Friday 25 May 2012

Food @ W Retreat, Maldives

There are three restaurants in W Retreat. For our Half board meal plans, we are allowed to dine at Kitchen and Fire.

Kitchen
This is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have our daily buffet breakfast here.


There's indoor and outdoor dining. You can even choose seats that allow you to dip your feet in the pool. Else, just choose the other outdoor seats or, when the weather get pretty warm, indoor seating might be a better choice.



Buffet breakfast was a nice spread. Honestly, after eating there for four days straight, we were getting a bit bored with the food. There wasn't any changes to the food variety everyday.


Other than the usual egg station, we can also order waffles, crepes, pancakes, egg benedict. These would be freshly-prepared by the chefs.



We made friends with this staff who's at the Fruits Station of the breakfast buffet every morning. He's at the Fire in the evening and was really courteous to us. After seeing us for two days, he told us that he will prepare something special for us, without us even requesting for a fruit platter. He added strawberries, that was actually not available. This really exceeds our service expectation.




We had dinner twice over at the Kitchen as well. Dinner is Ala-Carte and since we are on a half-board meal, we can order anything from the menu, from starter, to the dessert. As usual, drinks are not included in the meal plan. Drinks at W Retreat are on a pretty high side. A bottle of mineral water for us to share cost US$12++. Most Caucasians would order wine for dinner. Somehow, I do not understand why bottled water are available complimentary at the Sweet Treat Station, but yet, charged at a high price at the restaurants. So probably, ordering Wine was a better option.

Dinner was not bad. The staff highly recommended Tenderloin Steak and it turns out to be really yummy. Tuna steak was also good. But I should have requested for to be medium or medium raw. I ordered a medium well, which I think slightly over-cooked for Tuna.


On our last day, we met one of the staff, Didi, whom have served us the previous nights, over at Fire and chatted quite a bit. When I told him it's our final night, he quickly went to the kitchen and request the chefs to prepare a nice dessert for us. That was really sweet of him. That was really a WOW experience for us.



Fire


Fire opens only for dinner. It is a grill restaurant where we choose what we would like to eat, and they will have it grilled for us. It is a pretty romantic setting where tables are set up outdoors, facing the sea. So you can actually hear the clapping waves in the quiet night.

Picture this set up in the evening. Sorry, I can't get the right evening picture taken from the dark.



We ate at the Fire twice, one of the nights, being Korean Night. But it was far from being a Korean BBQ, which I kind of expected it to be. Honestly, food served during the usual BBQ (US$95) dinner and the Korean Night (US$120) was pretty much the same, although guests have to pay more to eat on Korean Night if guests are not on a meal plan. The only difference was the meat was marinated Korean style, eg. Spicy Pork Bulgogi.



I wouldn't rate that the food at W is fantastic. In some cases, for example the grilled fish was too spicy. The BBQ pork wasn't well done and tasted raw. We definitely can get better food in good restaurants in Singapore, probably at a lower price too. But well, it's Maldives. You pay for the location you are in. Fruits, meats, vegetables were mostly exported from overseas. Only seafood are local catch. We were told that there's an island where fruits and vegetables are grown. However, the price is pretty high. Well, of course, everywhere around us is water. The transport cost and the cost of harvesting would be expectantly, high.


Fish


We did not have the chance to try the food at Fish, but I would like to share the beautiful restaurant. This is a fine-dining restaurant which as a bar - Sip next to it. Similar to the Ocean Villas, the Fish is built on the sea.

Guests can start off with a cocktail before dinner, or have drinks after dinner.


The right hand side is actually the bar - Sip, and the left hand is the Fish restaurant.


The tables are all facing the ocean. A very romantic place where guests enjoy candlelight dinner. Someone who tried did tell us that food was not fantastic. Well, I guess the ambiance is what you pay for?



Continue On...

Away Spa & Other Facilities @ W Retreat, Maldives

Uniquely @ W Retreat, Maldives


Related Posts:

W - Whatever, Whenever!

The Villas @ W Retreat & Spa

Night Fishing & Sunset Cruise Excursions




2 comments:

  1. Cool review. What about the prices for drinks and food ? Would you recommend to book halfboard or b&b?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Drinks and food in Maldives is never cheap. I would recommend at least a B&B.

    ReplyDelete