|
St Maarten/St Martin
13 March 2004 Newsletter
|
|
ISLAND
NEWS
Weather and
Beaches: Saturday turned out to be pretty good. We got to Cupecoy
and found the little cove in good shape, room for at least a row of chairs, two
in some spots. However, there was a spot of rain in the evening. Sunday was
more of the same only better: no rain, few clouds, lots of sun and good, but not
howling winds for the regatta. The far NW end of Cupecoy is very small. Monday
was another lovely day but Tuesday started out fairly cloudy, ended up
OK.Wednesday was pretty good, a bit breezy at Orient, but plenty of sun until
about 4:30 when the dark clouds rolled in but they dropped little rain. Thursday
wasn't bad but a downpour hit Cupecoy about 2:30. Friday was cloudy, but no
rain. Seas have been fairly calm all week.
Last week I reported on a commotion at the Perch on Orient
Beach as three lovely ladies in their altogether started serving drinks. My
newsletter was passed along to one of them who promptly signed up for future
copies. Just thought I'd say hello and sorry I missed the show.
Regatta news: The
Heineken Regatta finished up on
Sunday. There were 255 boats in several classes and on Sunday they went from
Margot to Simpson Bay. The 12m boats came by our balcony at about 10:30. At that
time we could still many boats milling around in Marigot Bay waiting for their
start. Some of them had a course that took them over near Creole Rock in Grand
case, out into the Anguilla channel and then back to Simpson Bay. We headed over
to
Nettuno in
Grand Case for lunch and the view as we crested the last hill and saw all
the boats in Grand Case Bay was fabulous. After lunch, we came back to
Cupecoy to see the last few boats straggle in. There are more photos on
the
SXM-Activities site taken
from the cliffs of Cupecoy.
Restaurant news: La Case Creole is
reopening in essentially the same spot across from US Imports/Magasin du Pont on
the outskirts of Marigot. La Dolce Vita is about to open next to
Mario's and Marius Andrew's father, Rocky, has converted his grocery store next
to US Imports/Magasin du Pont into a Creole restaurant,
Rocky's Ideal Snack.
Photo feature: There are some photos of
the week's activities at a secret location not posted here.
Subscribe to the newsletter to get the location.
There is no link from any SXM-Info website and I won't post the address on any
bulletin board. Last week I thought I saw the Queen Mary 2, world's
largest passenger ship, on her maiden voyage into Pburg, coming past our
balcony. Martha disagreed. I got an email from Veronique, wife of
Jean-Pierre at
Antoine in Pburg, with a
subject that said, "Martha is right!" Attached were her photos of the massive
ship (140 longer than the Eiffel tower is tall and as tall as a 22 story
building) at anchor in front of their restaurant and a great sunset
shot.
Wines: We
went to the Thursday wine tasting at Vinissimo on Friday (plausibly
live, a la the Australian Olympics) and sampled a 99 Mouton Cadet Graves, a 97
Chablis Grand Cru from Verget, a 97 Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot Grand Cru from
Bouchard (37€), and a 96 Ch Brown Pessac-Leognan. Needless to say, the
Chassagne-Montrachet was a clear winner, but I still think that is a lot of
money for a white wine. The reds included the 98 La Courtade from Porquerolles
(17€), a small island off the south of France, Bouchard's 96 Volnay (20€), and
97 Mas de Daumas Gassac (22€). The Courtade was a very tasty blend of Mourvedre
and Grenache and the Volnay was drinking quite well. I remember the Mas de
Daumas Gassac from tastings in the US a dozen years ago when I could get it for
less than $10. It is a simple country wine from the south of France (Mas means
farm in the local dialect) with no standings in the French wine ranking. It is
so good, large, rich, complex, yet smooth, that it can now only be
purchased as futures at quite elevated prices.
CONTEST
Thai
Garden is sponsoring the current contest, which will run until March
20. Just go to their website, find
the link to sign up for the SXM-Info newsletter, click it, sign up, and you are
entered. Obviously everybody that is getting this email is already signed up for
the newsletter. Just tell me you are already on our mailing list, and I'll leave
you signed up for the newsletter and just add your name to the contest list. You
could win a $100 toward a meal for two at Thai Garden.
