Santa Maria, Food

There is an Italian restaurant called Gelato & Co. Their chefs are CV locals, their food is great, their customer service is poor  ( most of the girls look miserable) and their ice cream is very yummy! Best food on the island. Woo hay! Oh yes the lobster salad was 1400 escudos and consisted of a quarter of a snooker ball of lobster and tons of lettuce and tomato etc. Shame on you!!

Ok, the female staff in this restaurant are so rude and I mean RUDE. I cannot explain the poor level of service here, it was unbelievable.
However the chefs in the kitchen were lovely, quite smiley, happy and polite.

Now, fair is fair and I can safely say that the lasagne in Gelato and Co, was the best lasagne I have ever had in my life (how's that possible??) And I have to admit, that the lasagne was for me, the second best thing about the Cape Verde islands, hands down. I am not a 'huge' girl, I am a normal size but this just goes to show you how uneventful Cape Verde was….it was so bad that the lasagne was the highlight of my trip…well apart from the BREATHTAKING BEAUTY  of Santo Antao but that's another story

The lobster salad at G&C on the other hand was a bit of a joke. There were around 4 or 5 little lumps of lobster and the rest was lettuce onion etc …..I was not happy!

I can highly recommend the wine CHA, very lovely and all together the three make a delicious meal.

The food at the restaurant below was ok, I asked for rice and as they did not have any, they simply put chips on my plate to accompany my fish without asking. And I don't mean french fries or real potato wedges or even mash either, I mean packet of crisp, crisps! Cheek.

The flies were having a field day, buzzing around the plate but hey, it's Africa and flies are hungry.

The Cafe Criolo is a locally run cafe and although cheaper the food was ok and a bit blaaahh, and  again nothing to write home about. I felt like I was on the trading floor, frantically vying for the waitresses attention and finally she came over and breathed a barely audible 'bon tard'

I was really looking forward to eating some good ol CV yum yum,  but I can honestly say, not meaning to be or sound horrible or ungrateful, I was not impressed.

One morning I went into the nicer part of Santa Maria square for a cup of coffee. I entered an Italian coffee shop or a coffee shop run by Italian people and asked for a cup of coffee to go. After a lot of fuss in a language I could not understand, the lady managed to tell me in English that she had no take away cups to put the coffee in. So she turned around, picked out a dirty bottle from a basin full of empty bottles (as you do) gave it a quick rinse in tap water (not drinkable btw) and leaving a little tap water at the bottom of the bottle poured my coffee (complete with lots of burnt floating coffee residue in it) in to this bottle…and thought nothing of it.

I gave her a (you can't be serious look), but smiled a 'thank you', paid for it and walked out.

From there I went  into the local supermarket, purchased some instant coffee and made my own cup to drink ahhh…that's better!

There is a little local place in Sal called Sylvia's local restaurant. Try the grilled chicken for 600 escudos. Sylvia's is next door to what used to be massage shop.