Renaissance Warsaw Airport Hotel Executive Lounge

Somehow, in all my travel over the past few years, I've never stayed at an airport hotel.  I've pondered it a few times, particularly as I get a bit stressy about things going wrong getting to the airport, but I've always valued staying closer to where I'm spending my time in a given city, and not wanted the additional burden of moving just for the last night.  During my recent business trip to Poland, I was in Warsaw for only one day (two nights) and decided to do the airport hotel thing, given my early morning flight out.  It was a good tradeoff, as I only had to "commute" from there to the office one day, and I would have needed to do one of those directions anyway to leave.

My hotel choice was the Renaissance Warsaw Airport hotel, located literally across from the passenger drop off area.  You cannot get closer than this, without being physically attached.  I'll admit, it was pretty amazing to just walk out the front door, cross the street, and be there.

But this is Julie's Dining Club, not a general hotel and travel experience blog (although, hey, should I branch out?), so I'll focus on the dining experiences I encountered on the property in the Executive Lounge.

Setting

The lounge is very modest, and seemed to serve very few guests.

Lounge Seating.

The lounge doesn't have all that much seating.  Several areas with couches for big groups like this, which feels like a mis-match from general lounge clients, which I thought were mostly solo travelers?  The seating also didn't really make sense for eating, as the tables were low.  There was only one single actual dining table.

Side Area.

On the side was a few small chairs with just a side table, and two desks to hunker down and work.

And that was the extent of the space.

Drinks

Drinks are all self-serve, although there is a lounge attendant hovering around to try to be helpful (with little else to do it seemed).

Cold Beverages.

Carafes of house filtered water and sparkling water were available room temp or chilled, along with fruit juices, a few mixers, Pepsi, and beer.

Wine and Spirits.

A single variety of red wine was on offer, along with gin, rum, mixers, and a single type of chilled white wine.

I tried the red wine (Kangaroo Shiraz) and didn't mind it.  Pretty drinkable, low acid, low tanin, still a bit of structure.  One of the better hotel lounge wines I've had.  ***+.

Snacks

During the day, and into the evening, little pots of different snacks are available.

Assorted Snacks.

There were several kinds of nuts, raisins, and apricots, along with some crackers on this stand.

Snacks.

Others were under a dome.  But there was no rhyme or reason to what was where, duplicates were everywhere.

More snacks.

I tried a few of the mixed colorful cracker-like things in front here.  They were tasty.  Nice to munch on.

Evening Dinner

The lineup could sorta be dinner.  I was surprised that it seemed to be more main dish focused than the standard canapes and small plates.  That said, even I didn't really want dinner here.  

The lineup had 3 hot dishes, and some sandwiches and cold snacks.  No hot apps.  And if you were vegetarian, you'd only have salad and small little snacks.

Beef in Oriental Sauce with Vegetables.

The first entree was beef, in "oriental" sauce with "vegetables".  It was lukewarm.

The beef was relatively tender, shredded style meat.  The vegetables I could never quite identify, besides bell peppers, mushrooms, and onion.  The vegetable pieces were all quite small, and there wasn't much of them.  The sauce was not really what I think of as oriental, but maybe a bit like American beef stew/gravy mixed with soy sauce?

I can't say this tasted good, nor bad, it was just kind of odd, and not what I wanted.  I wanted more vegetables!  **.

Tuna with Seafood in a Tomato Caper Sauce.

Next up, the seafood main dish.  Tuna "with seafood".  This had chunks of cooked tuna (fine I guess) and what I think was some very spongy bits of calamari.  The tomato sauce was basic, capers at least added some saltiness.  One bite of this was enough.  Also lukewarm. *+.

Mashed Potatoes with Truffle Oil.

The final hot dish was mashed potatoes.  The card said it had truffle oil, but I didn't taste truffle.  I did taste some garlic, which was nice.  The potatoes were fine, needed seasoning though.  Not a rich and creamy style, but fairly satisfying. ***.

There was no other carbs, like even rolls, to mop up the sauces from the two other hot dishes, which both really seemed like they needed a roll, or rice, or something.

Wraps, Cheese, Meat Sticks.

The signs said there were wraps with salmon, or ham, or hummus.  I tried to find a salmon one but did not succeed.  

There was no cheese or charcuterie board as is more standard in lounges, but rather, just cups with one kind of cheese sticks, or one kind of meat stick.  I did try the meat stick, and it was actually tasty enough.  ***+ meat stick.

No Idea ...

Thinking this might be some kind of seafood spread, I grabbed it.  I'm still not sure what it was, but I think it might have just been vegetarian, cream cheese mixed with something?  Not very good.  No real flavor, no seasoning.  There was another one that looked similar but more like cottage cheese on top that I didn't try.

*+.

Salad with Strawberries, Goat Cheese, and Chive.

The fanciest item was the salad offering, pots of one kind of torn greens, with strawberries and tons of goat cheese, and a pipette of I think chive vinaigrette?

I dislike goat cheese, so I pushed that aside.  The strawberries were not very good, and it was strawberry season, and I'd been eating great berries all week elsewhere, so this was a letdown.  There was no seasoning, and the dressing really seemed to be just oil.  The greens were loosely torn.

This was really the only vegetable available, besides pickles.  **.

Hummus?

No idea what this unlabelled tartlet was.  When I went back for my second round of food, there were no more, and they were never replenished.  Maybe hummus?

Desserts.

The dessert lineup had signs for several items: chocolate cake with cherries, chocolate block, and apple pie, along with panna cotta.  However, there was definitely one chocolate pudding, and, the base of the tall shot glasses with orange topping was totally different from the wider ones with the pink topping.  And the cake certainly didn't seem to be apple as labelled.  So, treat the signs with a grain of salt.

Anyway, I tried everything that was not caffeinated.

The tall shot glass pudding was my favorite.  It was a smooth pudding, almost yogurt-like, in a not very sweet way, and perhaps buttermilk.  Was this the panna cotta?  I think so?  The mango (?) sweet fruity topping was fine.  I wouldn't rave about this, but enjoyed it.  ***+.

Next, the other non-chocolate pudding.  This one was a totally different consistency.  It was more fluffy and mousse-like.  Maybe white chocolate.  It was sweeter.  And didn't taste particularly good.  Not bad, but not good.  The fruity stuff on top was kinda like a gel, not very good either.  I didn't really want more than a few bites of this.  **+.

And the non-chocolate cake, definitely not apple pie.  It might have been rhubarb?  It was dry, tasted highly processed, and even the crumble topping was not very good.  Meh.  *.