The buffet is not open at supper, but there are nine a la carte restaurants, the Sports Bar, and room service available for dining options, and reservations are not required or taken anywhere. If you go at 6:00 ish, you never have to wait anywhere, but we had a short wait at one restaurant when we went around 7:30 (between 7-8:30 they can get a bit busier at some of the restaurants, but they give you a vibrating disc, and you can go to the martini bar, or wherever until a table is ready for you). The restaurants are open really late, so you can go pretty much whenever, or double-dinner, or eat an appetizer at one place, a main at another, and dessert at another. The options are really endless, and the menus are big, with so many choices.
Earlier in the evening most people are getting ready in their rooms etc., and it's a great time to snap a few photos when nothing is too busy yet:
We love the French restaurant Chez Isabelle, and dined there once. We started with the lobster salad, and then I had the 24 hour braised pork, and Christopher had rack of lamb.
There are so many things on this menu that sound amazing that we want to try, but just not enough time to get to them all. It is a very popular restaurant at the resort.
Many nights we went to the Spanish tapas restaurant, Flavour Market, just so Christopher could get one little snack - their anchovies in vinegar. He cannot get enough of them. We either sat inside or out, and sometimes only ordered the anchovies as a late night snack, or an appetizer before going somewhere else, and other times we had a few other little bites.
The servers always brought little toasties out, that were topped with a variety of delicious toppings. The octopus was fantastic!
They remembered us from our previous visits, and were excited to see us coming back over and over on this trip as well.
We went to one of the Italian restaurants that we hadn't been to before, Toscana.
They brought out delicious bread with oil and vinegar, and cheese to start:
As well as this yummy plate:
I had pasta with a lemon caper sauce, and Christopher had ravioli with duck, berries, pistachios, sage, butter, and fontina cheese.
All the noodles are made in-house, and were so good!
We went back another night, and had the in-house made gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce, candied orange, and parmesan cheese, and the salmon with olive polenta and veggies. I couldn't decide between the shrimp or the salmon, so they just brought me some shrimp on my plate too.
The gnocchi was pillowy soft, and the blue cheese sauce totally hit the spot for Christopher, but was a bit too blue cheesy for me, although I still had to have a few bites because the gnocchi was so good.
We weren't going to have dessert, but when we saw that they made three kinds of cheese ice cream (Gorgonzola, parmesan, goat cheese), and two kinds of sorbet (balsamic and olive oil) in-house, we were intrigued. We asked for a very small taste of each. They were all absolutely perfect, and not weird tasting at all. They were all beautifully made, creamy, and refreshing.
Next door to this Italian restaurant is an outdoor restaurant, Oregano, another Italian place, that is open for lunch or dinner. We've been before, but didn't dine there on this trip.
One of our favourite places is Basmati, the Indian restaurant, and we visited it twice.
Once we went to the Asian restaurant, Spice. My pad Thai was really good, and Christopher had a nigiri plate.
We still have yet to try the teppanyaki experience at this restaurant!
On our last evening we dined at the Lobster House, where we just shared some coconut shrimp and the lobster risotto, which was delicious, and had so many huge, perfectly cooked chunks of lobster inside.
This restaurant, like the others, has so many other dishes we want to try. We never made it to the Mexican restaurant, steak house, or sports bar for dinner on this trip, and never got room service for dinner, although the odd time we got a late night snack to the room.
The martini bar and entertainment areas are always busy and fun at night. There is live music every evening both inside around the martini bar, and outside on the stage. Then the musicians take a break and there is a show, which is always excellent! After the show the musicians start back up, and there are always people dancing and mingling outside, and just through the glass doors inside too.
The areas above were typically packed and energetic from about 8 pm - midnight. Each night there were different themes and events too, such as a Mexican fiesta night, a casino night, etc.
The Sports Bar had karaoke every second night, with a great selection of songs. We did that one evening, and were out late. It was packed, but only a handful of people were singing, so we both sang a bunch, and had a blast! It was a younger crowd, and everyone was super fun.
Overall we had an amazing trip, and are looking forward to returning to this wonderful place again. It is pricier than other five star resorts, but it is the epitome of the saying, you get what you pay for. We've been to a few other five star resorts, and have extensively researched numerous others that we haven't been to, and nothing compares to this place, at least for us. It has everything we could ever want, and we are more impressed each time we return. It is worth every penny.
Email me if you want to know anything more!
How was your week? What are you up to this weekend?
1 comment:
I definitely want to go to this place some day! It looks amazing. I love that the restaurants don't take reservations. We'd opt to eat later like you guys did, too. Especially since we usually like to stay on the beach until later and take our time getting ready (or take a nap!). The food all looks and sounds amazing.
This past weekend we had Paul's baptism. The weather was horrible so we weren't sure who all would make it but my family that was planning to come all made it. So we had 11 people at our house for brunch afterwards. I made a couple of egg bakes, homemade granola with yogurt and fruit, a spiced coffee cake, and blueberry muffins. We ordered a cake for dessert but could have skipped that as everyone was so full after brunch. My mom helped a ton so it wasn't too much work but I have to say I was happy when everyone had left and it was just Phil, Oscar, Paul and me. Entertaining when you are a new mom is exhausting!
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