This was written for my weekly newsletter, which went out earlier today....
Although we’ve been visiting St. Maarten since 1978, this was our first Thanksgiving visit. A majority of our readers will be visiting SXM in the next several months, so our first story this week is a complete trip report.
Airport: Arrival, Customs, and Baggage pickup were fast and easy. More customs inspectors have been hired on the Dutch side and several sped our flight through the process quickly. As always, we strongly recommend passports for all visitors. They are legally required (though not enforced at the moment) for people staying on the French Side, but a birth certificate with raised seal is ok on the Dutch side. Getting back into the US is far easier in our experience with a passport: do get one before you go.
Pile driving for the new airport terminal, due to open in 2006, finished weeks ago. Concrete is being poured and steel erection should begin soon. Details are at
www.pjiae.com . A photo of the new terminal as it will look when completed will go up on our site shortly.
Roads: There has been a lot of repaving on both sides of the island, and most roads are in great shape. Since late summer there has been a lot of rain, but our 12 days here saw nearly perfect weather almost every day with few showers. The alternate road over Cay Hill between Cole Bay and Philipsburg (not the main road) is badly rutted from the rain, but we drove over it in our Nissan Platina anyway, uneventfully. Don’t do this after eating, during rain, or at night.
Car Rental: As usual we rented from Mickey at Tropical Car Rental,
www.tropical-tropicana.com. He was at the gate just after we arrived, and the paperwork was fast and easy as always, and the car was clean and ready to ride.
Accommodations: On this trip we stayed in a private home in Guana Bay, a great location for many reasons: it is away from Simpson Bay traffic, it is 15 minutes from Orient Beach, it is 20 minutes from Grand Case, and it is not much more than five minutes to Philipsburg stores. There was no phone and Internet access was a huge problem - - that combination was the main reason we skipped our regular newsletter last week. If you emailed us last week, we’ll be answering your email in the next few days (if you’re a member); we’re digging out of thousands of incoming emails and catching up on other business obligations which internet access would have facilitated last week. (Work is done, we just have to transmit it). Guana's only negative is pit bulls on the beach.
Philipsburg: The Dutch-side capital has undergone its second metamorphosis in as many years. Last year, the Great Bay Promenade (boardwalk) debuted, and this year it is the complete reconstruction and reorientation of Front Street and the Captain Hodge Wharf / courthouse area in the center of town.
Front Street has been completely torn up and replaced by a narrower, brick-cobblestone walkway that is primarily for pedestrians and service vehicles - - regular traffic has been eliminated. The street is now lined on both sides be Royal palm trees, which also form the borders of the reconstructed Captain Hodge Wharf pedestrian mall in front of the historic courthouse at the center of town.
Many businesses have upgraded their storefronts. Years ago, Philipsburg had begun to take on a honky-tonk look; now, it’s quite welcoming. Pictures coming soon to
www.jmbcommunications.com/sxmshop.html. Shopping: We mentioned early this year that Rima’s Beachwear, the big open-to-the-public wholesaler of island clothing, accessories, and souvenirs, was moving east along the pondfill from its current location diagonally across from the Lekkerbeck green Heineken airplane bar at the edge of the Salt Pond. That move its now planned for mid-January.
Rima’s supplies the vast majority of souvenir clothing and related goods sold at the market along the Marigot waterfront and in the stalls on the Dutch side behind the courthouse in Philipsburg. Go to Rima’s, however, and you get the same goods for not much more than the ladies who sell these goods in the markets pay. Rima’s is worth a trip, and we recommend you tell Mr. or Mrs. Rima (their real names are so long, everyone just calls them Rima) you heard about them from Jeff Berger’s St. Maarten newsletter.
As usual, the best jewelry bargains are in Philipsburg, and the quality and prices have never been better. Our personal favorite is Zhaveri Jewelers, with two locations. Ask for Deepu, the owner, or Vijay (he just got married). See
www.zhaveri.com. Dining is of course one reason so many people visit SXM. If you’re worried about the effect of the strong Euro on French side dining, don’t; most restaurants are still charging prices that put the Euro on a par with the dollar. You’ll see signs in front of most restaurants about this, so plan on going to Grand Case as usual.
A quick rundown of a few restaurants we visited on this “comparatively brief trip”:
Turtle Pier, long a sentimental favorite for breakfast (ask for the Ilene Special, which is really outstanding), lunch (great salads and burgers, among many other selections), and dinner.
Turtle Pier is switching now to genuine Omaha Steaks International beef. The steak we had was outstanding. Wednesday night is lobster night - - for a fixed price you get a lobster of a weight you select, and a complete meal. Reservations are strongly recommended. See
www.turtlepier.com. If you go to Turtle for lunch, try the shrimp salad. We requested it without mayonnaise and it was outstanding. Turtle pier served about 180 Thanksgiving Dinners last week. We wanted a turkey omelet Friday morning but sad to say, not a trace of turkey was left.
Peg Leg Pub and Steakhouse has been serving great steaks, not to mention piled-high deli sandwiches, fish and chips, and lots more, ever since Jack and Linda Parker took it over a couple of years ago. It has quickly become the island’s top steakhouse, but its menu is wide-ranging and expertly prepared no matter what you select. They’re in Three Palms Plaza in Simpson Bay and should be a must stop. Their bar, by the way, is reputed to be the longest in the Caribbean. See
www.peglegpub.com. Ric’s Place, now under the very capable ownership of the Lopez family (which relocated to SXM last summer from San Diego), is serving the same delicious Tex-Mex favorites that have made Ric’s a multiple-stop favorite for many years.
