Life continues at a slow pace as we approach the halfway point of our trip. The roughish water is settling down even as the winds pick up. Morning temperatures in the upper 70s force Mrs. Cruzer into long sleeves, as the rest of the country battles extreme cold. Fortunately, our water at home is shut off at the meter and the pipes are drained. I’ve getting texts from the grid operator about many power failures at our house, so I have no complaints about our less than Edenic conditions here.
Restrained gluttony seems to be our main activity—many times resulting in me forgetting to take pictures. Despite Sylvain not having received his shipment of Pinot Blanc, we headed over to Le Champagne on Thursday anyway. We split an upsized order of beef carpaccio finishing with crème brulee (which has become my standard dessert). Sylvain selected a substitute bottle of wine from the Loire Valley that proved to be an acceptable substitute. And, Friday, Sylvain messages me that the Pinot Blanc has arrived. He knows he'll get another lunch from us.
Friday’s lunch was at Villa Royale. This time, the service seemed a bit off from the normal cheerful and knowledgeable staff. Plus, the conch brochette I ordered, tasty as it was, didn’t look like any conch I’ve ever had before—it was extremely thick for conch, but everyone insisted it was, indeed, conch. Now, this is the 3rd time I’ve encountered a restaurant insisting what they gave me is what I’d ordered—both other instances years ago at Le Cottage and Le Bistro Nu. Anyway, I suspect it might have been a dense fish like swordfish. This was one of those roll-with-the-punches type experiences. Maybe I should have ordered their always excellent conch tempura instead.
We ran into Ina Urfalino of L’ Estaminet fame at the Marigot Market on Saturday. She’s now cheffing on local boats and not working in any restaurants. It was a nice, but brief, conversation,
Dinner was early for Bistrot Caraibes—6:15 as that was one of the last reservations they had available when we booked the previous week. Instead of our usual meal of 4-6 appetizers and no main, we had just the smoked salmon appetizer, which is the best on the island, IMO, and seemingly better than before. We’d decided to have the lobster thermidor this time, and it was very good. I’m not wowed by warm water lobster, but this was good lobster. We topped off the dinner with some decaf cappuccino and their overly ornate crème brulee. As usual, an excellent meal.
During dinner, a Christmas Parade broke out on the Street, “interrupting” our meal. This was a total local production, simply done, and a wonderful experience to behold. It did give me a Christmassy feeling. Joyeux Noel. My pix have more of the back of diners’ heads than the actual parade participants.
Christmas Day dinner was a late one—8:30, again taking from the leftover slots at L’ Auberge Gourmand. As we weren’t all that hungry, we skipped apps and went right to the mains, Filet with both pepper sauce and blue cheese sauce for Mrs. C and the rack of lamb for me, as I try to mix up my dishes, topped off with another crème brulee.
By Sunday, palate fatigue had set in so Monday’s meals consisted of our bakery run goodies, crackers and cheese, a couple of Ti-Puches for me, and a few glasses of wine for us and a completely down day.
In addition to baguettes and croissants, we also get Palmiers and a new experience for me—Chouquettes. These are round, piped and baked, air-filled balls of dough. I’ll think of them as a different style of beignets. One Dollar gets me 8.
