A 10th-Floor Meal That Became Maldives’ Most Satisfying Bite 🌆😋

After so many meals in the Maldives, I’d started to think the food was stuck in a rut—never bad, but never memorable either, just… plain 😐. That is, until I stumbled on this spot in Male during a layover. Tucked on the 10th floor with a view to match, it cost 200 RMB and ended up being the most satisfying meal of the trip. 🌉 10th-Floor Views: Male’s Streets and Sea, All Through a Floor-to-Ceiling Window Finding it was pure luck. Wandering downtown between flights, my map led me to a light-colored building, with a tiny “10F Restaurant” sign above—right next to that striking blue building (its walls painted a bright, sun-soaked blue, like a sapphire dropped in the city 🔷). I 嘀咕 ed “how good can it be?” in the elevator, but stepped out and froze at the view: Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the city: to the left, a jumble of red-roofed houses, solar panels glinting, motorbikes 🏍️ zipping through narrow alleys like beetles; to the right, a pale blue stretch of sea 🌊, 远处的渡船 (ferries) inching across, even the white foam on waves visible. We grabbed a window table, and a breeze 🌬️ snuck through the half-open window, salty with sea air, fluttering the tablecloth. 🍴 Food with Heart: No Fancy Plating, Just “Perfectly Tasty” The menu was simple. I followed the locals’ lead: grilled fish, a stir-fry of veggies, two bowls of coconut rice. No high hopes, but the food arrived and won me over with its “genuineness”: The grilled fish 🐟 was local snapper, no extra batter—just salt and lime-marinated, skin crisp, flesh snow-white and tender as tofu, (charred aroma) and a hint of coconut, zero fishiness. Stir-fried veggies 🥬 (bell peppers, carrots, local baby eggplant) tossed in garlic and fish sauce, crisp with a hint of wok char, perfect with rice 🍚. Coconut rice stole the show: grains soaked in coconut milk but not sticky, each one distinct, sweet with a clean coconut aroma—like biting into a fresh coconut, but in rice form 🥥. No fancy plates, just plain white porcelain dishes—but every bite felt like a hug 😊. Compared to the “fancy but bland” resort meals, this was “home cooking”: unpretentious, but exactly what my “tired of plain” stomach needed. The bill? 200 RMB for two, stuffed to the brim 🍽️. Leaving, I glanced up—10th-floor lights glowed, a warm dot next to the blue building. Travel’s best moments, I thought, aren’t the “must-eats” in guides. They’re layover surprises like this: a view from 10 floors up 🏙️, food that tastes like care, and a memory stickier than any resort meal ✨. #MaleFood #MaldivesLayover #MaleCityEats #IslandFoodSurprise