Here is the list of future sponsors. We urge you all to sign
up ONCE for each contest. Our clients want you to see what they have to offer.
Go to their websites at the appropriate time, click the link, and you could be a
winner. Look for future gift certificates from:
Unity Car
Rental - 21 March to 15 April - $100 off a week's car rental
Temptation
Restaurant - 16 April to 16 May - $100 off a meal for two
RESTAURANTS
On 6 Mar the
euro was at 1.24 and today it's at 1.22. French side
restaurants with many costs in dollars and many American (or Canadian) clients
have been offering more favorable exchange rates. Some restaurants offer
a 1 to 1 exchange. To the list that includes California,
Escapade, Balaou, Santal, Enoch's Place, Au Beaujolais,
Rainbow, Oizeau Rare, and Pirate, we add Restaurant du Soliel, Pedro's
(priced in dollars - no conversion ever), and Paradise View. Many
restaurants will offer you a better rate than you can get on your credit card,
so you can allow them to convert and charge in dollars. Note that California
only offers 1 to 1 on cash purchases. As always, know what the euro is worth,
what the restaurateur is offering for an exchange, and what the costs are on the
menu. Finally, you are here to have fun and fine food, not complex financial
calculations, so don't worry about it too much.
On Saturday evening we (the six
unindicted coconspirators from last week's dinner at Temptation Restaurant) went
to Auberge Gourmande for
a dinner in a lovely restored Créole house. My last two meals here had been on
the porch watching Harmony Nights.
We started with a Quincy, a lovely sauvignon blanc from the Loire Valley. It
worked as an aperitif with several onion soups, an asparagus soup with scallops,
and my frog legs. We did need to bring in a rare white Mercurey chardonnay to
finish up the aps and please the fish eaters who loaded up on mahi-mahi, whole
sole, whole French seabass, and an expanded shrimp ap that became a dinner (an
accommodating wait staff and kitchen are a wonderful thing). Two orders of the
lamb chops required a Gigondas from the Rhone Valley, lots of flavor to play off
the big flavors in the lamb and the olive mashed potatoes. We stopped at this
point, had a few complimentary flavored rums. We headed over to Sapphire for a
replay of the previous week's cognac tasting at Vinissimo. We had been given
several nips of the various Chabasse and Bowen cognacs after the tasting. We
broke out the VS, VSOP, Napoleon, and XO varieties. The bad news is that most
people agreed that quality moved up in lock step with age (and price). The good
news is that we had a fine evening.
As mentioned earlier, on Sunday
we went to Nettuno for
a lunch on Grand Case Bay. It's a lovely double wide dining room on the water.
The first room has a series of mirrors on the street side wall to give it a
feeling of space and the second room has windows on the Bay and on the street
side. We had a bottle of the 2002 Tommasi Pinot Grigio ($35) that was crisp with
a hint of sparkle, quite nice with our house salad featuring shrimp and a
roasted salmon filet with a thyme and lemon sauce. Martha liked the salad
featuring tasty sautéed shrimp and pineapple. The roasted salmon was still moist
on the inside but crispy on the top for an interesting taste and texture
combination accompanied by what the waiter called fusilli in a light red sauce.
I think it was rigglitoni, as looked like earthworms. This led to a discussion
of the various pasta types. Rigatoni is a tube with squared ends. penne
(meaning quill) is a smaller tube with ends cut on a slant, like a quill pen.
Penne rigate is ridged penne. Rigglitoni is a figment of my overactive
imagination.
On Tuesday we went
to Spartaco
Restaurant for a lovely Tuscan dinner on the wraparound porch of a
restored plantation on the hillside above Cole Bay. Two couples split
an arugula salad made of fresh, spicy arugula from Spartaco's garden and a
tomato and mozzarella salad. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar were brought to the
table so we could adjust the salads to our taste. A soft Montepulciano ($35) was
a welcome accompaniment to the flavorful appetizers. Dinners started with
pancetta wrapped scallops in a lobster sauce on a bed of spinach ($20), fresh
grilled tuna served in an avocado, mango, tomato, and red pepper sauce ($22),
grilled baby chicken seasoned with garden fresh herbs ($19), and a seafood
risotto with mussels ($19 as a main course). The pancetta and scallops are a
great combo, especially with lobster sauce, but not for those on a low salt
diet. The tuna was as fresh as could be and cooked (which is to say hardly
cooked) to perfection. The sauce is more of a salsa as it is uncooked. The
chicken was quite tasty with its spices and the risotto was wonderful. Note
these prices, high teens, low twenties, and in dollars. This is one of the best
bargains on the island. We had the homemade ice cream for dessert, four spoons,
and complimentary after-dinner drinks, spending $120 per couple with a 15% tip
added and prominently noted. Needless to say, we felt that the fine meal and
great service deserved a bit extra. PS: Martha brought home a bit of the bird
and we had a bite or two for a late morning snack on Thursday shortly after I
wrote this. It was great. Martha said that Spartaco liked the looks of her bird
so much that he ordered one for his dinner!
