Anniversary celebration

Last Sunday was our anniversary but we celebrated one day early on Saturday. As some COVID restrictions are gradually lifting I’d booked us a hotel room for one night and dinner. I cannot begin to express how great it felt to get a little variety in life and to be able to eat out for the first time in almost four months.

So, on Saturday afternoon we headed to the hotel, Hotel Glo Kluuvi, where I’d booked a GLO Luxe room. Once we had checked in, we enjoyed the bottle of champagne we’d taken with us. As the room had a bathtub, I took a relaxing bath. In due time we headed out and walked to the restaurant – or so we thought. The restaurant in question, El Rey, has two locations and even though I’d specifically chosen to book a table at the location closer to the hotel I told hubby we were going to the other location. After walking for slightly shy off half an hour we arrived at the wrong location only to find it was closed. After a short moment of confusion, I called the restaurant and said we’ll be a bit late, but we are coming, and hubby got us a cab.

We got to the restaurant maybe ten minutes late and got seated. The restaurant had handled the restriction of only offering half the normal customer capacity well and I felt perfectly comfortable and at ease. We decide to partake in the tasting menu “el rey” consisting of Bienvenidos, Guacamole & Ceviche, Camaróncon Pico de Gallo, Taco de Pescado, Taco de cachet and Coconut parfait. As far as drinks are concerned, we opted for margaritas all the way. First, we tried the House margarita with tequila reposado, triple sec, lime & homemade hibiscus, which was super-tasty although at first it seemed quite sweet but with the food it worked perfectly. The chef’s welcome was a small ear of corn with chili and mayo. Then we were served the guac with homemade chips and the ceviche which was salmon cooked with lime & yellow habanero, chili, mixed with fresh cucumber & celery. These were both really good, but I would have preferred the guac to be a bit spicier. Next, we were served shrimp with pico de gallo, which I really enjoyed. At this point we also tried the traditional margarita, which was okay but not nearly as good as the house one. Then came my absolute favorite, Baja style fish tacos served with spicy mayo, red cabbage & carrot, and they were exactly as delicious as I expected. The last savory dish was not really to my taste. It was beef cheek tacos, topped with spring onions and purple radish and as I’m not a big fan of red meat, these just didn’t work for me, but hubby found them good. Dessert was a coconut parfait with passion fruit puree, which was a great end to a good meal. We had also ordered a second round of House margaritas but were served the traditional margaritas instead. When we told the server, he offered us the traditional ones on the house and brought the house ones as well, so we ended up drinking four margaritas each. This resulted in a tipsy walk back to the hotel.

The hotel had made special arrangements for breakfast due to the restrictions. They could only let 60 people have breakfast at a time, so they handed out one-hour breakfast slots when you checked in. The only slot available when we checked in was the 7:30 to 8:30 one, which was too early for us. The receptionist suggested we could go collect the breakfast and eat in our room, so we opted for this choice and the receptions booked a pick-up slot for us at 9:30 to 10:30. So, at around 9:45 on Sunday morning we headed to the breakfast room to pick up breakfast. All food was premade and packed, so it was super-easy to pick up and we were provided with thermoses for coffee and tea. I almost preferred this way of having breakfast privately in our own room.

All in all, we had a really nice anniversary, and it was great to get out of the house for a night and finally be able to eat out again.