Wanderlust Azores- Hotel do Caracol’s Breaded Octopus on Coriander Risotto

I finally made it to another restaurant! At Hotel do Caracol, they serve regional food with an eye catering to the international tourists. You find a lot of beef on the menu and the waiter strongly recommended the steaks. I went against his recommendation and ordered the octopus.Breaded Octopus with Coriander Risotto. Ok, there. You cannot blame me for trying. Where have you seen breaded octopus on risotto before? NO WHERE. Yet, there was a good reason why you have not seen it before because it is just wrong. Breaded octopus kills all the flavor octopus brings and degrades the octopus to just a protein, any protein. The risotto was decent but made with way too much oil. In general, this was a very poorly conceived dish. It’s a mistake that is made by a novice chef who tries to do new combinations that just don’t work together. Spaghetti with Meatballs. My little photographer’s favorite meal is spaghetti with meatballs but she was so thoroughly disappointed that she could not finish the pasta. The pasta was way over-cooked; they were stuck together because no efforts were made to separately them; they were also randomly cut up into smaller pieces. The entire presentation was just weird although she did say the meatballs were decently eatable. In general, I find the service in the restaurants very slow in the Azores. Perhaps they work on a different pace. Parmesan cheese was not offered. Water was not poured. These are small things… yet they are pretty consistent across both four star hotel restaurants. I don’t believe this is intentional; I think they just work in a slower pace than what I expect as a New Yorker.