PF 2023 (7/10) – Bora Bora: Food at the Resort

Dining at Conrad Bora Bora Nui was a tale of two meals… breakfast, and non-breakfast. I’ll start with the latter.

Lunch or Dinner

Although we came mentally prepared for the high price tags, it was still difficult to order $30 California rolls or $49 cheeseburgers with a straight face. It didn’t matter that there was a bottomless water cooler at the gym or many bottles of water in our room, wanting something to drink with our meal meant paying for a fancy glass bottle imported from France. We may have previously felt good about both being high income earners, but this resort put us in our place. Thus one meal per day was about right – lunch or dinner. It was hard to stomach both!

Doubly unfortunately, the food wasn’t great. Not that anything was bad, but if found in a big city, most of the food would earn probably just 3 stars on Yelp. The tastiest thing was apparently from the kid’s menu, which only Ting ordered from.

We unanimously agreed that this plain spaghetti was among the most delicious things the resort served

The Restaurants

Of course, nobody accused Bora Bora for being a foodie destination. The food might be meh, but the restaurants were all super cool. There were four at this resort. We tried them all except the Cantonese restaurant named Banyan Tree.

Upa Upa Lounge & Sushi Bar

Located at the main dock connected to the island by a 300-foot jetty, this place doubled as the reception area for guests entering and exiting the resort. There was live music in the evening here, though it came with a powerful enough set of speakers for all restaurants to hear. The glass floor was the main attraction, through which wild sea creatures provided endless entertainment.

We had to wait a while and ask to switch tables, but being on this glass floor was priceless

Lights illuminated the water below the main deck and allowed us to watch a screensaver-like fish entertainment

Eating raw fish above live fish was an ironic sense of humor a lot of people had in common. We loved it. The sushi, though, was about the quality that you can get at an AYCE sushi and beer restaurant

A black tip shark joined our dinner party!

Temure Grill

This pool-side restaurant would have been an ordinary grill, except for the few circular pods of seating dug into the ground and surrounded by a shallow pool of water. Crossing a bridge and following a stone path to get to a table was a unique experience, and we had views of the pool and swim-up bar right at our eye level.

This grill was hidden behind a bridge over this tranquil lily pond

Having an excuse to walk on this stone path was 50% of the reason we wanted to eat here. Having the view of the swim-up bar was not bad, either

Waiting for our food under a big umbrella while silly people got sunburned in the background

Obligatory her-and-his cocktail photo in a tropical paradise

Iriatai French Restaurant

The balcony side of the central building served breakfast in the morning and became a French restaurant after 6pm. With rectangular tables and proper chairs, this was the least unique of the bunch. However, it offered a breathtaking view of the resort.

We got to dinner 5 minutes before the restaurant opened and had our pick of table

This mahi mahi was really dry. The potatoes were alright

Breakfast Buffet

The difference between dinner and breakfast here was, um how do I put it, night and day.

Conrad was our resort of choice in Bora Bora in part because we had Hilton Diamond status, which gave us free breakfast. Not having to pay extra for food is nice anywhere, but an extra big deal at a remote location where a few bills could demand taking out a second mortgage. Hong had warned the kids for weeks leading up to the trip that we would only have one meal per day – half joking, of course, but it had Xuan concerned.

In big contrast to lunch and dinner experiences, the breakfast buffet was excellent. It being free and unlimited certainly put us in a more relaxed mood, but the food was of superior quality, too. Hong’s favorite was the made-to-order crepe station. The poisson cru (a Polynesian dish of raw fish with coconut milk) went for $35 per appetizer portion at dinner, but was endlessly available every morning. It was yummier than poke in my opinion, and was our primary source of protein at these breakfasts.

This cute cart was the crepe station, which Hong visited every morning

To me, the most important thing any breakfast buffet can have is fresh fruit

The most incredible part of Conrad Bora Bora Nui’s breakfast buffet, though, was the pastry table. I never considered myself a pastry person, and didn’t care for them much while in Paris. However, I couldn’t resist the croissants and breads and cookies here. This French culinary art was mastered to a perfection at this buffet, which offered a decadent variety every morning. Pretty sure I had amassed my daily caloric needs on a single plate over and over again.

A balanced breakfast with enough calories for 3 people! That exotic red velvet croissant with creme filling was my first bite into the amazing pastries of Bora Bora. And the “hazelnut flower” behind the fruit salad was like a Ferrero Rocher for billionaires

This exotic croissant in my hand looked like a poisonous toad. Not sure why it was black, but the yellow stuff was passion fruit and it was delicious!

The reason for my next terrible A1c reading

We were just here to fill our tummies; the view was just icing on the cake

I wondered about the “retail” price tag of the breakfast buffet for those who did not have Hilton status. Whatever it was, a guest here could have saved a ton by obtaining such status through one of the several Hilton credit cards. The annual fee on even the highest-tier card would pale in comparison to a few days’ worth of food here. Of course, not everyone read travel hacking blogs, and non-Americans tend not to have access to such shortcuts. Judging by the color of people’s room key bracelets (indicating preferred spoken language and Hilton status), we knew that many had to pay for their food. How much then? When extrapolating from the a la carte lunch/dinner prices, I would’ve assumed that breakfast was over $100 per person. But no… apparently it was only $50! Still not cheap, of course, but we’ve seen hotels in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi charge similar amounts and serving inferior food. That means it was possible for something to be cheaper in Bora Bora than in big cities around the world? If true, perhaps the markup on other meals was more ridiculous than it initially appeared.

PF 2023