On Wednesday we went back to
Nettuno for
a photo op with the two chefs and then strolled down the street to
Escapade for
another lovely Grand Case lunch on the water. We ordered a crab and
exotic fruit salad ($11) and a roasted St Marcellin cheese with thyme on
toast salad ($11) with a bottle of Ch Pampelonne rosé ($28). Gerard is
offering 1 to 1 exchange, so those are the euro prices and the dollar prices.
Crab is crab and if you love it, you can hardly not love a salad loaded with it
and mangoes, etc. Steve Jenkins in his
Cheese Primer says that "in
its crèmier version, no finer cheese exists". Add thyme, bake it a bit, and
serve with a rosé and a great view on a sunny afternoon, and it can't get much
better.
That evening we had a light meal at
Sitar in the back
of the Maho complex, next to Cheri's. We had a few beers with garlic nan (flat
bread), a somosa (potato and pea dumpling), a lamb masala, chicken korma, and a
dal (a thick soup of split peas and spices). They can all be prepared from
mild to hot, so walk on the wild side and try some great Indian food. When it
was all over, we had more than enough to eat and spent only $53. We stopped
across the street to hear Chocolate Sax Watts at
Paris
Bistro and noted that they were quite busy, as was
Charme
Restaurant after changing its name from Wellbeing!
Thursday night we dropped in at
Montmartre. We
noted that they were repainting the outside which we thought looked
fine. We also heard that they were about to change the menu, which we
thought was pretty good, but as it is one of the closer restaurants to our
condo, we certainly had worked our way through much of the menu. One thing we
hadn't tried was the Gambas Ravioli, home-made ravioli stuffed with shrimp
and drizzled with a seafood sauce containing sea urchins? I certainly did not
detect whole shrimp in the ravioli but they were quite tasty and the sauce
was spectacular, sea urchins and all. It was not overwhelmed by a 97 Beaune
Premier Cru Champs Pimont. Our dinners were the filet of beef with Roquefort
sauce, a wonderful combo, and the tuna with artichoke hearts and tomato
confit. Both dinners came with lots of veg: mashed potatoes,
puréed sweet potato, baby corns, zucchini, and roasted
tomatoes.
Friday lunch at
Oizeau Rare in
Marigot was a real pick me up after a morning at the dentist. A bottle of 99
Givry Premier cru started to work as the last of the Novocain was wearing off.
We had a tuna tartare with real pomme frites and a pizza. The tuna tartare was
fresh as possible and very tasty. Real pommes frites are cooked in low
temperature oil to cook them throughout and then flashed in a very hot oil to
crisp up the outside, turning them a deeper brown and adding a satisfying
crunch. The pizza was a Reine, the queen, with tomato sauce, ham, mushrooms, and
mozzarella. The French really do have them named and standardized. This
pizza is the same all over the French side. I won't pick a best, but Oizeau
Rare, Belle Époque, and Kakao are in the running. Hot Tomatoes on the Dutch side
has the only wood-fired pizza and has named several interesting varieties of
pizza that they make, but they also let design your own pizza. So will most
French side places, if you ask.
After lunch we went over to the West Indies Mall next door to
ogle the clothes, visit the over the top rest rooms (they should be on
everyone's must see list), and have an after shopping glass of white wine
at
Keops in
the basement. The top floor has Hediard, a gourmet shop that serves a light
lunch, and Le Gaiac, said to be a very good restaurant by several people that we
trust, but the menu just hasn't tempted us yet. The view over Marigot harbor is
quite lovely from their perch on the third floor.