After a fun afternoon at the pool we headed to a bar called solana for dinner. Before the Boracay trip I had checked the Shangri-La resort website, and the bar looked so good in the photos that I simply had to go. You can order from the dinner menu of Sirena, the restaurant right next door, while sitting at the bar, and the bar has the better view of the two. You can find the details on the Shangri-La website.
Bar snacks
To make sure we did not miss the sunset, we grabbed a table before dinner service started and ordered cocktails first. Out came a stand of dried nibbles.
Mojito
Something nicely fresh about it. I was not expecting much, but it was better than any mojito I have had in Korea.
Shangri-La cocktail
I forget the exact name, but it was a mix of several fruits. It tasted fine, though the price was a bit steep.
Sunset
The sun is going down. The mood is every bit as good as I had hoped.
Bread before the meal
There were four kinds of little rolls inside.
Butter
Presented like a seashell.
The seats
The place filled right up the moment it opened at six. Oddly enough, there were plenty of Japanese tourists. From Japan you can only get here via Manila, so I would have thought hardly anyone made the trip, and yet running into several groups in the same restaurant felt strange.
Sunset
The tropical sun is setting. Eating while watching a sunset on this scale is a pretty wonderful feeling. The breeze was cool, too.
Pretzels
The mini pretzel rolls that came with the bread were so good that I asked for more, and they brought out a whole basket of warm bread. It reminded me of Achso in Hannam-dong. The photos from here on were taken by candlelight after sunset, so they did not come out well.
Asparagus cream pasta
When we ordered pizza at Cielo for lunch, the pasta looked good too, so even though this is a different restaurant I gave it a try. As expected, out came a properly made pasta. But the portion really is enormous. Order one and two people could share it and still leave some behind. We did finish it in the end, but it was no easy task… (being a cream pasta made clearing the plate even harder)
King prawns and steak
It is a fairly pricey item on the menu, but since you get seafood and steak at once, I ordered it. The beef looks Australian, the quality is good and it is grilled properly too. I cannot remember ever having a good steak in Southeast Asia, but this time was different. The prawns were huge and, of course, grilled beautifully. The only slight problem was, once again, that there was far too much of it.
Strawberry daiquiri
I ordered one more drink. There is no reason strawberries should be better in Southeast Asia, and yet it was a well-made cocktail.
Mango dessert
It had a name, but I have forgotten it. It is decent enough, though mango really is best eaten as plain mango.
Chocolate dessert
You would think the tropics and desserts do not go together, but Shangri-La does the desserts well too.
After dessert we hopped on a buggy to the spa we had booked in advance. We had a relaxing massage, went back to the room and closed out a happy day. From the next morning the package tour schedule starts up again.