Food
Diving in Lembeh - What You Will See
Food in Lembeh Straits
Your package with Nomad Adventure Divers includes all meals. The food here is good, wholesome, home-cooked fare with a very nice mixture of dishes, making you feel as if you're staying at your best friend's family home where all the grandmothers, mothers and aunts are on a mission to feed you.
Meals are served buffet-style in the common dining/lounge area. This is a nice breezy area at the front of the resort with a view of the sea.
The resort tries to ensure that all guests sit together at the same table, and where possible, Sandra and Josef host every meal. This makes for very enjoyable dining, because the company is always lively, friendly and everyone is friends with everyone else (because this is not a place where lady guests dress in heels and have "I will complain" written on their forehead!). You'll spend hours chatting and laughing at the dinner table, and sometimes it'll be 11pm before you realise it.
Menu
For breakfast, there was always eggs, Asian-style fried noodles or rice, and bread (which you can toast) with an assortment of spreads including butter, strawberry jam, marmalade, peanut butter and sometimes chocolate/hazelnut spread.
As for lunch or dinner, the menu changed every day and there were a handful of dishes for each meal, so there's no way I can list out all the dishes we ate. I can only give you a very rough summary and assure you that Asian and Western guests alike would enjoy the food. You really have to go there and eat to understand what I mean.
At the buffet table there were dishes like salad, rice, pasta, noodles, soup, chicken or fish cooked in different ways like stew or stir-fried, and one or two vegetable dishes. For dessert, there was always fruit like bananas, pineapple, papaya, jambu, and mangosteen; and occasionally, there were fried banana fritters and agar-agar.
On the table, there is one jug of iced water with a dash of fresh lime; one jug of orange juice; and sometimes deep-fried tapioca chips (my favourite was sugared while my husband preferred the salted). There are also the usual condiments like salt, soya sauce, Maggi seasoning and about 3 types of chilli sauce. And copious amounts of two-ply hand tissue.
Free flow (Nomad Adventure Divers)
The "free flow table"
Your package with SDQ resort includes all meals. The food here is very tasty. It's good, wholesome, home-cooked fare. Portions are just enough so that you're adequately nourished for diving without feeling bloated or sinking like lead. If you're used to American-sized portions though, you might want to bring along your own additional snacks.
Meals are served in the common dining/lounge area. It's a nice breezy area where you can sit and update your dive logs, browse through the very useful marine-life books they have there, or play with the two resident dogs Pino and BeeGee. You're encouraged to leave your slippers at the entrance to minimise the amount of sand that goes in.
During mealtimes, it's generally free-seating, but you basically take the cue from wherever the staff lays out the food. Pino also likes to sit under your chair or table while you eat, so be careful where you place your feet, and when you push out your chair to get up.
For breakfast and items like soup, sandwiches and french fries, the cookhouse dishes out individual portions for every guest. So, for example, you sit down for breakfast, and in front of you is your portion of breakfast served on a plate. Everything else like the rice, dishes and dessert, will be on a serving dish at your table all at once, and you help yourself. You can finish all the food at your table, because the guests sitting elsewhere will be served their portions at their table.
You help yourself to the cutlery, soya sauce (dark, light and kicap manis), ketchup, chilli sauce and serviettes, most of which are on each table.
All the food is thoughtfully covered with clingwrap until you're ready to eat it.
If you're not at the dining area by the time the food is served (and sometimes you won't because of Indonesia's rubber-band time), one of the resort staff will knock on your door to tell you it's chow-time.
Food is only available at mealtimes. Breakfast is served around 7.30am, lunch almost immediately after you come back from your morning dive, and dinner depending on whether you do a night dive or mandarin (evening) dive. The timing of your meals varies, and depends on your dives and the number of guests in the resort.
MenuThe menu changes every day so you're rarely served the same thing twice unless you're a long-stayer. Here's a sample of what we ate during our 5-night stay:
Free flow (SDQ):
SDQ's Dining Pavilion
SDQ's Christmas Tree started my personal hobby of looking out for Christmas Trees at dive resorts
Look out for Pino under your chair!
Breakfast (omelette)
Lunch (club sandwich, fries and salad)
Dinner (rice, chicken, soup, fruit and smoothie)
