Trip Report July 11th-22nd

Day 1 Friday July 11th

We left Las Vegas on a red eye headed for Miami. Very uneventful flight, slept through most of it. Had a little problem on the descent into Miami. My ears wouldn’t pop and the pressure felt like my ear drum was going to explode!

Day 2 Saturday

Had a 5 hour layover in Miami before our flight to St. Martin. This actually went by very quickly. I was quite surprised. We then flew on to St. Martin. Arrived about 10 minutes behind schedule at 2:35pm. For the first time since the new airport was built, we didn’t use a jet way! I love stepping off the plane and down the stairs letting the warm air hit you is such a nice welcome home.

Very long lines in immigration, but they moved quickly. We then proceeded down to baggage claim where the true fun began. I think they were walking each piece of luggage over from the plane one at a time. It took us until 4pm to get all of our luggage. In all of our flights, I have never had it take this long to get our luggage. Finally we were able to leave the airport. We met up with Lesley for our de-rigeur beat up corolla. A quick phone call to Amaury, and we were on our way home for the next 10 nights. I guess the hold up in baggage was a good thing because it only took about 20 minutes to get from the airport to the studio in Cul de Sac.

This year we stayed at on of Amaury and Thierry’s studio’s at the old Mt. Vernon Hotel. We were in 3211, and the view is amazing!!!!! They have redone the rooms and they are truly beautiful. Very Spartan, but lovely colors and very comfortable. The unit’s have everything you need. Full kitchen, Washing machine, TV, all the necessities. The only thing we had to bring was a coffee grinder. Not everyone needs that, but we brought some amazing Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee to enjoy, and were not about to pre grind it.

After we checked in with Amaury and Thierry, we unpacked and headed over to Bounty for a few essentials. Got everything except milk, so on our way back, we stopped at Tap 5 for milk and ice. Guess what? We forgot the ice. We decided to call it quits. We obviously needed some food in our stomachs to think clearly and by this point it was 7:30. How is it that 2 months waiting to get to the island feels like 2 years, but the moment you get out of the airport, you are all of a sudden in a time warp????

We got cleaned up and headed out for dinner. We decided on one of our favorites Le Cottage. Stephan served us tonite, and we were not disappointed! We split 3 appitizers, each had a main course and each had dessert. We began the meal with their signature champagne cocktail, and a surprise appetizer of scallop carpaccio on guacamole. This was excellent! Once the cocktail was done, we ordered a great white Burgandy. Cant remember which it was, but it was very mineraly, just how I like it. Our next appetizer was the Scallop Carpaccio off of the menu. It was excellent, with fried leeks, and it was layered like a napoleon. Excellent, we both decided. Next we split the escargot appetizer. I love these little critters, and make it a point to order it anywhere that it is served in a different style other than the traditional way. This was utterly fantastic! They were served sautéed, with a fois gras French fry, fried garlic custard, garlic mousse, with a parsley sauce. Our next appetizer was the trilogy of cold fois gras. All I have to say is another WOW! Chocolate dipped tourchon, I am not sure you could get better. It sounds strange, but trust me, if you like fois, you will love this. For our main courses, I got the tasting of Duck, and my husband got the Monkfish. Both were really good, but my duck was better. Finished off the meal with coffee, desert (carmel soufflé for him and the pear & pistachio soufflé for me) and a little rhum. Ah….. Our meal was so good in fact we arranged for special tasting menu to be put together for Wednesday.

Back to the room, watched an episode of Weed’s on the laptop, and went to bed very very happy to be home.

Day 3 Sunday

Woke up to a utterly gorgous day. Skys are clear and blue. We have an amazing view of Green Key, Tintamerre, and St. Barth’s from our balcony. Watching the morning strollers from Club O is making me antsy to get to the beach!

Made some coffee, resisted the urge to shake my husband awake to get down to the beach, but never fear, he was up soon after myself and we were headed down to Club O in no time. We stopped by reception and picked up the weekly pass and made a bee line for the beach. We found a decent spot close to the Perch and made camp.

I spent the day alternating between lolling on my lounge, and floating in the ocean. I was really suprised by the weather, as it hasn't been humid at all! I had broght plenty of books, as I usually will plough through one in about a day on the beach, but I didn't even pick it up today. I was perfectly content just starting out to sea and listening to the waves.

