A Little Bit of Luxury

So we arrived at the Almyra and Oh My God what a room we were given - this is one of the luxury Kima Suites which has a fabulous seating area outside with views out to sea and a roof terrace with further seating.  Bloody hell this room was bigger than our house!  

I will post a series of photographs for you to get an idea...

We decided to just take the opportunity to chill - I had taken my swimming costume and could have used any one of the three pools but it was just so lovely to sit outside our room with our books and the complementary bottle of wine and watch the world go by.  We never do this - there is always something that needs our attention!

It was just perfect,  the temperature was lovely, and the views sublime.  Our voucher had entitled us to an evening meal and breakfast the following day so we decided to see if we could get into the Japanese restaurant Notios because it got so amazing reviews.  We couldn't get a table until 8.30pm but decided it was worth the wait.

Mid afternoon there was a knock at the door and we were presented with a chocolate torte and a card wishing us a belated happy anniversary.

Anyone that knows me knows I don't normally do anything made with chocolate although I like chocolate itself but I have to say this was absolutely delicious, not sweet - rather reminiscent of a black forest gateau in its flavours and went down a treat with the red Tsangarides wine they had left for us. I could get used to this sort of treatment - actually no, it wouldn't be a treat if I got used to it.  

Having made a good stab at eating the torte we were glad that our restaurant booking wasn't until later otherwise we would have struggled to have eaten anything.

We had had a sneaky peak at the cost of our accommodation for a one night's stay half board which is what we had - it was over €600 - bloody hell for one night?????  How on earth do people afford this and looking around later in the evening it appeared that the hotel was probably pretty full.  There was a young couple in the suite next to us with a small baby - John and I wondered what they did for a living to be able to holiday in such luxury!

So this is me sitting at Notios waiting for our table to be made ready.  Apparently the tables at the edge by the sea are the most prized and that is what we got although to be fair in the dark it didn't really matter where you sat.  

We could either have the set 'meze' menu for the day or chose from the a la carte and have €56 euros deducted from our bill.  We decided to go a la carte because we probably would never eat there again!

They brought little nibbly things for us to try - this was a small spoon of something which included roasted cauliflower and was absolutely delicious and I thought to myself - I have a set of those spoons, I have never used them but will in the future as it was a great way to serve a mouthful of something for somebody to try.

I chose a chicken dish which arrived and looked absolutely beautiful.  It was called Kafir Lime Chicken and came with carrot puree, honey glazed baby carrots and a yuzu sauce - apparently yuzu tastes like lemon, grapefruit and mandarin orange and is very aromatic.  All I can say was it was amazing and although it looked like a small portion it was packed with flavour and beautiful.  We had ordered rice and five spiced potatoes to accompany our meals and to be honest we didn't need the potatoes.

John chose Duck Breast Kushiyaki with hoisin, celeriac coconut puree, pickled candied beetroot and coconut crisps and this was absolutely melt in your mouth - we have no idea how they managed to get little spirals of the meat on the skewer and they were so soft and flavoursome.  We were mega impressed.

We had a bottle of wine and a bottle of water and sat listening to the sea enjoying some of the best food I have ever tasted.  This was indeed a real treat.  Thanks Mum and Lilian it was amazing.