Cabo Resort Food - An International FatherFeedsFlock

My lovely wife and I recently took a, much needed, vacation without our little bundle
of 6 year old energy.  After agonizing on where to go, we decided to go all out to an all inclusive 
resort on a beach somewhere.  Dutchie did a lot of research and we picked 
Barcelo Los Cabos Palace.
So we headed to Cabo for some R&R.
Now FFF is a foodblog, so I'm not going to detail anything other than our
major meals while relaxing with Bahama Mama's and Pina Coladas.



There are MANY choices to eat here, but we decided on French, Spanish and Japanese, for 
our dinner experiences.  Here is what we got.
Please forgive the poor quality photos, as we all know, the iPhone is NOT 
good in low light.  I tried to fix a bit in photoshop, but they still aren't the best.

French - Bon Vivant

Bon Vivant Salad-Endive, candied walnuts, pear, roquefort and lime vinaigrette.
We both had this and it was awesome.

How can you go to a French restaurant and NOT get onion soup???
Answer...when it tasted like this.  This was the grossest soup, it was very sweet, and the 
only cheese, onion and crouton is shown here.
Sweet French Onion Soup?  Not on my watch pal.
Give me savory, onion filled, with LOTS more cheese and bread.
This may be the way the french like it, I dont know, but
I was NOT a fan of this, and barely ate any of it.


Now to the entrees.  I had the Lamb Loin Pesilade.  "Thyme perfumed lamb filet"
with ratatouille peppers and potatoes.  This was extremely good.  The lamb had just a hint of thyme flavor and was tender and juicy.


Dutchie had the sea bass filet with cardinal sauce.  Other than wrongly being
served cold, this had good flavor.  I wish it had been at the proper temp.
Mushyroom risotto and parmesan crisps rounded out what should have been a 
homerun, but was actually a double.


Tiramisu and a chocolate morsel was for dessert.  Very rich, tasty 
and we didn't finish the chocolate.


Overall, the French experience was only mediocre.
None of the food was as warm as it should be, and the service was a bit slow.



Room Service
Looking at the room service menu I was flabbergasted at the prices.
I didn't look at the whole thing, or else I would have solved the mystery much sooner.
I saw a shrimp dish for $225.  Now, we all know that hotel food is expensive, and since I was 
at an all inclusive resort (it was free with our package), I HAD to see what kind of 
shrimp was worth $225.



This is it!  Arrived cold and was only mildly tasty.
Rice was bland, the veggies were kind of good, since I've eaten cold veggies often.
The one cool thing is the way they presented the shrimp.
Each "head" of the shrimp had a hole in it, and the other shrimp's tail was passed thru it.
This created a cool shrimp circle.


I forget what kind of fish this was, maybe red snapper, but it was stone cold, and
presented the exact same as the shrimp.
I'm glad these were free, cause it was not a good experience.


After reading the rest of the menu where the Dom champaign was $3500, I realized
that the prices were in pesos.  They really need to use a different dollar sign than we do.


Spanish-El Cortijo
The second night we dined in Spain.  Yummy!
They tried to limit what you could order here, which I thought was strange, but 
fiscally understandable.  You could order a tapas OR appetizer.
We ignored this rule and ordered a few other things.

Here we have anchovies in olive oil, fried cheese with tomato sauce and capers, and 
blue cheese and pear quiche.  The cheese was like something you'd buy at Cosco in a huge bag, blah!
However, the anchovies were 2D4!  It was served on bread with avocado, peppers and red onion.
The quiche was very tangy and tasted awesome.


Not sure why I didn't come back with pictures of my soup, but it was a stand out!
Chickpea soup with beef broth, prosciutto, garlic and spinach.
I also got the mango and avocado tower.  This was extremely creamy and tasted great.
The shrimp was marinated in chilis and coconut vinaigrette.


Beef Tournedo included mushyrooms, garlic, creamed spinach, dried chili 
reduction and cabernet sauce.  VERY GOOD!


Dutchie got the Chili Rubbed Red Snapper.  This included baked potato circles and
a vegetable ragu.  It tasted good, but what is with all the fish, Dutchie?
We were interested in the Sesame Crusted Tuna, but our waiter recommended ANYTHING
but.  He said it was the only thing that wasn't fresh.  We trusted him.


My dessert was a big surprise.  I ordered pears marinated in red wine.
it tasted very rich with a strong red wine flavor. 
You must love red wine for this dish to appeal to you, but I loved it and ate 
every single bite.




Japan - Lotus
We saved what we assumed would be the best for last.  We were right.
This experience was extremely great.
Even though we had to pay extra for our sake, the waiter said
sake was not domestic and therefore was an additional charge, but hot sake with 
Japanese food is almost a must.

I got the Philadelphia Rolls and Dutchie got the Mixed Sashimi.
They surprised us with a heaping bowl of Brown Fried Rice.  It was
quite clearly the best fried rice I've ever tasted.
The wasabi was hot, but not too hot.  Only a few seconds of eye watering
screaming from us is all we ask for.


Next up was the Saigon Salad.  Lettuce, spinach, crab meat, mushyrooms, celery
and tamarind dressing.  This was also extremely tasty.  I could have made a meal out
of 3 or 4 of these, but I'm glad I didn't.




They pulled the same "you can only order one thing from this section, and than not from that section"
thing as the Spanish place, but our waiter "comp'd" us this.
I dont even recall it from the menu, but it was dumplings filled with 
some kind of seafood.  Very good!


Now onto the best dish I had the entire time....
Peking Duck!!!  This is my first pd experience and it was a flavor explosion!
I was getting so full, but I ate almost all of it!
I will definitely try this again, sooner than later.


Dutchie had Soba Champon which is noodles sauteed with seafood, veggies and miso sauce.
Octopus, squid and shrimp made this an interesting meal, but not 
necessarily the tastiest thing.



Tempura Fried Ice Cream and Green Tea Sorbet was dessert.
Fried ice cream was way too rich, and we didn't even finish it.
However, we ate every drop of the sorbet.  I'm usually not a fan of the green tea desserts, but its 
normally ice cream, and the sorbet tasted awesome.


The room that we ate in had some cool seating.  Even though the photo doesn't show it,
the floor was where you sat and your feet went down in an opening so that you didn't HAVE
to sit "criss-cross applesauce".  

<Digression>  Is the term Indian style really offensive now?
I just don't see how crossing your legs while you sit is offensive to anyone, but
I'm sure I'm wrong, and therefore, use this new term along with my son, who taught it to me.

This is a photo of 2 extremely stuffed patrons after half a bottle of sake.  
Notice the leftover fried ice cream that was good, but too rich.  We left the
restaurant and took the bottle to the beach, where we sat on a pappasan chair, near a flaming firepit, listening to the waves crash from the Sea of Cortez and attempted to finish off the sake.
We almost made it.



We love to be adventurous with food, and I loved the opportunity to 
travel to all the different cuisines within the resort.
Overall, I would give the sit down, formal dining a 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

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