If you’ve recently emailed Ric Hetzel and have not heard back from him, not to worry. Ric and Kathy have been in Texas for the last couple of weeks. Ric is almost finished recovering from surgery he had there earlier this month (Nov.), and expects to return to SXM in the next week or so. It may take him a while to catch up with his mail, but he’s doing well and will get back to his many friends soon. Their site is
www.ricsplace-sxm.com. Trattoria Pizza Pasta has changed for the better now that Dario Figarolo has joined wife Ilde there; he’s supervising the kitchen and has added a number of favorites from the former Dali Surf and Turf restaurant to the Trattoria’s menu, and the prices are very reasonable. The salads are always cold and garden fresh, and the eggplant parm is out of this world as are both the chicken parm and meatballs and spaghetti. Nobody makes meatballs like Ilde and Dario, in my humble opinion!
Another of our favorite Italian restaurants on the Dutch side is Laguna, which has classic old-world service, and consistently outstanding cuisine. Again we had the swordfish / salmon twin bill along with linguini and sauce. Delicious. My wife enjoyed her spicy shrimp and sautéed vegetables. Laguna never changes; you can always expect great food and service from Gianni and Franco, and you get it. Local business people have very high praise for this venerable restaurant. We’ll be posting food pictures from Laguna later this week on our site.
Besides the great pizza from Pizza Pasta, Domino’s in Cole Bay also has excellent pizza and a number of specials. They also deliver.
Pineapple Pete’s in Simpson Bay also offers a number of interesting selections in an open-air setting, but you can’t beat the dining-on-the-water offered nearby by both Peg Leg Pub and Turtle Pier, which is located over the waters of the lagoon near the airport.
Tutta Pasta, we’re happy to report, has not been adversely affected by the Atkins diet phenomenon, particularly as many people start to resume moderate portions of pasta in their diets. Located in the Simpson Bay Yacht Club complex, Warren’s Tutta Pasta offers the same wide selection of Angela Faia’s proven family recipes it has had for years. More on Tutta is at
www.jmbcommunications.com/sxmdine.html .
If you want superb lobster or beef in a statesmanlike indoor, air-conditioned setting, you owe it to yourself to try Captain’s Cove restaurant at Pelican Reef, another of our long-time favorites. Their lobster, now caught off Saba, is consistently outstanding. We enjoyed Thanksgiving Dinner at the Cove and it was outstanding. Karin Potin told us that L’Alabama was packed on Thanksgiving, serving its creative cuisine to lots of folks who had no interest in turkey.
As we said earlier in this article, don’t forego Grand Case because of the high Euro: most restaurants still treat the Euro and the dollar at par, and prices have not been changed to cover the difference. (Indeed, some Dutch side prices have risen, but not most restaurants on the French Side. And the Dutch side currency is the Antillean Guilder which is pegged to the dollar.)
Harmony Nights resume in Grand Case in January; see
http://www.grandcase.com/harmony.html, Erich Kranz’ site on the subject. Harmony Nights feature lots of music, wandering minstrels, bands, food vendors, etc. You park at the Grand Case airport and a free shuttle takes you to town. There is no charge for Harmony Nights. Start date is mid-January on Tuesday nights, as was the case this year.
During your next trip, plan to be around for harmony nights at least once.
During this trip we visited our long-time favorite L’Alabama in Grand Case (
www.lalabama.com), and Spiga (
www.spiga-sxm.com).
The salads at Spiga are elegantly presented and equally delicious to the palate, and their food is exceptional. You’ll see their entire menu on their site; I had a salmon filet with angel hair pasta, while my wife had sautéed shrimp with vegetables, a special dietary request.
My dessert was a Banana and Martinique Rum Pannacotta with a Roasted Pineapple Disk…delicious.
At L’Alabama, the dinner choice was tough because their menu offers so many wonderful alternatives. I again had a salmon filet, with mashed potatoes. Dessert was
another one of my favorites, caramelized banana flamed with dark rum and banana ice cream. It was so delicious that I kiddingly said to my wife, “You know, I could probably eat another one of these things.”
As a joke, owner Karin Potin a few minutes later arrived with dessert #2. Sugar makes me sleepy, folks, so at first I declined, but then…away it went. Staying awake on the ride back to Guana Bay was a challenge….
On the east central coast of the island is Oyster Bay Resort and on a big deck at water’s edge, King Beau Beau has opened up his Beach Bar and Grill. The menu so far is simple and very reasonable and the view is tropical beach and palms. What more could you ask? Entertainment comes from the “king” and the beaubettes. King Beau Beau doesn’t yet have a website, but some pre-opening pictures are at
www.jmbcommujnicatiuons.com/sxmdine.html . I shot more during the last few days and will post them soon.
People always ask about beaches. Cupecoy, our favorite, varies day by day so whatever I saw there yesterday doesn’t apply today. Orient, which had seen erosion this Fall, has regained much of its sand, particularly at the southern end near Papagayo at Club Orient. Do watch out for pit bulls hanging around Guana Bay Beach...
All in all, a great trip. We’re scheduled to go back in January and February.
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