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| Decorative Watermelon Sculpture (+ sauce selection) |
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| Braised Chicken Congee |
I was in the middle of water aerobics on the third day of our stay at Club Med Bali when I realised how far my travelling experiences had come. My most vivid memories of travelling are generally the first moment you leave the airport when you arrive overseas - there was the humidity and bustling roadways of Bangkok, the empty streets of the brisque early morning of Vienna, the bullet-ridden slavic style concrete high rise buildings of Sarajevo and the view of South American city Bogotoa nestled in the Andes mountain range. I sensed Club Med would be somewhat different.
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| Breakfast Pastry Selection |
For those uninitiated in the ways of Club Med, the resort is such that you don't need to leave at all. There are 3 all-you-can-eat buffet meals a day, numerous sporting activities (tennis, squash, archery, beach volleyball, golf, etc), watersports (snorkelling, wind-surfing, kayaking, etc) plus nightly entertainment. The employees who run most of the activities are called "GO's" (Gracious Organisers) who are like the leaders we used to have on school camps who were idolised by kids, but in any other circumstances (in reality), wouldn't be that cool.
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| Indonesian seasonings / sides |
Club Med is laden with cult-like undertones - there is a Club Med philosophy which incorporates the concept of "living together - based on a very special concept of tolerance and mutual interest involving people from very different backgrounds, religions, nationalities and walks of life." There are ubiqutious Club Med cheesy pop songs with choreographed dances which are wheeled out multiple times throughout the day. There are very friendly group welcome, ind[o]uct[rinat]ions and sad hand-waving farewells.
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| Waffles |
With 3 meals a day for 8 days served from the buffet, there were plenty of opportunities to sample the food and there were some definite hits, misses and question marks. Everyday I would tell myself that I would eat just one main and one dessert, but inevitably I would get back from the buffet with 10 different types of food on a loaded Jackson Pollock-eque plate where Indonesian ayam chicken would be sitting precariously close to the Hoisin sauce from the prawn dumplings which would be inadvertently touching the salad greens, all whilst precariously balancing a bowl of steaming soup.
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| Cheese selection |
Some of the hits of the buffet were the steamed prawn dumplings (consistently good and perfect to eat whilst navigating the buffet for other food), soups (best was a rice cake soup and notable was a rich coconut based beef curry soup), Indonesian tempe, mashed carrot, moussaka, pork ribs, congee, roast chicken, breakfast pastries (especially escargot), crepes, waffles and ice cream (especially Green Tea) and homemade marshmallows with chocolate fondue.
Honourable mentions go to the breakfast potato gems and lunchtime onion rings which I tried so damn hard to avoid but couldn't.
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| Century Egg Challenge |
Overall, my favourite was a dead heat between the cheese platter (nicely melted blue, gorgonzola, brie, camembert and goats cheese) and the endless tap beer.
The disappointments were the pizza (looked bad enough for me not to try it), sashimi (just not good enough quality fish, especially with Japanese guests present), salads, fruit (except for tamarillo and coconut) and generally the desserts aside from those mentioned above.
The absolute lowlight was the Pasta, Goats Cheese & Walnut Fritata (probably a leftover concoction and tasted like it). A couple of memorable moments as the tour of the kitchen (including meeting the specialist watermelon carver) and Day 3 Breakfast which included the "Century Egg Challenge" being my first tasting of the Chinese delicacy of preserved eggs - they smelt like off eggs and tasted like normal eggs with a hint of off eggs.
Club Med Bali
Nusa Dua, Bali
+62 361 771 521
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