By T W Coombs (photo credits to @gracecmbs)
At Dreams Resort and Spa in La Romana you have the choice of
seven restaurants and 5 bars with three evening bars. So as you can imagine the
heart and liver are about to take a mild kicking. But if you want to keep
slightly healthier then there is a well equipped gym to burn off the
overindulged night before. We never tried the gym but did look at it once.
We frequented three of the a la carte restaurants on more
than one occasion and due to tastes didn't try the others. I am a fan of Asian
cuisine so I am going to start with Himitsu, we ate here about three times over
the course of the ten night stay and they did the best pork dumplings, light
but filling, along with a great satay chicken.
All the dishes were small and quite light but still filing, plus the
type of noodles differ on the same dish over two visits which kept it
interesting. Next up was the Italian
Portofino, which served great Italian style cuisine and not an American version
they really went all out and the tastes were sensational. From pasta to stuffed chicken breast they had
everything. The first time we tried
Portofino we arrived at ample dining time 7:30 pm and there was a forty-five
minute wait, now at home you go ‘no thanks’ but where are we going, nowhere,
and thankfully this is when we found the comforts of the Veranda bar, our soon
to be best friend Mareta and the Cosmo count started full steam ahead.
We had tried a couple of the various cocktails over a few
days but the Cosmo won above all the rest.
And if anyone gives me a Dirty Vodka Martini ever I will smack them in
the face dramatically and shove the glass somewhere not so magical. It was foul
and I unsure why anyone would ever drink them.
I like an olive but not like that. Anyway.
We both decided the Cosmo was simple, juice based so very
refreshing and had enough alcohol in it to take down even the hardened drinker
(who wouldn't touch it as it is pink).
And the count begun, it became a count as we were sending pictures of
many of them to my other half’s mother who was then determined that her
daughter was becoming an alcoholic by the third day of pictures. When I say count, by the end of the first
full night sitting at the Veranda bar we had already lost count. The problem with counting is you need to be
ordering and making a tally, but this is where Mareta comes in. He made the best cosmos ever, even better
than me, he does do it for a living, and he doesn't wait for you to order, well
us anyway. Before I had finished the
last minor mouthful a new fresh one was in front of me, ready to be
consumed. This become a nightly
occurrence, and didn't include our day time trip to the Rendezvous bar in the
lobby during the day which had nice outdoor seating so you can smoke. This became the perfect spot for some card
and cigar action.
Another Cosmo.
This brings me nicely onto the cigars, there is a shop, well
more of an emporium of cigars in a room that was basically a Humidor due to how
warm it is in there. I bought a couple
on our stay and came home with a box of 10.
They are very nice and have a hint of vanilla which is surprising and
give the whole smoke a nice sweet smell.
The majority were made in the Dominican Republic with a small selection
on Cubans, but if in Rome and all that, I could have gone to Cuba to smoke their
cigars. And by the way the Dominicans
make nice cigars, so try them if you can.
Back to food, the Italian which I mentioned earlier,
remember that? Portofino was the name and the food was great including this
amazing dish of Ravioli stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta in a tomato sauce
which I could have eaten forever. The
final restaurant I want to mention is the Seaside Grill, which is mostly meat,
a good steak, burgers, chicken breasts and all manner of bits to start and
finish but it was something from their lunch menu that blew my mind. It wasn't even something on the menu it was a
free snack starter, banana crisps (chips) with salsa, good god they were
amazing and I will try and make them at some point, but they were outstanding.
Another Cosmo.
The beach is amazing and how you expect a Caribbean beach to
look and feel like, white sands clear water and sun loungers as far as the eye
can see...hang on, what?....yes that is right, photos of couples on the beach
with not much around them is a slight lie, there are a lot of sun loungers,
which is great because you don’t need to get totally covered in sand when
hanging out on the sands. I am not a
beach person and go for one reason only, snorkelling. And with the clear waters it really is a
great place to snorkel plus there is a small reef just off the beach so there
are plenty of fish of all sorts, starfish and plant life all within the roped
swimming zone. Outside of the roped area
you are on your own as water sports and canoes are about so do watch out. But if you are like me you will nearly drown
whilst following a huge gorgeous looking fish and colliding your snorkel with
the rope and sucking in part of the Caribbean Sea. Then realising I am not that good and
treading water, who knew, certainly not me.
The beach has waitress service, from aptly named beach
butlers as do the swimming pools. We
stayed mostly around the main pool as the biggest and the loungers are not as
close to each other and in view of a nice bar and the pizzeria.
Another Cosmo.
In all the holiday was what we wanted, the true luxury
relax, we even had a massage at the spa, I won’t go into details but I am not
wearing little cotton stretchy pants again, at my normal spa, oh yes I have one,
I get to just wear my boxers. Bloody stretchy tight pant things are not a good
thing when trying to relax. The massage
was nice though and un-knotted my shoulders.
If you get a chance to go here I would recommend it, but be
careful of Mareta and his Cosmo making skills, I think my head still hurts and
was nearly a month since I have been back.
Oh go on then....another Cosmo.
Ps. The weather was nice in March, even though a bit cloudy, but we did have one day where the heavens opened for a few hours, but was still fun...as you can see.
