Our third night at the Hard Rock Hotel we decided to make reservations at this Spanish style steakhouse, Ipanema Grill. First, the restaurant is beautiful. There is a lot to take in while you dine. We were fortunate enough to have a table with an ocean view. Once we were seated the wait person promptly brought us iced water and a basket filled with an assortment of warm baked breads accompanied with decadent homemade butter (seconds were required).
The menu is set-up in sections: Starters, Soups, Main Course, Side Order, Sauces, Desserts and then Wine. The servings are small so we tried to ordered a bit from each, think prix fixe menu.
We started with the shrimp cocktail and the tuna tartare. The beautiful jumbo shrimp out shined the tuna. We had a caesar salad and a seasonal salad, not on the menu. Note, only order the caesar if you love anchovies. It's made with fresh anchovies and is very strong in flavor. Next, we both ordered the roasted tomato cream soup. Shockingly good. By far the best thing we had the entire stay at the HRH. We ordered the salmon and the fillet as our main courses. Both were amazing. We specified how we wanted each cooked. They came with the choice of sides. We had creamed spinach (it sounds so nasty); however, it was really quite tasty. It reminded me of spinach artichoke dip. We also had the baked potato. The baked potatoes in Mexico are very small, but pack in a lot of flavor. They aren't the plain spuds we have in the US. Lastly, for dessert we had the traditional carrot cake and the brownie with ice cream. I highly recommend trying this restaurant while in Quintana Roo. It was quite delicious.
P.S. We were just here. COVID is prolific. The hotel's staff did an amazing job of taking care of their guest and providing social distancing. read more