Borneo 2 - Gayana Eco Resort

Gayana Eco Resort
http://www.gayana-eco-resort.com

This post will almost sound like an advertisement for Gayana Eco Resort because it's all about the food we ate there, but I assure you I'm not being paid to write any of this. To be fair, I was there for 2 nights and it is an island so I was limited in my food options. We could hardly kayak off to the mainland for a meal (although we would have tried if we were allowed to, and would have probably died in the attempt).

I'll start with talking a bit about the resort. What attracted us to Gayana was the fact that for accommodation, they have cute individual huts set right out into the ocean. We saw some amazing photos online and had high expectations and weren't let down at all. Ours was a Bayu (ocean-facing) villa and literally got a back deck that lead into the waters. Luckily, when we were staying there, the weather was fine and dandy so it was a perfect stay.

The island resort has a couple of restaurants on site. There's the Alu Alu Chinese Seafood restaurant, the Macac Restaurant for some Western food options, and the Latitude lounge for drinks and snacks.

Breakfast incoming!

Furthermore, we had breakfast delivered by boat in the mornings, which was just amazing and totally more enjoyable than just a novelty.

 Coconut bread, savory big breakfast, toast, fresh fruit, fruit juice and coffee

On the first morning, we had servings of coconut bread (with coconut butter and berry compote), a savory big breakfast, toast and preserves, fresh juice and a huge plate of fresh fruit. We demolished everything - it was all so good!

Fresh fruit

The fresh fruit comprised of pineapple, melon and dragonfruit. One thing I'll remember about Borneo is that the pineapples were outstanding. Most places we went to had them offered as part of the fruit selections and they were just sweet and juicy and delicious.

Sweet and savory pancakes with fresh fruit, juice and coffee

Our second breakfast was sweet and savory pancakes and again, a serving of fruit and fresh fruit juice. This time, there was watermelon replacing the dragonfruit.

My photos from Macac Restaurant are dark and hazy. The food was on the pricier side (to be expected for a resort restaurant) compared to everything else we'd been eating, but still cheaper than most Australian restaurants. We had a mix of Asian and Western dishes and they turned out quite well.

Garlic butter lobster

Our fanciest meal on the island (and probably in all of Borneo) was our feast at Alu Alu. We had a huge meal complete with a fresh lobster!

Close-up of lobster

Poor pinchy was hoisted up out of the water by his antennae and served up with a huge slathering of garlic butter. DELCIOUS. I've often thought of lobster as overhyped but this one was fat, sweet and succulent.

 XO sauce scallops

We had other dishes too including fried rice, a soup, veggies and some scallops. I've posted the scallops up because they were the other standout dish of the meal. The XO sauce was very rich and the scallops were cooked to perfection.

Sundown cocktails

A lot of our time was spent just chillin' on the back deck. At 6pm, it was happy hour time at the Latitude Bar and we'd head there for our complimentary 'sun down' cocktail. It was very relaxing sipping our drinks and looking out onto the water.

In the days to come after we left the resort, we had some tough times on our tour (climbing mountains and jungle trekking) and I frequently found myself fondly reminiscing over our island villa.