GROCERIES
We got some fresh pork tenderloin from the
Grand Marche at the
rotary in Philipsburg on sale at 9 guilders per kilo, about $2.25 per
pound. That's what we took to the
Horny Toad Guesthouse for
the potluck dinner during the Patriots/Colts game. After marination and
grilling, it went quite well with the apple pancakes and pierogis that some
guests supplied. We watched the game and had a halftime dinner under the
barbecue pavilion on the beach. Can't beat that.
A shopping expedition to
US Import showed that
Chaumes has reached 21 euros per kg while St Nectaire and Reblochon are around
13 euros per kg. We like Chaumes very much, but I think this price discrepancy
between a factory produced cheese and the artisanal St Nectaire and Reblochon
can be attributed to the advertising campaign that Chaumes can afford.
RESTAURANTS
On 15 Jan the euro was at 1.310 and today it is
at 1.305. I hadn't noticed. 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. We got
that at California,
Auberge
Gourmande, and La Marine. We
noticed Rainbow
Cafe, Escapade,
Balaou, and Marlin's Cafe were offering the same. Note that some only offer this
rate for cash. We will let you know about other places as we find
them. 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 to do complex financial
calculations, so don't worry about it too much.
Harmony Nights: They have started again on
Tuesday in Grand Case and they have revised the parking, for the better, in my
opinion. You can now head into the center of restaurant row, take the right turn
onto the side street that runs over toward the canal, take a right at the end of
that street, proceed to the small parking lot in front of Pressoir, turn right
into that, and head onto the soccer field. You are close enough to walk to the
festivities, eliminating the shuttle bus. It also may bring some business to
Pressoir,
Hibiscus and
the rest of the restaurants in that area, who have felt left out.
Wine tasting: On 28 January Jean-Jacques
Girard from Savigny-les-Beaune will be showcasing his wines at Ti Provencal
in
Grand Case. We really liked his 2002
Savigny-les-Beaune Premier Cru and are looking forward to trying his other
wines. This tasting was arranged by
Vinissimo and
Marina assures me that we will enjoy our diner after the tasting.
Dining: On 17 Jan we went
to Halsey's
Restaurant in Simpson Bay. They are located next to the bridge
across from the Royal Palm where Warung Bali was last year. The physical plant
hasn't changed much. It's still a pier made of 2x8's with a tent over the dining
room wrapped around a large bar. The chairs are aluminum and plastic (a good
idea on a pier) and the rest of the kit follows suit. This has kept the prices
fairly low for the food that they are producing. The menu (without prices) is up
on the website. There are eight aps in the $8-14 range, three soups, four
fish main courses ranging from $19-21, four meat main courses ranging from
$16-28, and a handful of desserts. No credit cards are accepted. There was a
wine list with 25 entries that covered most of the globe and ranged from $20 to
about $80. We ordered a bottle of water and an Italian red (2001 Montalcino at
$41). The wine arrived quite cool and closed in but warmed up to be quite nice,
fairly large. We started with a signature dish, the Magic Mushroom, a
marinated portobello topped with marinara, grilled vegetables, bleu & goat
cheeses, and a port wine reduction. It really is a signature dish as Halsey's
was inscribed in the port wine reduction on the upper half of the plate. This is
not a dish for the faint of heart as the flavors are large and leaping out from
all sides. The port wine reduction is designed to intensify its flavor, bleu and
goat cheeses are full-flavored, and the marinade was quite evident on the
mushroom. Our rather large wine was having a tough time standing up to this, but
we had ordered it to go with the Asian tuna and grouper special to
follow. Our bread arrived and was accompanied by butter and a strong garlic dip.
All dinners included a crisp salad and ours arrived at this time. We had chosen
the gorgonzola dressing, which also was quite full-flavored. The Asian
tuna is a sushi grade, sesame-encrusted tuna steak that is quick seared and
served with a wasabi cream sauce, accompanied by seaweed salad and vegetable
maki rolls. The grouper was served on a bed of lightly seasoned angel hair pasta
with artichoke bottoms. Also on the platter was a small bowl containing four
shrimp in a broth. The tuna was quite good, prepared well, and the wasabi cream
sauce was zesty. As usual, we passed on desserts and a bill for $96 arrived
(with almost half being water and wine). Prominently stamped on the bill was a
service not included logo. When 15% was added back on, our bill was about $110,
a bit less than our usual bill in Grand Case, but not much. The requested tip at
15% covers quite a bit of the 30% premium for the euro, especially if some
places are offering a favorable rate.
