We ventured down to Pafos harbour and chose the Poseidonas restaurant as it had a good panoramic view of the harbour and castle and was just perfect for people watching. The table touts were out in force encouraging you to eat in their restaurant. This one looked fine with comfortable padded armchairs and a crisp white cloth angled over a blue gingham one. Green canopies extended the eating area over the pavement and fresh fish were displayed in the chiller at the restaurants' entrance. The place was busy and we also assume that this is a positive sign for the quality of the food served. The business card (probably the "flashest" we'd seen) bragged "the best seaview in Cyprus", but made no reference to the food. With hindsight this is interesting!
We sat ourselves at the side of the busy thoroughfare on a Saturday night and pondered the menu. If you sit downstairs, they give you a free carafe of local red wine – upstairs was full so it really was elementary that we should take them up on the offer. It’s only a couple of glasses worth and will help remove unwanted plaque from your teeth! A pint or two of Keo (at £1.30 a pint) helped remove the taste of the complimentary wine!
Our starter, avocado prawns, was adequate. The avocado was superb but short on prawns, and the accompanying salad can only be described as an apology. The accompanying sliced bread was seriously "lacking in body" and would have been better smothered in jam to give it some taste!
Our choice of main course was grilled swordfish. This as you probably know is a "seriously fine textured meat" and the portion filled the plate. However, I’ve tasted much better – this was bland and uninteresting and the accompanying vegetable was "fresh out of the freezer". The only positive was that the portion was generous and it sated my appetite. My wife had opted for the filleted Sea Bream, one of her favourite fish, and was most disappointed with both the potion and the fact that many of the bones had been left in the fish. Comment was made to the waiter, who shrugged indifferently and remarked that it was a fish! At the time my wife commented on the taste of the fish, nothing she could be sure about but… The next day she knew exactly what that taste was – the fish was evidently off and her body was letting her know. Need I say more!!
At the end of the meal we were provided with complimentary drinks but this could not persuade us that this was anything other than an incredibly disappointing meal. It’s interesting to note that an acquaintance who was also holidaying in Cyprus that same fortnight, ate at this same restaurant and had the same problems with food quality. She too was ill! Not a place I’d recommend – shame really because the setting was fine.