After 20some trips and the same routine of going to the beach and stuffing our faces in the evening I wasn’t going to write a trip report. Having read all the negative comments after one unfortunate incident, I changed my mind and will write a quickie report about what draws us back to this magical island year after year.

We landed on Saturday afternoon in a rain shower yet walked off the plane into bright sunshine. Cleared immigration quickly and were met by Marius with a big smile. We gave him a ride back to his office and were off to Esmeralda. We were welcomed warmly and checked-in quickly. We were back in paradise.

The present water shortage on the French side was an inconvenience. Water was off four afternoons lasting into the evening. Tuesday afternoon we lost water until Wednesday morning at 10. Fortunately we had a bucket in the room and a pool in front of the unit.

Lunches:

Coco - quality food, relaxed atmosphere, we love it.

Kontiki - food was good, service very friendly. The experience was dampened somewhat by a group of 8 seated behind us who were loud, obnoxious, condescending and insulting. Yet the staff remained smiling and gracious. Gotta admire them.

Kakao - We had previously some very nice lunches there in a beautiful environment. While the environment is the same, I made the mistake of ordering their raw fish platter. The salmon tartare was a little off so I didn’t eat much of the rest. We adopted 3 cats at Esmeralda for the week and they sure loved the tuna we brought back.

La vie en Rose - sidewalk café with the hustle and bustle of market day, good food and gigantic cognacs, how can we not love this place.

Brasserie de la Gare - After a hard morning of shopping we always pick this place for one of our lunches. We were welcomed warmly, given a nice table and shown the two chalk boards with the daily specials. We did notice a discrepancy between the English and French boards. ‘Tartare de cheval’ was missing from the English version. I asked the Maitre d’ for the reason. Here is his paraphrased answer: “If we put horse tartare on the menu we would not get one American customer. Same for rabbit. We never mention them on the English board.” I didn’t have the horse, so for those of you more adventurous types going down in the next little while, it might still be available. The guy claimed the taste has a little more bite to it.

Dinners:

Cote Plage - convenient and good food

Planet Orient - we just love this place. Excellent filet and steak tartare prepared table side. They had a couple of 6 pound lobsters in the tank. At 28 Euros/pound we just watched them.

L’Escapade - has apparently a new chef. I thoroughly enjoyed their rolls of smoked salmon with crab meat and mango appetizer. Rest of the dinner was very good too.

Ti Bouchon - much was written on this board lately about this restaurant in Cul de Sac and we wanted to try it out. We were not disappointed although I don’t feel it is up to “Grand Case” standards yet. The décor is simple with lively Caribbean colours and it is very clean. Service is great and the owner is a true gentleman. We had the filet of veal in pastry with pea puree. The veal was truly excellent. We both didn’t care much for the puree, but that may be a question of personal taste. This is the first restaurant, and believe me I have tried hard over many years, where I have managed to finish their entire stock of beer which was 2 little Heinekens. He did offer me a Coors Light but I consider that, with apologies to my American friends, to be water with a little food colouring. Wouldwe go back to this restaurant? In a heartbeat. The bill for the 2 of us came to $ 52.00.
Finally, this trip also marked our 25th anniversary, so I had to play loving husband, which in my case is fortunately no hardship, and didn’t manage to attend any TTOL party. I am looking forward to one in November to finally put some faces to the names who help us enjoy this island so much.

We found little traffic, no crime but lots of smiling faces and we hope to be back many times.


Bernd


p.s. sometimes my wife complains too that my quickies aren’t really that.