Best of the Maldives: Thali – Faarufushi

Faarufushi - Thali

For variety of local flavours served up on a flat cake, Faarufushi offers a range of Thali taste treat.

  • North Indian
  • Shakhahari
  • Maldivian

Thali is used to refer to an Indian-style meal made up of a selection of various dishes which are served on a platter. Sort of a tapas of the subcontinent. Executive Sous Chef Bir Kumar Yadav (photo below)  is always introducing new options for an ever changing palete palatte.

Faarufushi - chef Bir

Best of the Maldives: TV Easel – Faarufushi

Faarufushi - TV easel

Not a lot of people want to take time away from gazing at paradise to stare at the boob tube (some Maldive purists even object to having TVs in villas as all though they are handy when the rainstorms occasionally hit), but they are often cleverly dual purposed as displays to bring a collection of videos from around the island into your room. Faarufushi provides an extra aesthetic touch to its artistic videos displaying them on a stylish easel which highlights the allure of the scenes of paradise.

Best of the Maldives: Imaginative Ice Creams – Faarufushi

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The culinary creatives at Faarufushi are always musing about a new ice cream taste sensation they can tantalise their guests with. Chef Bir shared his current slate of sorbets with me including:

  • · Rose and Jasmine Flower (above)
  • · Gorgonzola and Amarena
  • · Strawberry and Balsamic
  • · Chocolate and Thyme
  • · Foie Gras Ice Cream
  • · Honeycomb and Ginger
  • · Mandarin Sorbet (below)

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Best of the Maldives: Coconut Design Spa – Faarufushi

Faarufushi - coconut design spa

Also nestled up in the trees is Faarufushi’s coconut-inspired treatment rooms:

  • While in the spa, the treatments rooms are giant coconuts; hard shell on the outside and soft white interiors on the inside, set within a coconuts grove…We wanted to evoke a sense of protection and well-being, simple natural luxury, for the Spa experience.  The treatment rooms are further rise off the ground at the level of the coconut trees, to further enforce the concept of treatment rooms as coconuts, while a wink to tree house, link to the fun and easiness of childhood.

  

Best of the Maldives: Insta Chef – Faarufushi

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Today is official “Don’t Go To Work Unless It’s Fun Day” (no joke). But for most of the world during the pandemic, every day is “Don’t Go To Work Unless You Are a Key Worker Day”. The world is getting on top of the coronavirus scourge by reducing its transmission until vaccines, treatments and testing is more widely available. That has meant all the resorts rightfully shutting down. So instead of visiting the real thing, people are having to settle for the digital, virtual equivalents with screen time skyrocketing.

While the Maldives geotag is dominated by fashionistas in swimsuits, one of the most common subjects on Instagram is photographing your food. If you are staying at Faarufushi, you won’t be able to resist a post yourself if you dine at Lagoon (the resort’s Asian tapas restaurant) and feast your eyes (and your Followers’ eyes) on one of Mohamed Adil striking dishes. And if you don’t have your camera, then you can repost one of Adil’s pictures on his very on fleek feed.

Hotelier Maldives featured a profile on him earlier this year. Hotel Asia’s Best Maldivian chef 2018 described his background, “Art was something I always saw when I was growing up. Mostly paintings by my dad, but I never thought of art on a plate and that’s where I found myself.” His mentor Executive Sous Chef Bir Kumar Yadav first worked together at Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru where he started as a kitchen steward. From there he has skyrocketed in the culinary world to recently winning the Gold Medal in the Dubai World Summit. Here is his story in his own words:

