Happy Valentines Day! If the day goes well, then you might be considering how to get to the chapel on time some day in your future and Siyam World has just the thing – a wedding-themed jeep-buggy..
Best of the Maldives: Bus Transport – Sun Siyam Olhuveli
Electric carts are standard at most resorts (at least the larger ones), but Sun Siyam Olhuveli has a fleet of electric buggy buses allowing them to carry more people, more sheltered (when the cloud bursts come along).
Maldives Vintage Map
I love me a good map, and after featuring so many here, I felt that I had to have one of my own to grace the walls of our home. There are lots of vintage maps of the Indian Ocean and a number that just feature the Maldives. The one above is the one I ended up purchasing a print of as it seemed to have the most aesthetic charm. If you want one for your own memento (not recommended for modern navigation), and Google Image search can find several for sale pretty readily.
Best of the Maldives: Cereal Treats – Sun Siyam Olhuveli
I was delighted to come across this “Corn Flakes Pudding” at lunch not only because I am an all-day breakfast kind of guy, but also because it evoked a wonderful culinary story told in Netflix’ “Chef’s Table” episode with Christina Tosi. One of Tosi’s famed innovations was “cereal milk” pastries after which her iconic restaurant “Milk Bar” is dubbed (they even have “Cereal Milk Soft Serve Ice Cream”). So I had to ask Sun Siyam Olhuveli’s Executive Chef Didi Hassan when I spoke to him about this concoction to which he recounted the following:
- “We need to have a kind of crunchy dessert. Kind of like cookies. I didn’t have any options. I created this granola mix with the chocolate. And then the guests were asking for it for three days in a row. “Can I have this one? Can I have this one?” I asked the executive pastry chef to come up with a new pudding. I told him to go for something no regular. Something people can remember us by.”
Best of the Maldives: Cake Mixing – Sun Siyam Olhuveli
“Cake Mixing” is a holiday tradition that hadn’t especially heard of. The closest our family came to it was baking and frosting Christmas cookies, but I guess making fruit cakes is a big thing. Actually, our close friends of German heritage do annually have a big stollen cake mixing (and baking) tradition that we are a beneficiary of by means of an annual fruit, nut and marzipan packed treat every December. It turns out that cake mixing has become an especially popular tradition in India and neighbouring Maldives has picked it as well.
Sun Siyam Olhuveli has featured a cake mixing event at its resort every year, but this year’s was the biggest, most elaborate ever including a celebrity chef leading the way – Charith N Silva who has the YouTube channel ‘Wild Cookbook’ with over 600 videos and is now Sri Lanka’s largest YouTube channel with over 10 million subscribers.
- “Every year, it has been a tradition in SSOV to do the annual cake festive cake mixing called ‘Rumtopf’. A Rumtopf is a traditional practice in Germany where festive fruit preserve commonly prepared ahead of the holiday festive season. It consists of seasonal fruits layered with sugar and preserved in rum, allowing the flavors to mature over time. During the festive period, the dried minced fruit is served as a celebratory accompaniment ingredient for fruit cakes, baked goods, desserts, etc.”
