Friday morning we had breakfast at home, consisting of, croissants, ham, eggs and mimosa, of course!




We hung out for a while at the villa and then decided to take a road trip to Dawn Beach. See my report on that trip

HERE


From Dawn Beach, we headed over to Orient. See our report regarding Orient, including a lovely lunch at KKO,


HERE

After lunch, we walked through Orient Village, took pictures of menus, and checked out Petit Casino, and bought some lovely grapes. For the report regarding the trip to Petit Casino, pics of menus from Orient Village, and our meal at Le Piment that evening, click

HERE


On Saturday morning, we had chocolate croissants from Leader Price for breakfast, along with mimosa made with 2.5E champagne from Leader Price.


As reported in our Villa Canoua review, we had an issue with our Chippie phone, that it connected to Anguilla Cable and Wireless by roaming, so we went through a BUNCH of minutes in a big hurry. So, we decided to go over to Carrefour to put more money on our Chippie top up Card. We headed through Marigot, which again the traffic was a real PITA. Just to the left of the mall there, I saw about 8 gendarmes milling around. We heard afterward it was because there had been an attempted purse snatching that morning. I wondered at the time, why do those gendarmes have body armor on?? It took a full 25 minutes to get from Grand Case through Marigot. After finally exiting Marigot, the rest of the trip to Carrefour was without incident.

The Carrefour parking lot was it’s usual self, pretty crowded, so Eric dropped me off and he found a place to park. We had not been to Carrefour since the fire last year and it is even MORE cool this year, with LOTS of neat stuff there. We picked up some pre-seasoned ribs, which we often buy there.

On the way back to the villa, we stopped by the Cadisco gas station at Orient. The store is really pretty nice, with lots of frozen stuff and I saw some rose for 3.9E and picked up a smaller bottle of Ma Dou there. We were going to stop at Le Bounty in Grand Case for pastries for dessert for dinner, but they were closed, at 1 PM on a Saturday??? We drove through Grand Case and took pictures of the menus at Bistro Cariabes, Auberge Gourmande, Le Cottage and La Villa, to determine where we wanted to have dinner Sunday night, which was our anniversary. I had corresponded with Fabulous Feasts about having them make a dinner there at the villa, but they didn’t seem terribly interested with serving only two people, so we decided to go out. For those interested in their menus, they are in the SXM photo gallery under the Grand Case section. We thought there was another bakery there in Grand Case, but we didn’t see one on a trip through. So, after taking our pictures of the menus, we went straight through GC, headed toward Marigot, where we knew there was a bakery, just at a corner going up a hill. I noted they serve food also, including breakfast. We got two breakfast quiches, as well as two dessert tartes for dinner that day.

Back at the house, we ate some cheese and crackers, grapes, cashews, and celery for lunch. We got in the pool, and somehow the afternoon is gone. Isn’t it amazing, how time on SXM passes like a flash?? We decided upon Auberge Gourmande and made a reservation for dinner for Sunday and also made a reservation by email for Anse Marcel for Monday.

We put our ribs from Carrefour on the grill, cooked them wrapped in foil, then unwrapped them and slathered with BBQ sauce--REALLY, really good. We served it with potato salad from Carrefour and leftover corn.

We are in bed by 9 PM., nightowls that we are!

Sunday morning I was up at 7:30, open the blinds, make coffee, and started making notes for this report. A shower comes over about 8:15, and my hopes for a rainbow were rewarded.





We planned on staying in until dinner today, so rain isn’t a real big deal and the island needs it. We have quiche for breakfast, quiche Lorraine and a spinach quiche.


I sent Eric over to Leader Price for wine in the morning, since they close at 1 on Sunday. He had problems finding white wine, so I guess that’s why I didn’t end up with much white wine the other day. Leader Price seems to be almost exclusively red wines and rose’s. We have burgers on the grill for lunch.



We headed over to Auberge Gourmande for dinner at 7 PM. Eric let me out at the restaurant and was able to score a parking space maybe two blocks down from the restaurant, which wasn’t bad at all. We were surprised to find the restaurant is mostly full when we arrive, all Americans, of course. We saw their dinner plates for sale for 31E, and reminisced about the plate from there that we have at home, which they gave to us YEARs ago, as it had a chip in it. Service was very slow to begin with, but the food came out in short order. After a free glass of champagne with peach schnapps (??)

, we shared a lobster bisque, which was very good.

Eric wanted sea bass, which they do not have, so he settled on salmon, crusted with parmesan.




I have the beef filet, which is tough… Huhm.

For dessert, we shared the dessert which said it was chocolate mousse and crème brulee.

I didn’t taste any crème brulee at all, so perhaps should have just opted for the crème brulee to begin with. We enjoyed glasses of Grand Marnier with our dessert and a glass of complementary rum as a chaser.

Dinner was just the right amount for us and we weren’t overstuffed at all. It was by far not the best meal of the week, but we weren’t really that focused on one particular day, but the whole trip, as a celebration of our anniversary.

We had wanted – or at least I did – to go to the casino after dinner, but with all the road construction, and detours through residential areas, we decided not to try. We will come back in October, so will leave it till then. We were back at the house, inside the shutters, by 9:30 PM. We watched some TV and were off to bed. My, what nightowls were are!! .