Plaza Premium Lounge, MEL

This is a short lounge review, as I cruised through the Plaza Premium Lounge *very* briefly just to check it out, in and out in under 5 minutes.  I had access to the Qantas First Class lounge via my generous seatmate, so I only stopped in the Plaza Premium Lounge to see it, for future reference.  And nibble a few things, for you dear readers.

The lounge is pretty basic, seating generic, food line up generic.  The lounge shares bathrooms, showers, and catering with the American Express lounge adjacent to it., and is located in the general lounge area alongside most of the other airline lounges.

If you have no other lounge access, this could be a fine home base, but it lacked all personality.

Dining Area.

Simple seating in the dining area, and simple light brown seats for lounging too.   The color scheme throughout was drab.  It felt like being in a basement.

Beer, Wine, Coffee, Tea. 

Alcoholic drinks and coffee are made by a staff member behind a counter, tea was self-serve, as were the biscuits to go with.

Soda Fountain.

Other drinks include a self-serve soda fountain with basic Coke products.

Spa Waters.

And an impressive water lineup.

Pumpkin Risotto, Spaghetti Meatballs.

Food is a small buffet, with hot dishes in steam pans.

I tried the pumpkin risotto.

Yeah, I don't know why I tried it.  I think I wanted comfort food.  It was just mush, mush that had been sitting in a hot pan for likely a while, all crusted on top.  It did have big chunks of pumpkin though.

The spaghetti and meatballs looked even worse than the risotto, really really dried out, so I didn't try it.

The other hot dishes were rice, chicken tagine, and minestrone soup.  I didn't touch any of them either.

Beef Sliders, Vegetarian Fajitas.

Uh ... these weren't really beef sliders.  Or at least, not what I expect beef sliders to be.  I took one out of curiosity.

A stale roll, shredded beef, and bbq sauce on top?  Tons of bbq sauce, really generic, and not a flavor I liked.

Did not like this.

Bread.

Sliced bread, rolls, spreads.

Moving on.

Cold Cuts, Cheeses, German Potato Salad, Asian Noodle Salad, Mixed Greens Salad, Cake.

I have a soft spot in my heart for potato salad from salad bars and delis (or macaroni salad!), so I tried the German potato salad.

There was nothing special about this, not particularly good.  Not creamy, not my style.

Popcorn, Candy.

I was happy to see the jars though, filled with gummy candies (yes!) and popcorn (eh, I love popcorn but this was boring.  The buttered popcorn in Qantas lounges was much better!).