What I Ate in the Maldives

First, let’s clarify: we stayed in the Maldives for 10 days, and our meals were split between local islands and resort islands 🌴. Let’s start with the resort island: we booked Fairmont’s HB (Half Board, breakfast and dinner included). The resort has three restaurants. The main restaurant: buffet 🍽️ The main restaurant serves buffets with daily theme changes. We had dinner here twice: once with Asian flavors, once with Middle Eastern flavors. I didn’t take photos of the Asian-themed night. It wasn’t exactly “delicious,” but the presence of roast duck in the evening was a nice surprise—though there were no pancakes or sweet bean sauce to go with it. There were also freshly baked pizzas 🍕, sushi 🍣, grilled prawns, seafood, Thai-style curry chicken skewers, and beef skewers. All tasted “average.” P4 shows the Middle Eastern-themed spread from one night. Honestly, the meat that day was better than the Asian night 🍖. Western-style desserts were good too—not too sweet. But! The local Middle Eastern desserts? We grabbed a little out of curiosity, and they were extremely sweet 😱. I finally understood what “true sugar-oil mix” means: fried in oil, then soaked in sugar syrup. Use your imagination 🍯. Japanese restaurant 🍣 Reservations are required here, and the dining style is a three-course set: an appetizer, a main, and a dessert. Some dishes on the menu cost extra (and aren’t cheap), so we skipped them. In Figure 1, the edamame tartare and a serving of tuna sushi were complimentary, plus a fried shrimp sushi. The sushi was standard, but the sauce was tasty. The tempura 🍤 in was crispy, coated in sauce, and really delicious 😋. For mains , there was a curry chicken cutlet rice—adapted for foreign tastes, with vinegar in the curry giving it a tangy kick. The chicken cutlet was unseasoned inside but still okay. The other dish was called “takoyaki,” but instead of the round, sauce-covered version I expected, it was boiled octopus with rice. The rice was doused in octopus broth, insanely sweet—hard to handle 😐. The dessert in Figure 4 was good: the cheesecake was decent, and the peanut butter ice cream worked too 🍨. But the restaurant is beautiful. Sitting outside, watching the sunset 🌅, with flying fish leaping out of the sea while you eat? Pretty cool 🐟. Seafood restaurant 🦞 Like the Japanese restaurant, reservations are needed for the three-course set here. Figure 1 is octopus slices—prepared in a French style, which my Chinese palate didn’t love 😕. is squid with large dumplings (cheese and spinach filling)—tried a bite, not for me. Figure 3: Australian beef filet (thought, “steak can’t be that bad, right?”) It was actually pretty good 🥩. Figure 4: blueberry tart dessert—neither bad nor great… This seafood restaurant is overwater 🌊. We booked late, and when the lights came on, small bugs appeared. Recommend booking for 7 PM: sit outside, watch the sea, and occasionally spot small sharks swimming by 🦈. Taste aside, the ambiance is unbeatable. The floating breakfast in P1 was a hotel gift—plenty of food, filling, but mostly just pretty 🥞📸. #Maldives #MaldivesTravel #MaldivesHotels #IslandLife #ResortHotels #DailyFood