Dining with Hatmehit – The Fish Goddess
Dinner at an all-inclusive hotel often conjures up images of self-service buffet dining at the hotel’s main restaurant. It’s not often that you imagine a choice of restaurants and cuisine, a romantic setting, super table service and delicious freshly cooked food to order. Well think again, because the Rixos hotel in Nabq has moved the goal posts in the all-inclusive dining experience.
I was invited to dine at the Hatmehit Seafood a la carte restaurant. Hatmehit is the Egyptian Goddess of fish, so it is no wonder that freshly grilled fish is their speciality and as it is one of my favourite foods it was already a match made in heaven. The Rixos Hotel is a grand affair; it exudes luxury and with no less than 11 swimming pools and over 600 rooms you know that it is a cut above the ordinary.
The Hatmehit is situated on the beach front, so our host organised a club car to take us to our destination. This gave us the chance to have a little tour of the grounds and pass by the other restaurants which impressively include; Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, India and Turkish all of which were quite busy.
On arrival at the restaurant we were greeted by the Restaurant Manager and quickly showed to our table by the sailor suited waiter. The restaurant has inside and outside seating areas and is directly on the promenade next to the beach, which gives a romantic ambiance. As the Hatmehit serves seafood the décor is set around a seaside/boating theme. There are striped pine floors and light wooden tables and chairs dressed in blue and white stripes. The table was decorated with a navy tablecloth and crisp white napkins.
Our waiter offered us a wine list which had a range of local and international wines and also gave us the menu. The formula is a choice of starter salads, a choice of soups and desserts. For the main dish you are invited to the chilled display cabinet to choose your own fish. To whet our appetite we were served a very impressive bread basket/arrangement and several small bowls of different salads including a delicious octopus salad.
We then both chose the seafood salad and seafood soup, but if that is slightly over doing the fish theme then there are alternatives. The salad had pieces of tender calamari, small shrimps and flaked salmon and was a nice fresh start to the meal. Our waiter Ahmed recommended the creamy seafood soup. It was very delicate and not too heavy with succulent morsels of fish.
After a reasonable wait (it is so nice not to be rushed) we were invited to peruse ‘the catch of the day’. The Fish-monger was very knowledgeable and explained what each fish was and how it could be cooked. My partner is a bit fish-bone wary, so he was recommended a grilled fillet of Sea Bass. I chose a whole grilled Sea Bream and just to be decadent a couple of fried Barboni.
Our choice of fish was whisked away to the Chef, whilst we were re-seated at our table. The waiter topped up our glasses with wine and let us relax and listen to the light Turkish music playing in the background. A few moments later we were served our perfectly cooked fish with a side serving of rice.
The evening was very pleasant and nothing reminiscent of previous all-inclusive experiences. The service was top notch and worthy of a five start restaurant, the ambiance was friendly and charming, and the food was deliciously fresh and tasty.
The Rixos has a number of deals for outside guests who wish to dine at the hotel restaurants. You do need to book which allows you to enter the hotel without problems, as your reservation will be at the reception.
Tags:Rixos
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