"Well, woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand Whose wine? What wine? Where the hell did I dine? Must have been a dream I don't believe where I've been Come on, let's do it again" - Frampton
Wish there was a classier quote that I could wake up to this morning to describe last night. But the evening part can wait for now. Home from a half of what was my normal walk. Gonna head back out and get some pastries this am as one of the members of this vacation has to depart today. One must not leave on an empty stomach. Although I do believe that none of us have gone hungry over these few days.
Monday started off with no walk, a swim at the pool and some coffee. It was a bit of a transition day as J&T were coming over from Palm Court. I took the jeep over loaded them up and they started the move in process. Whilst that was going on we had to navigate the online covid testing for Andie who was leaving on Tuesday. She was our guinea pig so we could all learn. The testing was pretty seamless and really convenient compared to having to go somewhere, but the uploading was the painful part. We spent the morning milling about trying to upload it to the Verifly app for her, noshing on a day old ham and cheese quiche. Pinel became a wash as we needed to be close to a solid wifi connection to make sure the paperwork was uploaded and approved. Laundry also needed to taken care of so we stuck to Orient.
Made the walk down and got whisked into LeString. Grabbed 6 chairs & 3 umbrellas on the first row. As I was opening a menu to order most of the crew was already in the water, washing off any stress of the morning. The change in residence and the forms to fly out were hardly stressful but it's all relative when you're living your best life. Ordered a bottle of prosecco for the crew, some sodas, beers and the obligatory 'ti punch. Mondays are quiet and peaceful on the beach. I made a few runs back to the villa to move swap out the wash and hang it on the line, did a few more tweaks to Andie's form upload to help her out. Got back to the beach where the boy had ordered a bacon cheeseburger. I put in an order for the group of chicken spring rolls, accras, and the LeString salad. J&T headed up to the bar to have their lunch, the tuna and the chicken curry. Lunch was amazing, the LeString salad had garlic shrimp, avocado, artichoke hearts and olives. Before I leave I need to find out what the dipping sauce that came with the accras was. It was the most amazing spicy oil concoction that will haunt me going forward. We enjoyed the surf and sand for the day and headed back to collect ourselves with dinner plans.
A few cocktails, pool time and showers later. We pulled it together. As we were leaving I was streaming one of my best friends weekly radio show from back home. He gave us a shout out and was playing a track for us, perfect timing as we strolled to the village. The group defaulted to my choice of dining for the evening, L'Atelier. I've been stalking this establishment online since I planned this trip. If I didn't wake this morning after that meal I would have been perfectly okay with that. There have only been a handful of times in my life that I can say that it wasn't just a meal it was an experience. This has moved into the #1 spot of my culinary moments. From walking up to walking out it was amazing. We shared a couple starters, not sure the missus wanted to share the fois gras after her first bite. The bone marrow bruschetta was gone in minutes. Not being the biggest butternut squash fan I ordered the table their signature starter, the Crispy Poached Egg butternut and corn veloute. Mind blowing. The Cannonball heard Alexander say goat cheese and black olive jam during the menu presentation and insisted that we ordered that, well played little man, well played. Another amazing choice to start. My cocktail ride started with the Waygu Old Fashion with our apps, moved on to a mezcal negroni between courses, and we picked our mains to share. With 6 of us reeling from just the apps we split 3 mains. Andie and the missus got the 6oz wagyu w/ mushroom sauce and truffled rigatoni as the side. J&T got the Seabass over a cauliflower mash topped w/ a medley of sauteed veg. The Cannonball and I opted for the Candy Pork Chop from Ireland. We ordered some sides of frites for the table also. A glass of Bordeaux for me with dinner and I was in heaven. My love affair with meat is very open with the people in my life and for me to get a pork chop that is perfectly cooked has been a struggle my whole life. Mission accomplished. Again I don't have enough vernacular to express how amazing this meal was and I haven't even gotten to dessert. The truffle molten cake, the dark rhum creme brulee and someone ordered a gelato. All were passed around. I grabbed an espresso, some grappa and a ruby port for all to sip and enjoy. Looking around as dinner was wrapping up I could do nothing but bask in a moment that will forever be ingrained in to my soul.
We made our way home to relax pool side and try to solve the world's problems by talking about dinner and our day. So many laughs and hugs last night as we have to end a chapter on Tuesday with Andie leaving. We planned out the next day's morning and went our respective ways to our rooms. Crashed with the Cannonball due to sleeping arraignments for the evening, as we faded off to sleep we kept discussing the culinary joys of what we had just experienced that evening. If he remembers nothing else from this trip I believe that dining experience will stick with him for life. There's rumors of another dinner over the next few nights as we are starting to lose time. Maybe a trip to the Lolo's on our way home from the airport run also in the cards.
