NEWS:<br>Food Center, which was operating under bankruptcy protection and closed<br>the store in Cole Bay, has been declared bankrupt. Even the main store<br>in Philipsburg will close.<br><br>Afoo's Daily Extra Supermarket in Cole Bay announced that they were<br>closing for indefinitely renovations. In all my years,<br>only a handful of stores have ever reopened after renovations.<br><br>The residents of Cole Bay will be saved from famine by the new Lido<br>Supermarket a few hundred yards past the Daily Extra.<br><br>The SMART set is in SXM. The St Maarten Area Regional Trade association is<br>meeting at Maho just a few days after the fire in the electrical<br>generating plant cut off all electricity to the complex. Things are fine<br>now as about 300 travel agents, tour operators, and travel writers get<br>schmoozed or do research on the local beaches, notably Orient. <br><br><br>RESTAURANTS:<br>We went to to Citrus Restaurant in the Lowlands<br>(http://www.SXM-restaurants.com/lowlands). They are the new and<br>expensive place in the old Bistrot Gourmand space. Richard and Jennifer<br>London have thrown over their previous life in the US and have opened an<br>upscale restaurant, an upscale market, and five over-the-top rooms<br>surrounding a pool on the upper story of this building. It is expensive<br>because everything is top quality. Jeff Kipp, the chef, gets first-rate<br>ingredients and uses them well. In an effort to provide a wonderful, yet<br>somewhat less expensive, experience, Chef Kipp has instituted a tasting<br>menu at only $35 for four courses. This is fairly trendy at the moment.<br><br>In his new book, Michael Ruhlman goes on about the tasting menus that<br>Thomas Keller put out at The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. It is<br>arguably the best restaurant in the US, if not the world - so they say, I have never<br>been able to get a reservation. The book, "The Soul of a Chef" was a<br>NY Times Notable book and a Cookbook Award Winner. Ruhlman is a CIA<br>trained chef (Culinary Institute of America - Hyde Park, NY and St Helena, CA).<br>He follows the trials of seven chefs taking the CIA's Certified Master<br>Chef exam. About 18 people have taken it and only 53 have passed. Many<br>of the more famous chefs don't even have CIA training, much less a CMC<br>credential and they tend to dismiss the exam and even the school.<br>Ruhlman then heads to Cleveland to find out about one of America's<br>hottest new chefs and then to Yountville to see America's best chef.<br>Find the book in the cooking section of SXM-Info's bookstore.<br><br>A tasting menu is generally made of smaller portions of several dishes.<br>The four course approach is generally an appetizer, fish course, meat<br>course, and dessert. More courses can easily be added by expanding<br>the appetizer into hot and cold varieties, adding a soup and/or salad,<br>even a cheese course. Our dinner at Citrus started with a very small<br>portion of fennel and christophene (a local squash) salad in a truffle vinaigrette.<br>Our second course was a rabbit loin on a bed of dandelion greens with<br>morels. In the Caribbean, we tend to lose track of the seasons,<br>but this is spring and if it is raining someplace (not at our home in<br>upstate NY) morels may appear. These came from NW France and tasted as good as<br>any we have plucked from our farm. The rabbit loin was tender and tasty. <br><br>A palatte-cleansing ice arrived. Shortly thereafter we were on to<br>our next course which was tender veal loin on a tasty bed of black<br>forbidden rice with bluefoot mushrooms and a salsify purée. The French call<br>them Pieds Bleu and the only place I have seen them is in the US Import<br>Supermarket in Sandy Ground. They are another amazing mushroom,<br>almost as dense and chewy as the veal with great flavor. Some coffee<br>accompanied a granité of Cote Bastide with a citrus salad and<br>orange dressing.<br><br>The CMC examiners would probably deduct points for having two meat<br>courses featuring mushrooms in a four course meal, but as a mushroom<br>lover I can't complain and rabbit is an extremely light meat. It also<br>made it easier to choose one wine, a 99 Pommard at $52, to accompany<br>both courses. Add it all up, include a 15% tip, and the bill was<br>about $150, still not cheap, but it was a very nice four-course meal<br>with an expensive bottle of wine. The service was good and the<br>surroundings were beautiful. There is not much view, especially from the back of the<br>restaurant, but even the tables out front have little to look at.<br>The interior is quite striking and provides its own view.<br><br>Wednesday evening found us at Auberge Gourmande in<br>http://www.GrandCase.com. It is a lovely place on the land side of<br>restaurant row near the center of town. The prices are lower<br>without the view, but the interior is quite lovely. The website background was<br>taken from the yellow stucco walls and the font color mirrors the dark<br>wood trim. The wine list is extensive and the prices are among the best<br>on the island. We started with a pan fried sea scallops in a crust of<br>roasted sesame, soy sauce, and marinated ginger with a large sheet<br>of phyllo dough. The scallops with their treatment were tasty, but<br>most of the plate was taken up by the folded sheet of phyllo dough, which<br>added little to the dish. I eventually used bread to soak up the<br>excellent sauce that had flavored the scallops. We both had off-the-menu<br>specials for dinner: monkfish with cranberry sauce and a grilled lobster<br>flambéed with pastis and served with risotto, mushrooms, and local squash<br>($30). Being from New England, Martha and I don't gush over caribbean<br>lobster, as the homardus americanus off