180deg - buffet restaurant in Le Meridien Ile Maurice, Mauritius

Quickie update!

I'm working in Mauritius on a project, and the cut-over date was over last weekend - meaning I'm approaching my 10th day (in a row) of 12-13 hours at the office, with hardly time to even go to the toilet. Much less any time to blog :) Things are settling down now, though, so I'll steal some time away to post a quick review of the 180˚ restaurant in Le Meridien.

180˚ is the buffet restaurant of the hotel. It's buffet breakfast by day, and by night it has a combined Indian cuisine buffet, and a rotating nationality dinner (japanese -> chinese -> french -> etc). Pic of the buffet area:


We're here for breakfast, and we're seated outside overlooking the swimming pool and the beach/sea further on - it's great. Breakfast starts off with salads and some cold cuts - roast beef with mustard, ham, smoked tuna and smoked marlin ...


... followed by croissants, green tea bread, and some assorted pastries. Delicious! After all, Mauritius being an ex-French colony (and who cater to tons of French tourists), it's probably a given that the pastries are above average (at least).


Next up on the menu, some hot foods - omelette, and assorted sausages (pork, beef and lamb). Surprisingly, the sausages are terrible, which is a stark contrast to the quality level for the rest of the food.


Another closer view of the buffet area - this table holds all the assorted jams and bread.


We also had a buffet dinner here, for which I sort of forgot to take pictures cos I was too hungry, ha ha. Did manage to at least get a shot of some of the great desserts before eating them.


So that was that! Didn't get the price of the breakfast or dinner, but that would be pointless anyway as I'm pretty certain that the only people eating here are those on half-board or all-inclusive packages with the resort.

Overall, other than the breads and pastries which were top notch, the taste, quality and variety of the food was still below a top-tier buffet joint in Kay-El such as Latest Recipe.

And just before ending this post, I've received my first ads payment from FoodBuzz! It's a whole USD 0.01 yo! Thanks for all your support! :)

Photo Spam: Mauritius Diary (Post #4, Day 36)

Interrupting the restaurant reviews to bring you my 4th Mauritius Diary Photo spam post! First off - three photos of some random beach on the South-West area of the island.






Welcome drink from a resort we stayed in over the weekend - Le Meridien Ile Maurice.


Some shots of the beach at the resort ~








Different beach - this one is Grand Bay, which is pretty much the most 'commercialized'/touristy beach on the island.


Finally - a random shot of a fisherman. Can't remember which beach this was on, though :)


Stay tuned for the next set of photos!

La Foya in Le Meridien Ile Maurice, Mauritius

If I was a marketing student I'd possibly be quite impressed by the Starwood group - of all the dozens (possibly hundreds) of hotels and resorts in Mauritius, I find myself in Le Meridien Ile Maurice - after all the great dinners I've had in Le Meridian KL, only seemed natural to come to Le Meridien all the way over here as well :)

Blogs & Pics of the resort proper will come in a future post, but for now here's a quick review of the restaurant we had dinner in last night - La Foya. It's a "ala-carte" restaurant, but every night there are only 3 choices of starter, main, and dessert.

Doesn't really show in this shot, but the beach is immediately at the right side of the frame, so you have your dinner practically on the beach.


One immediate criticism is that the restaurant is perhaps a tad bit too dark. I'm all for low lighting for ambience and mood, but when I can't comfortably make out what I'm eating, it's too dark. (For the photography-minded among you, exposure was 1 full second at f/2.8, iso1600).

Anyway we start off with a basket of assorted bread and butter. The bread is OK, nowhere near the kind of bread available at the restaurants in Le Meridien KL.


Tuna Sashimi, complementary "pre-starter." I know there's a fancy name for this "pre-starter" dish but I don't know what that name is ;P ... nothing really spectacular, if I'm honest.


My starter is the Classic Horiatiki Salad with Brined Feta Cheese and Lemon Confit (350 Rs). It's interesting, and something totally new to my palette. Tastes very Greek, what with the olives and all.


The darling has the Slow-cooked Calamari Salad accented with sweet chili peppers on orange salad (350 Rs). Calamari was nice and tender, although the 'orang salad' bit consisted of 2 peeled slices of orange on the side.


My choice of main course - the Herb-roasted chicken breast with roast garlic whipped potato (400 Rs). Nothing special about the whipped potato, which is miles below Prime's Truffle Mashed Potato, but the chicken breast was superb. Tender and juicy on the inside, with the perfect sauce accompaniment.


This is the darling's Pan-roasted fish fillet with roasted pepper & eggplant compote, lemon & pepper sauce with crisp capers (400 Rs). The fish is capitaine - which is apparently local to Africa/Mauritius. Flesh of the fish is tasty and fresh, if a little firm.


Dessert time! The Coffee Parfait with crispy almond biscuit & Amaretto sabayon (350 Rs) is a bit of a disappointment. It's basically a room-temperature coffee-flavored cream, with a forgettable biscuit.


The La Faya selection of ice cream & sorbets, passion fruit, strawberry, vanilla (300 Rs) is better. Passion fruit sorbet is refreshing, but takes a while to finish because it's pretty sour.


Overall, food was above average, and the service was impeccable. With the current exchange rate of 10.2 Rs = 1.00 RM putting the price of the dinner at about $105 per person, it's certainly not cheap. 90% of the people here (us included) are probably at the resort on a meals-included package, though, so the prices are probably merely a formality.