Like many Australians, Nik Loukas is currently spending his days in hotel quarantine after returning from his trip to Corfu, Greece. Now, two days into his mandatory 14-day isolation period, Nick says he’s pretty impressed with his new hotel life and the food he’s been given.
“So far my experience has been great… I’m definitely not going hungry,” Nik told Mamamia.
And he should know. The 40-year-old is a frequent traveller, who flies around the world reviewing airline food for his 30,000 followers on his Inflight Feed Instagram account.
Now, with his travel plans temporarily put on hold due to COVID-19 restrictions, Nick has given his followers a glimpse into what hotel quarantine food is really like.
“The food is delivered daily, some of it is not the healthiest, but I can choose not to eat it, and just stick to the healthier items,” said Nik, who is currently staying at the Crown Promenade in Melbourne.
So far, Nik’s free hotel meals haven’t been particularly fancy, but they do come with a Mars Bar and a piece of fruit on the side.
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I am glad for Nik that he got such a range of good quality food.
I can tell you categorically that we didn’t. We didn’t have a mini bar like that available to us, though there was tea and coffee available. We never received any cold drinks, only the occasional snack and wildly inconsistent food portions. Some days there was huge amounts and other days there was literally about one third of the amount of food, and never as much as I see in Nik’s photo. The hotel menu wasn’t available to us, though we were very blessed to have great care packages made for us and were able to get food delivered (which, in fact, the nurses who call to check how you’re going did encourage). The range of food was pretty limited e.g. you might get the same paprika chicken several days in a row, in slightly different forms. Likewise, scrambled eggs was sent 5 days in a row before we then got cereal 4 days in a row. They didn’t understand what lactose free means, so I would receive a different meal from my kids or the same meal without a bread roll as though I was gluten free. Sometimes this meant I would be given a small salad with no bread and no alternative. Thebiggest issue was that it didn’t seem well planned - huge inconsistencies in portions, a lack of planning of what got brought when. The food in itself was usually fine, but more planning. Would make a big difference. THe hotel staff and medical staff were very helpful and kind. Where only three portions of food were brought rather than four, they would have more food brought up and were very apologetic.
To be clear, I am not complaining - the hotel room was very nice, the staff were excellent, the deliveries were really helpful and the food itself wasn’t all bad, but better planning and more careful execution would have made a big difference. We were fine there and I haven’t been going around complaining to anyone - if anything, I’ve been saying it wasn’t as bad as I feared. But...what Nik shows above is only one example of what happens in the quarantine. Our experience was quite different.