Best of the Maldives: Bread Dip – Mirihi

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Mirihi bread dip

One of my favourite mixes I have ever had in the Maldives wasn’t alcoholic. In fact, it wasn’t even a drink. It was Mirihi’s “Dukka” bread dip.

A mixture of crushed Macadamia nuts, Haelnuts, Pumpkin seeds, Sun Flower Seeds, Coriander seeds, Cumin seeds, Fennel seeds, Sesame seeds, Black Pepper Corn, Cinnamon, Cayenne, Bread crumbs and sea salt. It was served with virgin olive oil and freshly baked bread. It was the first time my wife and I have asked for a recipe (though we did clone a dish of mango chicken salad we adored at Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhi). When we asked for it, it was all printed out for us by the end of our meal.

One of the subtle touches that distinguishes different star categories is the ‘treats’, specifically, (a) the bar accompaniments, and (b) the Welcome treat. But, I would add the pre-dinner treats to the list. Any 5-star worthy of the grade needs to offer some sort of curious and tasty amuse bouche. But just as important is to treat the obligatory bread basket as a delicacy and not an after-thought. This over sight was one I experienced at the otherwise distinctive, Michelin-starred ‘Mistral’ restaurant at the hotel Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy. Creative and remarkable dishes introduced with a pedestrian table ornament of lacklustre bread. 5-stars really need to have fresh, warm bread, but the super-premiums (5+*) really need to add some sort of equally appetising accompaniment like a tasty tapenade…or Mirihi’s special dip.

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Best of the Maldives: Mixology Legacy – Constance Halaveli

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Constance Halaveli cocktails

Ruby anniversary of the Maldives tourism industry continue through the year with the latest tribute being a fine piece by my friend and fellow Maldive chronicler Adrian in the Telegraph – “The History of Tourism in the Maldives”.

Adrian is always a good source of new ‘Best of the Maldives’ candidates and I often run suggestions by him as a double check. His article featured another resort distinction of Constance Halaveli’s cocktail trailblazing…

“Rooms became villas, food became cuisine. Soneva Fushi put in the first wine cellar (quite a feat in shallow coral sand) and soon all the top resorts had sommeliers. Now they have mixologists, too (the Constance Halaveli resort was the first).”

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Best of the Maldives: 24 Hour Restaurant – Holiday Island

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Holiday Island restaurant

 

 

From every space dimension to every point on the time dimension. One of Holiday Island’s restaurants is open 24 hours. Many resorts will offer 24 hour room service, but proper dining establishments are quite rarely open round the clock. Kept open so you can stroll in on a late night, wee hours whim and dine at a proper table in the open air.

All of Holiday Island’s sister ‘Villa’ resorts also offer a 24 hour café, but Holiday Island’s impressed for a few added reasons. Despite being dubbed the ‘Coffee Shop’, it offers a proper full menu, not just café nibbles. You can even have Lobster Thermidor ($79). It’s also good value for money. You can get a plate of chips for those midnight munchies and it will only cost $4.

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Best of the Maldives: Coursing Courses – Anantara Kihava

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Anantara Kihavah Villas - Sky Salt Fire Sea

Thai National Day today brings us to Anantara for inspiration. On special occasions, meals can be all the more elegant by actually taking place in different venues. A starter in the parlour, a main at a dining table, dessert in the lounge, afters on the deck.

It’s are to find a resort with an elevated deck for eating (though getting more common). Even more rare, obviously, are few exquisite underwater venues. Anantara Kihavah Villas offers boths of these and more in one unified, over-water, themed dining experience – ‘Sea. Fire. Salt. Sky’…

“Guests at Anantara Kihavah Villas will be spoilt for choice when it comes to dining, with six restaurants and bars each offering a distinctive setting, menu and ambience. Highlighting the resort’s idyllic location in the dazzling Indian Ocean is the exclusive Sea. Fire. Salt. Sky. signature dining experience. This unique under and over water gastronomic concept features four remarkable venues, each offering a different type of cuisine that is as unique as the perspective. Ascend to the rooftop ‘Sky’ bar to sample Champagne and succulent cuisine presented on tempting skewers whilst taking in the awe-inspiring view of the Baa Atoll island archipelago. As a golden sunset unfolds an ambience of mellow music invites guests to unwind with exotic cocktails in the refreshing evening sea breeze. At ‘Fire’ diners’ visual and taste senses are astounded with dramatic Teppanyaki cooking displays as chefs prepare fresh local rock lobster, Wagyu beef or the catch of the day. ‘Salt’ offers unique depth and complexity of flavours as a Red Snapper infused with lemongrass, ginger and coarse black pepper is baked to perfection in front of diners on a Himalayan salt brick. Here a simple request to ‘pass the salt’ gets a new meaning as a Salt Sommelier helps diners to pair their food with the perfect seasoning.”

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Best of the Maldives: Canopy Entrance – Four Season Landaa Giraavaru

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Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru grand entrance

The arrival jetty is a just one step of an august procession of anticipation when arriving at a Maldives resort. It starts with spying the first splotch of turquoise out your airplane window. It continues boarding your transfer boat/seaplane where you spy a few colourful fish frolicking around the jetty. Your heartbeat picks up when you see the green dot of an island emerge on the horizon. You pull up to the resort jetty welcomed by cool scented cloth, refreshing tropical concoctions and warm smiles. Then you make tke the long walk down the jetty towards reception seeing even more lively and colourful fish circling beneath you.

