Thursday was a day of rest, as anticipated. A couple of times I thought about heading out for a walk, but due to extremely sore thigh and calf muscles I actually couldn’t really move. It was a site for sore eyes can I tell you!
Throughout the morning I managed to hobble to the day bed for reading and sleeping, and did get in the pool a few times. By early afternoon I had convinced myself that a massage would be helpful so I hopped on the scooter and headed to a place touted as the ‘best massage in Bali’. It was pretty good, but more medicinal then relaxing so I’m not sure if I was sorer before or after.
Dave is a bit sore too (oh yeah, he walked all those steps too, but with much less complaining then me 😉 ), but he decided while I was out to go on a bit of a walk. Without a phone or map, or a sense of direction, he did manage to get himself slightly lost. When a shoe fell apart, he had no option but to buy another pair (the footpath is way too hot to walk barefooted). Unfortunately he only took 120,000 rupiah with him (about A$12). The first 10,000 went on a taxi back to the middle of Seminyak, as he wasn’t sure how far he’d walked. He then only had 110,000 to spend on shoes. Dave is not normally much of a shopper, but he managed to talk the shop keeper into selling him some Nike slides (he had no idea they were trendy) for 110,000 rupiah, which was pretty cheap considering they were marked as 350,000. (A$35). I’m going to send him out for a pair for Will shortly 😉 .
By mid-afternoon we were a bit hungry (what is the definition of hungry? Perhaps in my case anything less than full), so headed back to Biku where we had high tea on Tuesday. This time Dave had scones and tea, while I had a Nasi Campur, a traditional Balinese dish of rice, chilli chicken, beef rendang, boiled egg and vegetables. All topped with a spicy sambal. Yum! 8/10.
A little rest was needed when we got back to the villa (are you feeling sorry for me yet?) so that we had the energy to walk to our dinner booking at Settimo Cielo, a small upmarket Italian Restaurant only 400m metres from where we are staying.
First impressions were excellent – amazingly beautiful décor, great lighting and super polite and professional wait staff. Must have been trained by TAFE NSW 😉 . The menu read well, giving me extra confidence we were in good hands. I do appreciate a menu with good spelling and grammar, well set out, appropriate to the theme and nicely presented. Must have been those years of teaching menu design!
The food lived up to expectations, but didn’t exceed them. That’s the problem with high expectations, they are hard to top!
We started by sharing some fried zucchini flowers, stuffed with ricotta and served with a tomato and olive pesto. The batter was crisp, but a little too crisp for my liking… 10 seconds less in the fryer and they would have been spot-on.
For main course Dave had a grilled snapper fillet with a lemon, caper and anchovy crust which was perfectly cooked, but maybe just a touch too salty with the garnishes. I had a delicious and perfectly cooked black squid risotto. I am known as a risotto Nazi and this was a pretty good version in my books. Creamy and wet, flavoursome, just the right amount of parmesan, served nice and hot. The side of green beans with prosciutto broke up the richness of the dish. I ate every skerrick!
After having a late lunch/afternoon tea there was no way even Dave could fit in dessert, despite the fabulous looking dessert menu in pic above, so we walked (hobbled!) back to the villa for a late night swim. Another great day in paradise!