Executive summary: <br>Beach report: Kimsha Beach, Simpson Bay Beach, Mullet Beach,<br>Philipsburg beach, and the northern ends of Orient and Dawn Beaches all looked<br>fine. Cupecoy, even the far northwestern end, was very slim. There are<br>new photos on the beach page at http://www.SXM-Info.com/SXM-Beaches).<br><br>Restaurant report: Don Carlos, Lynette's, and La Pampa are gone.<br>Seafood Galley has moved from Pburg to Don Carlos's old spot at the end of<br>the runway. Julie from Konga Café is cooking at Loterie Farm. Cotonier<br>in Cul de Sac has opened again in a different format. The Bombay<br>Brasserie has opened in Grand Case. Citrus has opened in Cupecoy where<br>Bistrot Gourmand used to be. Atlantis Casino is refurbished and opening<br>more restaurants as I type. Great meals at Da Livio's, Bistrot Caraïbes,<br>Le Cottage, and a fine time having after dinner drinks on Rainbow<br>Café's upper deck.<br><br>Island report: It has been raining (entirely too much), but everybody<br>said they needed it. The lack of hurricanes this summer and this<br>rain have produced a beautiful green island. Maho is spruced up. Mullet<br>is still falling down. All the plantings on the beaches at Orient and<br>Pburg look better than ever.<br><br>The details:<br>We arrived on the island on 14 Dec. The hassles in the airport (Orlando)<br>were minimal, but as we were three hours early, we then had a long wait.<br>The flights were about half full and all our contacts on the island are<br>worried about this coming season.<br><br>We dropped down through thick clouds to Princess Juliana. It wasn't<br>raining, but now they have buses to meet passengers and drive them to<br>the terminal. A bit of advice: the last one on the bus gets to stand<br>next to the doors and be the first one off the bus and into the<br>terminal. This gets you to the head of the immigration line, but I still<br>can't get your baggage any quicker. We got lucky and ours came out<br>very fast. Nonetheless, Marius from http://www.St-Louis-Car-Rental.com<br>was waiting for us and we were in Sapphire Beach Club <br>(http://www.SapphireBeachClub.com) within 45 minutes of landing.<br><br>That is also about the time that it started raining. It has now rained<br>from Thursday until Tuesday. We have not been to the beach, but can<br>report that the far northwestern end of Cupecoy is in existence and the<br>beach boys are there. Maho Beach and Simpson Bay Beach are looking<br>good. Dawn Beach is in good shape at the Mr Busby (northern) end. We had<br>a good lunch there during a brief sunny time. A conch salad and BBQ<br>baby back ribs were just fine with 75 cent Carib beers.<br><br>No progress has been made on fixing up the Mullet complex, but a bit<br>further along, the Atlantis Casino is almost finished with a major rebuilding. <br>They now have a Moroccan restaurant, Montmartre (obviously<br>French), the Grand Buffet, an Indian restaurant, and Asia (Chinese<br>and Japanese with sushi). We had a our first restaurant dinner there on<br>Monday night. The squeamish may wish to skip this, but the wakame salad<br>(seaweed), miso soup (fermented bean curd), spring rolls, and sushi<br>platter (raw fish on rice with outrageous hot green wasabi horseradish)<br>were fantastic. I lived in Japan for six months and still thought this<br>was pretty good, especially when three carafes of sake only pushed<br>the total cost to about $60. They don't have a website, so go there and<br>encourage them to get one.<br><br>Wednesday night's dinner was at Da Livio<br>(http://www.Philiipsburg-Info.com/dalivio). We had a lobster salad<br>to start: lots of lobster in a tangy red sauce. The veal scallop<br>pizzaiola was tender and tasty but may have been shown up by a wonderful side<br>dish of fettucine alfredo. Daniel, the owner, said that they made all<br>the sheet pasta fresh in-house. Our other dinner was a plate of<br>mushroom raviolis in a cream sauce. The raviolis also benefited from being<br>fresh pasta, but when you put porcini and portobello inside the ravioli<br>and top them with a mushroom cream sauce, you make my day. The bottle<br>of 1997 Italian Cabernet Sauvignon was big, but not as bold as the<br>California versions. It went well with food. The wine<br>cellar is remarkable, so if that choice doesn't suit you, Daniel<br>can find another. We could not sample the desserts, but could slide in<br>a bit of Armagnac - a wonderful end to a wonderful evening. The view<br>across the harbor was enhanced by two cruise ships still in port and fully<br>lit to the east and the lights of Divi Little Bay running along its<br>peninsula to the west. If it would only stop raining. Several downpours<br>dampened our spirits during dinner, but not us - even our outside corner<br>table stayed dry.<br><br>As this was a Tuesday, after dinner we went to Bill's Texas Pit BBQ<br>(http://www.SXM-restaurants.com/simpsonbay_east/texaspitbbq) to<br>listen to the live blues band. It's a small place and the band consists of<br>a few regulars but on this night there were three guitars, a drummer,<br>a singer, and a harmonica player. They were pretty tight for a pickup<br>group and a lot of fun.<br><br>Wednesday night in Grand Case (http://www.GrandCase.com) was even<br>better. Mostly this was because the rain had stopped, but also<br>because a stroll down Restaurant Row showed lots of people having a good<br>time. Our contacts report that November was actually a pretty good month<br>compared to last year, but that early December results are very<br>disappointing. We had dinner at Bistrot Caraïbes (http://www.BistrotCaraibes.com). We<br>started with a lovely La Doucette white burgundy with what I believe is<br>the finest smoked salmon anywhere. They smoke it themselves and it<br>is tender, has great mouth feel, and loads of smoky taste. With this<br>wine (or similar) it is near heaven. After that we had the whole French<br>Sea Bass with asparagus and an assiete du pecheur (fisherman's<br>platter). It sounds better in French, tastes better, too, as it is not an<br>artery-clogging fried extravaganza, but more on the line of bouillabaisse.<br><br>Friday night was dinner at Le Cottage<br>(http://www.RestaurantLeCottage.com) with Bruno (owner and maitre<br>d') and Stephane (wine steward). They are billed as a wine restaurant<br>and serve 20 or more bottles by the glass. As a wine snob, I didn't<br>like this when I first heard about it and insisted on buying my own<br>bottle. Since then, Stephane has won me over completely. He brought an<br>apertif of Lillet as we sat down and a dry white Bordeaux to go with an<br>exquisite appetizer of frog legs, mushrooms, and snails called sous<br>bois (lower forest, ie all things on the forest floor!). A Joseph<br>Drouhin Pouilly-Fuissé was brought over for scallops surrounding a bed of<br>caramelized endive and crispy large shrimp wrapped in phyllo dough<br>surrounding a mound of zucchini and tomatoes in a creamy sauce.<br>Coffee and an after dinner Armagnac should have been enough, but we walked<br>down the street to Rainbow Café (http://www.Rainbow-Cafe.com) for more<br>of the same on the second story terrace overlooking Grand Case Bay.<br><br>After a bit more than one week, we report two days at the beach! At least it's warm and I don't have to shovel the rain.<br><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Administrator on 1/4/02 12:54 PM.</EM></FONT></P>