the Maine coast is a much tastier<br>species, but this preparation - done on a wood-fired grill and followed by an<br>at-the-table flambé with pastis accompanied by a garlic and herb flavored<br>butter for dipping - overcomes the taste deficiency and at $30, was<br>relatively inexpensive. The side dish of risotto, mushrooms, with puréed<br>pumpkin was an added, quite tasty, bonus. The monkfish was good, but as<br>the poor man eating the poor-man's lobster, I was quite grateful for any<br>scraps Martha tossed in my direction. In fact, I was positively thrilled<br>when we took half the lobster home for a delightful lobster salad for<br>Thursday lunch. <br><br>The flavors surrounding the scallops, monkfish, and lobster were<br>such that a light Burgundy would work all the way through dinner, so<br>Nancy suggested the Volnay Premier Cru "Taillepied" 1997 Bouchard Père &<br>Fils ($36 - see what I said about wine prices).<br><br>On Thursday we went to to Sitar Restaurant in the Lowlands<br>(http://www.SXM-restaurants.com/lowlands). They serve very high quality<br>Indian food in a well appointed space in the back of the Atlantis Casino<br>Complex. It is still a notch cheaper than the normal French restaurant,<br>but the flavors are just as interesting and if you leave the heat in the<br>kitchen, quite exquisite. There is a lot more to India than curry and<br>the garlic nan (bread with chives and garlic) starts one on this<br>discovery. Martha always gets a chick pea and tomato sauce dish<br>(chana masala) and it is up to me to go boldly where no man has gone<br>before.The Indian waitress was little help as every dish I asked about<br>was very good (she's probably right - everyone that I have had was quite<br>good!), so I eventually choose a lamb dish flavored with coconut. She was<br>right, it was quite good. Add in three beers, a side of rice, a 15% tip,<br>and we had plenty of food for a bit less than $45. Ricky Hotchandani, the<br>owner, is still trying to open a Bombay-style, even less expensive,<br>snack place across the courtyard, but his chef is awaiting a<br>flight out of India. Next door, Temptations, a Nouvou Caribbean restaurant,<br>is having the roof repaired before they tackle the interior.<br><br>We walked through the Casino to Casablanca to say goodby to Gilles and<br>Dahlia. During the day they run Paradisio on Orient Beach and spend<br>their evenings running this sumptuous Moroccan restaurant. Goodby<br>entailed two balloons of cognac and a plate of petit fours. We then walked<br>across the courtyard to Montmartre to say goodby to Olivier. This<br>entailed two glasses of his rum with herbs and citrus flavors. After this, we<br>were lucky to be able to walk to the car.<br><br>We recovered enough to attempt a dinner at Rainbow Café<br>(http://www.Rainbow-Cafe.com) on Friday evening. Rainbow has been<br>doing quite well for almost 25 years. David and Fleur's previous chefs<br>have gone on to start Saratoga and Mario's Bistro. Mario's two<br>partners, Martine - his wife - and Didier both worked the front of the house<br>at Rainbow as did Pascal at Alabama and Christophe at Auberge<br>Gourmande. <br><br>About 10% of the SMART set was coming in for dinner at 9:00 PM, so<br>we scheduled a dinner with Fleur and Spartaco (from Spartaco<br>Restaurant) for 9:30. Unfortunately the travel people arrived about 9:45, as did<br>Spartaco as he was very busy also. It was a very late dinner that<br>started with Manilla Clams in their own broth - tasty little<br>things - and a sesame-crusted tuna served raw with a rice cracker and the<br>usual sushi accompaniments: wasabi, ginger, and soy sauce. Spartaco had<br>the tuna, but Martha tasted some and pronounced it divine. Nori, the<br>maitre'd served Spartaco's favorite red wine, a 99 Beringer cab -<br>young with tons of tannin, more than we like, but obviously it has a<br>following. Two dinner specials were on the list: a tandoori<br>swordfish with polenta fries and a sesame-crusted tuna on a bed of crab<br>risotto with a crown of rice noodles. Martha had the swordfish which was<br>not cooked in the traditional tandoori oven, but merely covered with a<br>slightly spicy red Indian sauce and placed on a bed of green<br>beans, surrounded by slices of fried polenta in a curry sauce. Lots of<br>tastes and textures from various places around the world and very good. I<br>went with the tuna, which was the only reason I could pass up a taste<br>of Spartaco's appetizer. I got Nori to switch to another wine, but he<br>stuck with cabernet, choosing the second growth of Château Gruaud<br>Larose: Sarget de Gruaud Larose. Being a 93, the tannins had been tamed by<br>time and it was a lovely wine, complementing the tuna with its balsamic<br>drizzle. Cognacs all around and lots of chat with the travel<br>people and it was well past midnight before we started on our way home. Check<br>out the photos on the specials page of their website.<br><br>Lunch on Saturday was at L'Amandier Plage (http://www.AmandierPlage.com)<br>on he beach in Grand Case. The restaurant is simplicity itself, a<br>platform a few steps above the beach with grand views across the<br>Bay. The menu ranges from simplicity to the quite fancy. We like the<br>salads, especially after our dinners the night before. Martha has their<br>version of Salade Niçoise: greens, tomatoes, hard-boiled egg, tuna, and in this<br>case, marinated anchovies with tapenade on toast. I had a braseola with<br>parmesan shavings atop a bed of greens and roasted zucchini strips<br>and red pepper slices. The very flavorful air dried beef with the<br>cheese, a hint of olive oil, and a bit of balsamic was wonderful, especially<br>with a chilled rosé. Add it all up and it was about $40 for a lovely<br>lunch in a lovely spot.