At most resorts, the reception greets you at the end of the jetty. But a Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, the expectation builds further as you first arrive to their entrance boulevard. A grand avenue of coconut tress planted by the previous Maldivian owner leading into the island interior. Dubbed ‘Coconut Corridor’, it adds even more buil up to the big arrival. Along with Club Med Kani, one of the great palm corridors of the Maldives.

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Best of the Maldives: Greeting Facility – Sheraton Full Moon

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Sheraton Full Moon greeting

Advent has arrived and with it the arrival of yuletide holiday greetings. Greetings are a big deal in the Maldives with each resort often providing their own little touches and twists. Sheraton Full Moon’s welcome centre is as grand and elaborate as many resort receptions (Full Moon also has a full reception further in the island). The facility comes with a air conditioned waiting area and other amenities.

As with other resorts, many of the staff come out to greet the guest both coming a leaving. A lovely gesture, but we were particularly impressed when about a haf dozen staff came out at 5:00 in the morning (we had an early seaplane to catch) simply to wave good-bye to us.

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Maldives Completely by the Numbers

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Tagxedo Maldives Complete small

Happy 4th Anniversary Maldives Complete!

To celebrate the occasion, I’ve created a Tagxedo (see above) based on the 696 A4 pages of blog post material over that quadrennium. Also, I’ve done a bit of a more quantitative tally of Maldives Complete compiled Harper Index style…

Database

  • # Resorts in database – 129
  • # active Resorts – 99
  • # Room Types – 479
  • # Snorkel Spottings – 80
  • Resort with most Spottings – Gili Lankanfushi (20)
  • # resort Profile photos – 1,235
  • # resort Room Type photos – 1,244
  • Total # Resort profile items – 3,640
  • % complete on Resort profiles – 97.6%
  • % complete on Room Profiles – 42.0%

Blog

  • # posts – 553
  • # ‘Best of the Maldives’ posts (visited) – 267
  • # ‘Best of the Maldives’ posts (unvisited) – 140
  • # ‘Best of the Maldives’ post draft (for future publication) – 161
  • Resort with most Best Of’s posted – W Retreat (21)
  • Resort with most Best Of’s posted and drafted – LUX* Maldives (31)
  • Most popular post – “Whale Sharks – LUX* Maldives” (45,975 views)

Visitors

  • Most popular search terms – “maldives water temperature”, “whale shark”
  • # total visits – 4,896,827

Community

  • # Visits to Maldives – 9
  • # dives in the Maldives – 20
  • # Facebook friends – 190
  • # TripAdvisor Maldives Forum Contributions – 952
  • # Resorts visited – 28
  • # Twitter Followers – 44
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Best of the Maldives: Bird Nest Chairs – Lily Beach

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Lily Beach - birds nest seat

I’m always intrigued by the inviting perches found on Maldives resorts for sitting and chilling in the warm ocean breezes. The most classic is the ‘hammock’ which has even found its way out to the middle of the lagoon. Swings off more elaborate styles and designs are a regular feature.

I was particular taken by the stylish ‘birds nest’ seats on Lily Beach. Dangling from a single line, gives is a 360 degree motion (versus conventional swings and hammocks that a limited to side-to-side action). Crammed with soft pillows, the seat swing was a place I could definitely spend hours on end.

The ‘bird’ modelling here is the gracious sales manager Agata Sobczak who welcomed me on our visit.

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Best of the Maldives: Parakeets – Paradise Island

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Paradise Island - parakeets video

 

 

 

You can get up close and personal with musical creatures on land as well. Paradise Island features an extremely friendly family trio (mom, dad and kid) of parakeets. My Maldive expert network informs me that another resort also has one, but Paradise Island has 3! The video clip above shows just how appreciative they are of their fans!

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Best of the Maldives: Guitar Sharks – W Retreat

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W Retreat guitar sharks

“Swimming in, lord, the deep blue sea. I’d have a, all you pretty women, fishin’ after me.”

Jimi Hendrix would have been 70 today. And I’m sure that he would be riffing today. Often considered the greatest guitarist of all time, today’s post pays tribute with a similarly rare, striking individual in the Maldives waters – the Guitar Fish.

I was first alerted to these allusive critters during our visit by the W Retreat divemaster Hamid who told me about seeing them regularly. Hamid’s successor, Tessa Van Den Abbeele, added the following when I contacted her…

“Out of experience from being in the Maldives for a few years the Guitar fish is a spectacular specie to see but not often spotted, but said that we have encountered 3 guitar fishes together a few times around the house reef of W Retreat & Spa. Other sites we have seen them is Maaye Thila, Fish Head and Himendhoo thila. The guitarfish are a family, Rhinobatidae, of rays. The guitarfish are known for an elongated body with a flattened head and trunk and small ray like wings. The combined range of the various species is tropical, subtropical and temperate waters worldwide. They often travel in large schools. Guitarfish’s have a body form intermediate between those of sharks and rays. The tail has a typical shark-like form, but in many species the head has a triangular, or shovel-like shape, rather than the disc-shape formed by fusion with the pectoral fin found in other ray. The animal looks like a mix between shark and ray, they are often confused with sharks, especially when seen underwater for the first time. Maldivian fisherman for example simply refer to them as sharks. The largest can reach a length of over 3 meters. Guitarfish or most often seen while resting on the sandy bottoms in the vicinity of coral reefs. The mode of reproduction of all the family members is ovoviviparous (yolk sac viviparity) They swim in a shark like manner with lateral strokes of the tail and caudal fin not by undulating their pectoral fins like most rays do.”

It seems particularly a propos that a resort so imbued with music (and innovative music at that) would have such a captivating creature frequenting its reef.

PS. Joke for the kids…What do guitar fish perform? Guitar reefs?

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