Comparison between Club Med Bali, Bintan Island and Cherating (Part III) - Food and Restaurant

One of the beauty of staying in Club Med besides the various activities that will constantly keeps you occupied is their all inclusive package where all your meals and beverage are taken care of. By that, I mean you literally do not have to spent another dime for the food and the wine, cocktail, beer, mock tail or fresh juices that you consumed.

In comparison, Club Med Bali probably has the best restaurant of the three both in term of space, decoration and food variety. The main restaurant is divided into at least three section, each sizable and with her own theme of decoration. In terms of food variety, we also find that Club Med Bali has the best spread of the three. What impressed was the `Chef Specialty Counter' located right at the entrance of the main restaurant where the chef served up a special dish each night. When we were there, we had different variety for the entire 4 nights stay, and the Village Chief was at hand to serve the customers.

Club Med Bintan has the smallest restaurant of the three. It has only two wings located on the main building on level 2, overlooking the pool. Size was the issue here. Rather, it was the variety of food. We find the variety rather stale and unimaginable. There were no `Chef Specialty' and the entire stay of 5 days when we were there, the breakfast offered were pretty much the same. There were also not much variety with lunch or dinner and some of the dishes served were not that great.

Club Med Cherating has a fairly sizable restaurant with two wings with one overlooking the pool. Although the food here is not as great as the one we found in Bali, there were at least more variety as compared to Bintan. However, the one thing we found unsatisfactory was that the staff were rather strict with the time the restaurant `closes'. They actually switched off the air conditioning once the meal hours are over. We are not the only one sweating. We noticed that the staff were sweating profusely too.

Hence, for food and variety, we would rank Bali as first followed by Cherating and Bintan Island as the least satisfactory. From the restaurant size and design, we would rank Bali again as first followed by Bintan Island and then Cherating.