This, of course, will spark the old debate about tipping. My
sources, who are French, say that the bill that arrives at your table should
have service included. Whether that goes to the service person and whether that
service person gets medical, dental, four weeks vacation, severance, and
unemployment are questions that I do not ponder as I pay my bill. Customarily,
one leaves a pour boire, literally "for a drink" on the table in cash
for the server. This is why most credit card bills from the French side arrive
at your table with no space for a tip. The total is there, you sign it, leave
a pour boire, and go. How much for a pour boire?
Before credit cards, it used to be a bit of the change, but now there is no
change and with bills easily topping $100, coins seem rather insignificant. I
have heard that 5% is reasonable and having said that, I generally leave
more.
We had a Tuesday lunch at
Balaou, which means Ballyhoo in English,
and unless you fish or snorkel, may not mean much more. They are located at the
western end of Grand Case and have a parking lot, making life a bit easier. We
arrived about 1 PM on a beautiful afternoon and had a table looking out to the
eastern end of the bay. They have a fairly large wine list populated with wines
from Grand Vins de France at very good prices, especially as they are doing 1
for 1. Crispy bread arrived as we were looking over a menu that had four salads
($8-12), a couple pastas ($9 and $10), three sandwiches ($8-9), four meat dishes
($9-19), and a snapper. The dinner menu was also inexpensive and included five
aps and five more fish plates. The bread was not a baguette, but came from Carl
and Sons on the Dutch side and had been crisped in the oven - a trick we use at
home, even on frozen bread. We started with a bottle of water and a chilled
chardonnay ($19, I said the prices were good) on a warm afternoon. Martha had
the shrimp salad. It was large with many small shrimp and surimi. I had the
grouper special: two large filets on a bed of cooked tomatoes with rice and veg
- very good. We whiled away much of the afternoon finishing our wine and
water and a couple complimentary shots of excellent St James Rum from
Martinique. The bill arrived and came to a mere $56.
Wednesday evening turned blustery and our dinner at
Rainbow Café was
not filled with gentle breezes and waves softly sighing on the floodlit shore.
Luckily, they have clear plastic curtains that can be lowered and even hurricane
shutters, if necessary. We started with a bottle of the 2002 Croze-Hermitage
Coloumbier that really opened up after a few minutes in the glass. This wine
begged for strong flavors and Fleur offered the creme brulee foie gras with a
slice of foie gras. It really is a pate of foie gras in a ramekin with a
sugar topping heated to caramelization. Seems a bit strange, but sweet Sauternes
is a frequent accompaniment to foie gras, so a bit of sugar tasted just fine.
Our dinners were the beef tenderloin on garlic mashed potatoes with a bit of
ratatouille in a phyllo dough shell and a duck breast in a lime-honey sauce with
potatoes dauphinoise (both specials). Both were very good and the presentation
seems better than usual, possibly the work of a new sous-chef. See the photos on
the website. David, who is from Orchard Park, joined us to commiserate on the
fate of the Bills. I grew up about fifteen miles south of there at roughly
the same time, and since meeting in 1993, we have consoled one another
concerning the ill-fated team. We ended the evening with another gossip-fest
with Fleur over Martell Cordon Bleu Cognac and Demerara rum. The sugar cane that
grows along the Demerara river in Guyana produces the darkest, richest rum and
when it is aged 15 years, it is remarkably smooth. Service from Nori and Michel,
was as usual, impeccable.
Thursday night found us at Carl's
Ti Coin
Creole (Little Creole Corner) on the road to
Grand Case Beach
Club at the far end of Grand Case. It's a lovely Creole
cottage, gaily painted but not tarted up. It was Carl's boyhood home and
now is his restaurant turning out some very tasty food at extremely good prices.
