This week there will be a bit of light blogging from yours truly since it’s one of those wonderfully weird weeks where multiple national bank holidays happen throughout the week, almost one after the other and for different reasons, so there is a great chance I will be spending most of the time offline rather than online. Perhaps, for those odd moments when I’m back online it may well be also the perfect opportunity for me to continue with the series of blog posts around ‘Gran Canaria – A Mini-Continent to Rediscover’ that I mentioned recently I would be writing about every weekend from then onwards. Well, this week already feels a little bit like a massively long weekend with this so-called ‘macro-puente’, so to get things going I will go ahead with the first recommendation of places to eat and dine in Gran Canaria and I will go for one of my favourite restaurants in the island that if I were to describe it with a short sentence it would be just this one: ‘A Treat to All Senses’.
Welcome to Samsara! That incredibly amazing place that, once you try it out, it will trap you for good with plenty of unforgettable and intoxicating memories, enticing you to keep coming back over and over again!
It’s one of those places where you would need to book a table well in advance, because it gets really busy pretty quick. Once you are sorted out with the booking, what you would want to do is arrive way early, so you have a good opportunity to enjoy one of the most amazing long walks around the Maspalomas Lagoon that will definitely help out open up your appetite. And now you would be ready to enjoy an amazing experience.
While going up the stairs you can already sense you are off to experience something pretty unique on its own. The atmosphere is very different to whatever you would find in the rest of the island. Something I could pretty well define as exotic, maybe even a tad mystical. Both the exquisite lounge area as well as the capacious restaurant are decorated in an oriental style that, at times, can be pretty overwhelming, but that, once you let your sense adjust accordingly, it’s as if you have just been taken into a completely different world even before you sit down.
If it is the first time you go there, understand the world may have just slowed down a fair bit for you, because the owner (usually) will take his time to explain how the restaurant works. Pay attention, because that’s where it gets pretty interesting. Samsara’s mantra is that one of sharing the food with the people going along with you. The portions are usually rather large, sufficing a single dish for two people and rather generously, as you can see from the pictures I have shared in this blog post. So asking for a starter, the main course and the dessert for two people would be a rather good option on its own and, believe me, you would have plenty of amazing food on the table. Be prepared to be wowed and multiple times!
To describe the food experience would be a bit preposterous from my side, as I would probably spoil it all for you, so I won’t. But I will probably add Samsara is a rather special fusion place of the West with the Far East, and getting it just right, meaning the wonderful and rather delicate mixture of western ingredients with oriental flavours, cooked with both pause and tender, loving care, becomes, on its own, a work of art you are just about to enjoy and be mind-blown altogether.
That’s where all of your senses will go through a massive wake up call almost instantly: the intoxicating smells, the gorgeous colours, the flavours, oh, my goodness!, the scrumptious flavours, the chill-out rather suggestive background music, the always attentive service making you all feel rather welcome at their home. Whoahhh! Did I say already how wonderfully overwhelming it can get? Well, it gets better. The desserts!
You may have noticed how throughout this post I have shared three different snap shots of various dishes I have tried a few times already, but you would also notice how I haven’t shared any picture about the desserts. Such a teaser, right? Well, that’s the best part of entire evening meal. Believe me, I am not exaggerating a single bit when I share over here the desserts are just out of this world AND back! Their presentation alone (As creative as you can possibly get!) would just make you take a picture and forget completely about enjoying the rather suggestive mix of both western and eastern flavours. If you ought to be left with a first good impression about the whole experience I can tell you now it will be the desserts. So make space for them! You will need it. You will thank me later, too! 😋👍🏻
Now I can imagine at this point in time you may be wondering about how expensive the restaurant is, right?, specially, after all of what I have mentioned above. Well, for what you get, it isn’t. It’s very good value for money. Not too expensive, not too cheap, just perfect. So much so you will realise, upon paying the bill, you will already start thinking about when you would be coming back again and at that point that’s when it will hit you: it’s not yourself who would want to come back to Samsara, but all of your senses, because they just had such a dumbfounding experience they would want to repeat it again. I can’t blame them. It’s a real treat for all of them. I know.
I, too, can’t wait to come back! Fancy joining me next time around? 🙌🏻