  • What atoll are you from?Born in Ari Atoll, located towards the west of the archipelago, brought up in Seenu Atoll (Addu Atoll).
  • What was the first dish you ever cooked for someone else?I clearly remember the first dish that I cooked for my executive chef as a practical exam. It was a grilled chicken breast with homemade crispy fries, sautéed peppers and hollandaise sauce.
  • What’s your favourite unsung ingredient?Unsung ingredient would be cumin as Ground Cumin has a very distinctive flavor with an earthy, nutty, spicy taste with a somewhat bitter undertone and a warm, penetrating aroma with hints of lemon.
  • What’s your signature Maldivian dish?Coming to a signature Maldivian dish would be something I created back in 2019 for a culinary challenge. The dish had various components and all of them are favourites to many locals. A fillet of red snapper grilled over coconut coal, breadfruit curry, tempered banana blossom with smoked tuna, fried moringa leaves, fried onion tuile served with a savory doughnut.
  • What has been your most ambitious dish?My most ambitious dish was one that I made for a culinary challenge. I knew that I wanted to go with beef and the rest was unclear. So I took a piece of paper and wrote down all the things that would go well with beef. Then I started crossing out the ingredients until I got the perfect combination. First I worked on perfecting the taste. Then I moved on to the presentation of the dish. The whole process took me over 30 attempts to create the dish which consisted of Wagyu striploin paired with cylinder of potato fondant filled with wild mushroom duxelle, decorated with shimiji mushrooms, onion flan, sweet unagi, garlic sautéed baby spinach, tea smoked cauliflower puree, black garlic jell and a rich veal jus.
  • Has there been any memorable failures where something you tried didn’t work?Looking back, there would have been many failures. Some dishes were not executed to the standard that I wanted to bring out. However, I kept working on perfecting those dishes and that practice is what brought out the ability in me to a higher level. I don’t consider them to be failures but as something that I can learn and gain from for the future.
  • What was the best advice you’ve received as a chef?The best advice that I got is not to constantly look at the working hours and the amount of pay and instead to keep looking at the blood and sweat as a stepping stone to greatness.
  • If you could do your career over again, what would you do differently?If I could redo my career all over again, I would start it as soon as I could. Until I was 19 years of age, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. If I had known sooner, I could have taken a more scientific focus throughout my studies in school as cooking and science goes closely together. I wish I knew what my career was going to be so that I could have prepared to start my career beforehand.

Adil is definitely someone who loves his job and let’s hope he can resume working it as soon as possible.

Paradise on a platter!

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Best of the Maldives: Name Etymology– Faarufushi

Faarufushi - etylmology
Velanaagey Family: Prominent members of the Malé nobility circa 1900

What’s in a name? A while back I added “Name Meaning” to the Maldives Complete database which identified (where appropriate or available) the Dhivehi meaning to the names of the resorts. But no etymology is as colourful as Faarufushi or “Guard Island”:

  • Koimala Kalou (Lord Koimala) was the first king of the Homa (Lunar) Dynasty, which some historians call Theemuge. This legendary nobleman of the Lion Race from Ceylon, sailed from Rasgetheemu island (literally King’s Town) in North Maalhosmadulu Atoll to Malé and established a kingdom there. By then, the Aadeetta (Sun) Dynasty ceased to rule in Malé, possibly due to invasions by the Cholas of Southern India in the Tenth Century. The indigenous people in Malé Atoll, the Giraavaru invited Koimala to Malé and permitted him to be the proclaimed king. In Dhivehi language ‘Faara’ means to stand guard and ‘Faaru’ means wall. The name of the island goes way back but likely refers to the fact that the Prince Koimalaa’s security operated out of the island or this island had something to do with the royals in the neighbourhood.”

   

Best of the Maldives: Lit Menus – Faarufushi

Faarufushi - lit menu

For the squinting crowd whose arms are not long enough to hold a menu far away enough to see it, the romance of under-the-stars candlelight might add to the romance, but it also means you can’t figure out what you can order for dinner. Resorts have come up with a various solutions to this problem including the fiddly clip-on mini light or the serve holding a torch. But Faarufushi has introduced electronic menu tablets with soft back lighting to provide optimal visibility.

Best of the Maldives: Local Artist Boutique – Faarufushi

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For low-miles “buy local” shopping, Faarufushi’s boutique is stocked with items almost entirely sourced from local artists. The miles-friendly range includes jewellery, fabrics, ceramics, and even Maldives themed phone covers. The shop also carried massage oil made from locally produced coconut oil (the same signature oil they use for the resort spa treatments). Many of the products are also featured in the rooms, spa and around the island like the Island Bazaar soft furnishings (see photo above) and the Island Apothecary hand cleanser.

Another impressive line of “local” products is one of the most extensive collections of books about the Maldives I have come across. Not just touristy coffee-table photo books, but histories and novels set in the archipelago. Beach reading about your beach!

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