The place is rather small with about 15 tables, mostly deuces with a few
fourtops. The wine list has about ten entries, but Carl claims he has the
coldest Beck's on the island. I had one on the day we made our reservations and
it was pretty cold. The menu is also small, but there are a few specials,
notably lobster. We started with the conch salad and the stuffed crab. The conch
was great and there was plenty of it in a large cup with greens and some
peppers. The stuffed crab was spiced up with Colombo powder and Martha would
only share a small bit with me. I think that means she liked it. Our dinners
were the grilled whole red snapper and the lamb. Creole food is supposed to be
inexpensive, relying on spices and/or long cooking to make the cheaper available
food very tasty, similar to Cajun food. Unfortunately, just as the Cajun craze
depleted the stocks of redfish, the local islands are running out of red
snapper, such that this was one of the most expensive dishes on the menu!
Nonetheless, it was under 19 euros and given Carl's generous rate of 1.2 to 1,
not all that expensive. It was very fresh and very tasty. The lamb had a
mint sauce that came from the backyard herb garden, not from the Sysco truck. I
can't tell you it was the tenderest loin I ever had, because it was not the
loin, but a flavorful chop (two, actually) cooked well and flavored with a
wonderful sauce. We ended with coffees and flavored rums, mine with passion
fruit and Martha's with vanilla. Service was quite good, but Tito, our waiter,
sent us over here from his other job at
Montmartre
Restaurant, where the service is spectacular. Our dinner was a mere
$70 plus a pour boire for Tito.
Friday night we had the corner table next to the fountain on
the front porch at
Auberge
Gourmande. There is no water view, but across the street is
Tastevin which is a beautifully restored building, and now that the
shops next to Tastevin have been fixed up and stay open late, there is
plenty to look at from this little corner. We ordered a bottle of water as we
entered and it arrived with two breads, one a dark roll, and the other similar
to a baguette. We started with the 2001 Mercurey, a light red from the southern
reaches of Burgundy. It certainly didn't overpower the delicate froglegs and
sweet potato puree in a mustard sauce that was our starter. Martha ordered the
tuna off the menu: Cajun-spiced on a bed of crab risotto with spaghetti squash
and broccoli. I had a beef tenderloin with a porcini mushroom sauce on top and
several slices of grilled risotto with girolles. My veg were a sauteed leek and
cauliflower. Both the tuna and the beef were top quality and cooked to our
satisfaction. Possibly there is no ruling that leeks and cauliflower go with
beef, while spaghetti squash and broccoli go with tuna, but it is an amazing
kitchen that has sweet potatoes, two different risottos, spaghetti
squash, broccoli, leeks, and cauliflower at the ready. I'm sure that if you
wanted any substitution, it would be happily accommodated. It had been the end
of a rather hectic week, so we even skipped coffee and asked for the check. We
were not allowed to leave without a complimentary after-dinner drink. Great
food, great service, an interesting view (the interior is quite nice also), and
1 to 1 for cash!
BARGAINS
Look on the SXM-Restaurants website for a list
of all restaurants that have coupons
for some freebie or discount. There are several coupons there to make your
vacation a bit cheaper.
L'Esperance Hotel
in Philipsburg is bargain at $80 per night for a 1BR suite
with a kitchen. It's not on the water, but they have a pool.
Turquoise
Shell Residence in Simpson Bay is bargain at
$100 per night for a 1BR suite with a kitchen, all taxes and service included.
It's across the street from the water and they have a pool. Make a reservation
and get a $50 coupon to Ama Jewelers and a $25 coupon to Hot
Tomatoes.
The Banana
Cabana, a one bedroom studio on
the lagoon in Cupecoy, is only $695 for the week all taxes and service
included.
California has two apartments for rent that are right on the water in Grand Case.
The one bedroom, sleeps four, is $750 and the two bedroom, sleeps six, maybe
more, is $1100 for the week.
Sandy Molloy at Molloy Travel
says that she has negotiated a great deal at Alamanda and has can't beat rates
at Le Petit, L'Esplanade, Maho. and La Plantation.