aglow with lights and golden decorations.
With appropriate music in the background, Executive Assistant Manager Guillaume Warnery announced numerous activities that would signal the count down to the holidays.
Mr. Warnery, flanked by Sales Manager Rhonda Crawford and Executive Sous Chefs Philippe Quesne and Shawn Drenoan, said Santa Claus will be at the same venue throughout the season greeting the many visitors and patrons.
Warnery said the negotiations to get Santa Claus there were “long and hard”.
Meanwhile, the El Dorado Restaurant now boasts what looks like snow rolling off the window of the canopy and creating a puddle under trees, as well as an active, noisy reindeer pulling a loaded sleigh.
The big attraction in that eating place will be the ‘Seasonal Specials’ available every evening from 7 pm Tuesday to Saturday, beginning December 6.
Warnery and Quesne said it will be “the real golden taste of the El Dorado”, with exotic foods and regular local Christmas dishes.
The poolside is to be the source of much entertainment from December 22 to 28, with Christmas barbecue specials each night, mainly of “turkey with an attitude”, Drenoan said.
For Christmas Eve, there will be a wide range of delicious menus and a special buffet lunch in Browne’s Café, from 12 noon to 3 pm.
For the first time that same night, the Latino Bar will fling open its disco from 9 pm to 2 am for a ‘Red and White Affair’ and revellers are being encouraged to be clad in those colours.
The best dressed couple in that attire will receive a whopping Christmas gift that could quite possibly be a round trip for two across the Caribbean, Warnery disclosed.
Browne’s Café will be a buzz Christmas Day from noon to 3 pm. Starters will be sauteed prawns, mussels, scallops with spaghetti with the main course of stuffed roast turkey, croquette potatoes, pureed carrots and sauce. Guyanese black cake and Crème Anglaise is for dessert.
On Boxing Day, the Café will serve lunch with a new variation. The starter will be warm trout terrine with butter and cream sauce and the main course chicken soufflé with coconut milk and okra rice. Dessert is Christmas cake.
Santa Claus, whose gender and age were not disclosed, joined the press briefing just before the conclusion “after a long trip from the North Pole because the word is out that Guyanese are a warm and hospitable people.”
Crawford said only a few bookings remain available for those who want to host staff parties at the hotel and pledged that the Old Year’s Night celebration into 2004 will be just as exotic and entertaining as the Christmas programme.
While not unveiling too much, she hinted that a Broadway theme would be adopted and the entire lobby will be suitably decorated.