We ended up walking down to Baywatch for lunch. I had the mussel's a la Andy, and my husband had the soft shell crab sandwich. Both were excellent. We ended up having a few drinks from the Perch with a nice couple that was leaving that day. I hate it when this happens, you meet great people that would be a blast to hang with, except you are at the begining and they are at the end, or vice versa.

During this trip one thing I have noticed, the average age of the folks hanging at Club O is dropping. As we are a younger couple (me 29 him 36) on our 10th trip down, there are more people around our age than we have ever seen! There are also quite a great number of families which I think is great, the beach is livelier than I have ever seen.

We left the beach around 6:30, and I had too much sun, and not enough sun screen. I was quite rosey and a little uncomfortable. We got cleaned up back at our room and headed to dinner at Auberge Gourmande. Another tasty meal, but I was in the mood for sweetbreads, which they did not have (this ends up becoming somewhat of a search for the grail in terms of food.) We were so full at the end of the meal, that we had to decline after dinner drinks, and made a bee line for our bed. I was out like a light in record time. Amazing the energy the sun can steal from you!

Day 4, Monday

Woke to a very wet patio, threatening sky's and a painful sunburn. I made the executive decision to take the day off from the beach. We had a couple errands to run on the Dutch side, and this was what looked like the perfect day. We ran our errands, stopped by the Food Express in Cole Bay to pick up everything that we either forgot, couldn’t find at Bounty, or hadn’t remembered that we needed. Found great prices on cheese, beer, wine and champagne as well as smokes. We stocked up with booze for the week, and headed back to the room to unload.

Our next stop was Bikini Beach for lunch and Wifi. Had lunch, but I just couldn’t connect to their network, even with the password. So we had lunch which consisted out of the strangest “gazpacho” I have ever had, pork nems, shrimp dumplings, and baked mussels. Tasty food, but we made it quick as I still needed to get on the net.

Andy had told us that we were more than welcome to come in and use his signal even though they were closed on Monday, and that is exactly what we did. For anyone on the French side that is tired of weak signal’s and slow load times, Andy’s works like a champ!

Once I had taken care of business, we headed back to the room for some snacks and games (get your minds out of the gutter, we brought dice with us). The sky had cleared up and we sat on the patio eating cheese and playing yhatzee and farkle. Hubby was bummed that we had skipped the beach, but we still had a great day.

Dinner tonight was low key. We picked up a pizza and salad from the pizza joint at Bounty and a rack of ribs from TOTT. We brought everything back to the room, uncorked a white Burgandy, and set up a picnic and watched some more Weeds.

We went to bed early, as we wanted to get out to the beach early on Tuesday.

Tuesday, Day 5

Woke up at our usual time of about 7:30, made some coffee and were down to Club O by 9am. Were rained off the beach about 15 minutes later. Word to the wise, if the beach boys tell you to run for cover even if it’s not yet raining, listen to them. Not 3 minutes after we received the warning, it was raining hard. We grabbed all of our things and made a bee line for the Perch. Wd decided we would wait it out, and ordered a bloody mary. Willie has not been feeling well, so JP was handling all of our drinks with a smile (and no power). After about 20 minutes the rain had stopped and the sun was peaking out from between a couple clouds, so we decided to try this again. The day was overcast and it did rain two more times, but only for about 5 minutes each, and it wasn’t enough to drive us off the beach.

Started talking with a couple of couples next to us and one of them turned out to be SD. Ended up talking with her and her husband and another couple for most of the afternoon. We were again out on the beach until after 6pm, but thanks to my trusty umbrella, and ½ a bottle of SPF 45, I did not aggravate my sunburn from Sunday, or add any color at all to my body.

We went home and cleaned up, and headed into Grand Case for dinner. Tonight we dined at Bistrot Caraibes. Another stellar meal. Our first course were the beef carpaccio, and the house smoked salmon. The second course we each had an order of the escargot in mushroom cream sauce because I am completely unwilling to share this. I dream about it, it is all mine and keep your fork to yourself! Our third course was the veal special and the lobster thermidor. Both were excellent! We ended the meal by sharing the warm chocolate cake and having coffee. A perfect end to a perfect day. I was asleep 5 minutes after returning home from diner.

