Coral Blue: Just Swimming By.

Happy Monday guys!

Does such a thing exist? Well it should actually because why programme our minds to think Mondays are bad or annoying. In that vein, we're going to be talking about one of my favourite things today! FOOD!

Chai, there's nothing that puts a smile on my face faster than food! So this past weekend I tried somewhere new in Lagos, something I haven't actually done for a while even though I have a long list of places to go. But as I've said before, this corpers salary stays holding me back. So on Saturday I went to "Coral Blue" to have a late lunch and was really looking forward to it because it's a seafood restaurant and I love seafood! I'm also tired of going to Ocean Basket (which I would review soon) and so I went with high hopes and expectations.

Coral Blue is located in V.I. at No. 1 Adeyemo Alakija and actually shares its building with another restaurant called Kilimanjaro. The decor is all white and blue to keep in line with the sea theme and it's quite tastefully done.

I especially liked this fishy gentleman that signified the gent's room. The lady fish was just not very cool to be honest but we'd let that slide.

Am I the only one that think he looks Mexican?? Just swimming on by... Haha.

Attention to detail even on the staircase. 

Deola my foodie friend, (remember her from Yellow Chilli?) and I waited for Nkem to arrive but in the mean time busied ourselves taking selfies and being silly, as you do.

 

Once Nkem arrived, we perused the menu and placed our orders, and the waiter brought us some complimentary and very yummy warm bread rolls to keep us happy while we waited.

We waited and caught up with each other, had a good chin wag about the movie "Interstellar" which Deola and I had just seen earlier that day and generally gisted. I was slightly disappointed when my drink came though as the waiter had mixed it up. Deola and I had both ordered Mojitos while Nkem had an Ocean Breeze.

 

When our drinks came the waiter announced that he had one Mojito, one Mokito and the Ocean Breeze. The Mokito is the non alcoholic version of your standard Mojito and he was sure that it was what I had ordered. I immediately recognized my error, you see, when I was ordering I asked for a Mojito, pronounced Mo-hi-toe the way it should be. HOWEVER, most waiters in Lagos pronounce things as they are spelt and so I should have asked for a Mo-GEE-to! The funny thing is my friends and I are always going on about this but it just never occured to me that I should try to blend to their ways. Luckily he was nice enough to take my drink back and make it alcoholic without too much complaining and I trust he didn't spit in it after... I hope.

Not too long after the drinks came and just when we were really starting to get hungry, the mains arrived. Nkem and I had the Sea Shore Paella which is a rice dish with mussels, prawns, crab and calamari. My mouth was watering when I read the description and as difficult as it was for me to make up my mind, I chose it because it had the most variety. Deola had the Ribs and Calamari with a side of fries.

When my food came, I was impressed at the presentation but extremely disappointed at the first bite. Paella is traditionally a very rich, tasty dish but this was more of a very bland fried rice. The rice barely tasted of anything and was visibly coated in a sheen of oil. Ugh. Nkem ended up putting a huge dollop of pepper sauce in her food just to give it some kick and I went for ranch sauce that came with Deola's food. The helping was very big though and I couldn't finish the rice so I just picked out all the yummy calamari instead :D

Overall though, I was underwhelmed and I hate being underwhelmed. 

You can really see the oil on this.

Deola described her ribs and calamari as nice and not much more but from the empty plate at the end of the meal, I think she enjoyed it more than I did mine! My bill for my meal was N5250 which is slightly pricey for just one course but with the amount of sea food I had, isn't that bad. All in all I would go back to Coral Blue again to try something else on the menu, just because I really want to like it and so I'd give them another chance.

In summary though...

Food- 4

Service- 6

Ambience- 8

Overall- 6

Deuces guys, have a great day and an even better week!