stressed in the city: Late Lunch at Salamandas Restaurant

It was already almost 5:00 PM when we arrived at Coco Grove Beach Resort from the Butterfly Garden. We were so tired already and very hungry as we did not have lunch yet and so I was grateful that checking-in was such a breeze and this is perhaps because we have already paid for our room the night before when we dined in the resort's Sunset Restaurant.

After quickly freshening up, we headed for a very late lunch to the other restaurant of Coco Grove, which is Salamandas.

It was almost 5:30 PM and so seeing the restaurant's operating hours of 6:00 to 9:00 PM on its signage made me worry about not being able to eat lunch at at all.

Thankfully, the food attendant said she could already take our orders as the chef was already in. Yey!

While waiting for my food to be served, I busied myself so I wouldn't have to mind my growling stomach by walking around the resort and taking photos. I will not include the said photos in this post though as I want to detail them in my review of the resort.

When I finally sat down as our orders were gradually being served, I took this photo of how the restaurant looked like and the fact that it's empty except for us for its diners should tell you just how late we were for lunch and very very early for dinner.

First to be served was my welcome drinks.

I'm not really a fan of iced tea but this was the worst iced tea I ever had. Coming from a restaurant, that is, as it tasted like the commercial Lipton tea in sachets that one can buy in groceries. They just squeezed in calamansi, which only made it sour and then presented it with flair that it looked good in the photo.

As I was unhappy with my welcome drinks, I waited with great anticipation for my banana shake.

But it too disappointed me as like my milk shake from last night's dinner, it also did not taste sweet enough. I even felt as if the banana were not fully ripe as it tasted mapakla.

For my main course, I had Pork Rollitini that its menu described as pork tenderloin rolled in bacon, served with home-fried potato and glazed vegetables.

But the pork was not tender at all. I also could not even taste the bacon as it was too thin a strip. As for the glazed vegetables, I was left wondering about what they meant by glazed as the vegetables were simply buttered.

Flambeed Bananas and Maple Nut Parfait was my dessert. It is a parfait of maple syrup, pistachio nuts and white chocolate served with flambeed bananas and homemade chocolate sauce.

It was served like the above photo but looked more interesting once they poured the alcohol.

The Parfait was really quite a treat but the bananas were floating in too much alcohol that it tasted bitter.

After having my fill, Yen and I were convinced of Coco Grove having expensive but bland food. Good thing the service for today's meal was not slow like last night's.

Before leaving, I took this photo of the restaurant's interior.