Day 6, Wednesday

Slept in. I couldn’t even wake my husband by grinding coffee, and brewing a fresh batch. I was increadibly antsy to get to the beach, as today was clear and beautiful with no clouds in the sky. I ended up having to shake my husband awake around 10am. We puttered around a bit and decided on an early lunch at Baywatch. We split an amazing bowl of Andy’s Manhattan clam chowder, he had buffalo chicken, and I had the margarita shrimp. All was great as usual, and we were on the beach by noon.

We again met up with SD and her husband, Mark and Bene and their 3 adoreable children. Spent another thoroughly enjoyable day at the beach. We were out until about 5pm, and went home to clean up for our tasting menu tonite at Le Cottage.

Dinner tonite was nothing short of spectacular. We had pre arranged with Stephan to have an 8-10 course tasting with wine pairing and it did not disappoint!
Warning: if you are not into food, you can skip the next few paragraphs, as I am about to wax poetic about some amazing dining.

We started our meal with a great dry Muscat wine. Our first course was an amazing scallop with mushroom under puff pastry. The earthiness of the food set the subtle fruity/mineraly wine off. It was a great pairing.

Our next course was a crab napoleon with horseradish mayonnaise and balsamic tomatoes with a curried celery juice on the side (to drink). Again this went fantasticly with the Muscat, and as Stephan would say, “we were swimming in happiness”.

Our third course was lobster ravioli, but instead of the normal coconut apple sauce, they had submerged the ravioli in their amazing lobster bisque. By this time we were done with the Muscat, and Stephan was uncorking our favorite white Burgandy. The Louis Latour Poullinegt(sp?) Montrachet. This was amazing, as it is our favorite, and he didn’t even know it.

Our fourth course was their tuna tataki with wasabi cream and soy bean salad. Another amazing dish that went swimmingly with the wine. Even though tasting portions are smaller than regular portions, these were still quite large, and I am already starting to feel full.

The fifth course was nothing short of spectacular. It was a quail tasting, including a leg with crispy skin with a sweet pea and chick pea puree, a breast stuffed with fois gras, and thinly sliced tourchon ontop of brioche which was resting ontop of a sweet pea mousse. It was all amazing, but the sweet pea mousse had the freshest most amazing flavor of sweet pea. This was a dish that would have been right at home on the menu of Joel Robuchon or Thomas Kellar. Simply amazing.

Our sixth course was sautéed fois gras with beet chutney, herb salad, and pickeled beets. We were in heavan. I felt like Homer Simpson, and kept checking to make sure I didn’t have drool running down my chin. By this time I am stuffed, but I am a trooper, and I know that we still have a lot more food coming. I did some pilates breathing and was able to make some more room.

Our seventh course was sea scallops with avocado fritters. Truly amazing, and if you have never had fried guacamole, you really need to. I am now swimming in happiness, and I think I am starting to sweat fois gras and wine, but we continue.

Our eighth course was another fish. Sea Bass with crispy skin, beautiful roasted vegetables and a killer shitake mushroom risotto. By this time we are fighting our bodies urge to waddle over to the bench of the table next to us and take a nap. We were not quite able to finish the Sea Bass, but that was only because we still had 2 more courses on the way, and we wanted to do them justice as well.

Course nine, I am definitely starting to sweat fois, as my skin has taken on a very nice sheen, and I am smelling of goose. The lovely Laurent brings out a plate with 2 lollypop’s of lamb, with provincial tomato fritters, sweet potato mousse and a bit of tapanade. I really tried my best as this was yet again another amazing meal I put my head down and managed to finish the whole plate. I am however starting to hallucinate from the sheer volume of food in my body. I have promised myself that I will skip at least two meals tomorrow in order to give my digestive track a break.

Course ten, last but not least was dessert. It was again, a tasting of dessert. This amazing dish consisted of coconut crème brulee, a chocolate mousse coronet, tempura pinapple, and the most amazing strawberry sorbet served in a chocolate bowl. Magnifique!!!!!

We finished the meal by having some mint flavored aromatic rhum with Bruno, Stephan and Laurent. It was amazing, and something I would absolutely recommend doing if you are a foodie! Price was also increadibly reasonable, if you are interested in what it cost, please PM me.

We waddled back home, and for the first time all week, I was cursing the hills we had to climb to get back to the room.

More to come......

Lizzy