|
St Maarten/St Martin
17 April 2004 Newsletter
|
|
ISLAND
NEWS
Weather and
Beaches: Saturday stayed wonderful. The sea was clam and the
snorkeling at Cupecoy was great. Easter Sunday was more of the same. We
went to The Horny Toad for
an Easter brunch and some great swimming on a very calm Simpson Bay. On Monday
we enjoyed a perfect day at Cupecoy. I have never seen the water this clear and
calm. While snorkeling, we saw French angelfish (yellow and black bands), banded
butterflyfish (black and white bands), sergeant majors (yellow and black bands),
parrot fish, wrasses, tangs, crabs, goatfish, French grunts (yellow and white
horizontal stripes), bar jacks, peacock flounder, and more. On Tuesday I bumped
into a school of about 25 blue tangs of various sizes. The coral is also coming
back. I have seen live brain coral, fan coral, and I believe a baby staghorn. On
Friday a passing squall rolled through at about 9:30 in the morning, clearing
the air. The rest of the day was fabulous and on Saturday morning we could see
all four islands again.
Activities: We went for a snorkel/sail on
Random Wind on Friday.
They leave from just behind Buccaneer Beach Bar near Pelican M/W/F at
8:45AM and return at about 4:30PM. The sky was black to the north and
the trade winds were pushing out of the NW, so we sailed due south in an attempt
to stay dry. It didn't work, so the passengers huddled in the salon as Captain
Marten turned the boat back toward St Maarten and powered through the squall. A
few minutes later it was bright and sunny and we saw some flying fish as we
headed back toward St Maarten. We got back, heading up the west coast, passing
Cupecoy Beach looking quite good beneath
Cliffhanger, a bit thin from there to Ocean Club, and fairly
good thereafter. We hugged the coast getting some fantastic views of the island
and a few snacks as we headed to Happy Bay, reachable only by foot from Friar's
Bay (or by boat). It was a bit choppy and the sea was not very clear so we
headed out to Créole Rock in Grand Case. The snorkeling here was very good. If
you stay in the lee of the rock, it is calm and loaded with small fish. I swam
up in the calm water, along the rock and emerged at the edge where the waves
came crashing through. I then used the waves/current to carry me back to the
boat. I saw a very large, very colorful queen parrotfish, lots of sergeant
majors, blue runners, a clown wrasse, goatfish, and a cute little black
number with iridescent red dots, blue tangs, yellowtail snappers, and
more. Martha headed to the rock and turned north along the rock, spotting
squid, trunkfish, trumpetfish, and a ballyhoo. We got back on the boat
and headed to Friar's Bay for a tasty lunch and a short swim/snorkel. I went to
the shore and on the way back I was investigated by three blue runners (I
think) about 30 inches long . It appears their intentions were honorable as
I have all my toes. We got back on the boat and took a long tack out toward
Anguilla and tacked back to Pointe Canonier at the eastern edge of St
Maarten. As we ran along the western coast we saw a couple dolphins, ducked
under some low flying aircraft as we rounded the airport and settled into
Simpson Bay. Photos in a future photo spread and I'll add some to the
website.
We had a lovely time and even our landlubbing friends
did alright given a bit of Dramamine. This is a monohull sailboat about 50 foot
long. You will get the feel of the sea, especially as they cut the engines and
sail. There were only 13 customers on the boat and a crew of 2. They will go out
if they get 10 customers and close out reservations at 14 max. If this sounds
good to you, you'll have a great time. There are bigger cats with a much wider
stance and powerful motors that take many more people to the out islands of
Anguilla. It's unclear that the sailing is much smoother because the bigger,
wider boats are tackling bigger seas, so the main difference is that there
are more people, the boat motors the entire distance, and Prickly Pear is a
bit better for snorkeling. Random Wind will have fewer people, it will
sail, and you'll get great closeup views of St Maarten, views you will never get
from a car. I've had fun on both and fun on the lagoon cruises which are great
for those who are most unseaworthy.
Airport: The new control tower was put in
operation recently. It not only controls SXM airspace (including the tiny French
Airport, Esperance) but also the sister islands of Statia and Saba, and the
neighboring islands of Anguilla and St Barts.
Photo feature: There are some photos of
the week's activities at a secret location not posted here.
Subscribe to the newsletter to get the location.
There are some shots of Cupecoy during the previous two weeks of great
weather.
Wines: The Thursday wine tasting at Vinissimo featured a
lovely 98 Macon-Clessé Domaine de la Bongram from Jean Thevenot ($29).
Chardonnay from Macon is usually quite crisp, the acidity cuts through fish
oils, making it a perfect complement to fish dishes. This one, by
virtue of its winemaker and six years of age had a rather large,
round, older chardonnay flavor, better suited for chicken dishes or even as
a wine to sip without food as it is fairly luscious all by itself. Mr Thevenot
gets even weirder as he makes a late harvest wine from these same grapes
rivaling Sauternes in its sweetness. Sylvain had a bottle of the 95 for about
$50. This, of course, is not in the prescription from the French wine
police so all future bottlings of this will lose the appelation and
merely be called Vin du Pays.
For the
main course (a duck pâté), we then switched to a 99 Chambolle-Musigny that
seemed to get better with each sip (also about $50). The pâté and the
burgundy were a lovely match. Musigny is a tiny vineyard near the top of
the hill in the town of Chambolle, which appended the name of its best vineyard
to itself as a marketing tactic many years ago. The real Musigny is one of my
favorite burgundies, but I must wait for my rich uncle to pass some my way, as
the price is staggering. Chambolle-Musigny, possibly a premier cru, is about as
far as my budget goes.
For dessert we had a 1980 Rivesaltes Cuvée Ainé Cazes, a
staggeringly complex sweet red wine from France, quite close to the Spanish
border. I think this would be lovely with some raspberry or strawberry
desserts.
Groceries: For Easter dinner
we had a farm raised French chicken, about three pounds, $18, not cheap, but
very tasty. We added some haricot verts, also not cheap, but outstanding and
some pied bleu mushrooms, even less cheap. All of these were available at the US
Import at the French Bridge. We had a bottle of 92 Mazis-Chambertin Hospices de
Beaune Grand Cru that we picked up for a mere $65 at Philipsburg Liquor.
Altogether, a rather expensive home-cooked meal, but the chicken was great, the
reduction sauce with the mushrooms was outstanding, and the wine was even
better, probably the best Burgundy I have ever had. The Hospices is a hospital
in Beaune, the ancient capital of Burgundy. Every year on 15 November they
auction off the barrels of wine that come from vineyards donated to them over
the centuries. This is the first auction of Burgundy every year and is supposed
to establish the quality of the vintage. Robert Drouhin of Joseph Drouhin
explained to me that his father Maurice, and grandfather, Joseph, the founder of
the firm, had left parcels to the Hospice. The labels for the wines from these
parcels bears the name Drouhin, in addition to the Hospice name.
Consequently, Robert felt obliged to purchase the barrels and make the
very best wine he could from it. His friendly, or not so friendly, competitors
knew this, so they bid against him at the auction, knowing that they would never
be allowed to win. Needless to say, he returned the favor when their
legacies came up for auction. Consequently, the prices paid may not accurately
reflect the quality of the wine, but I guarantee that the winemakers do their
best to put spectacular wines in the bottles that bear the Hospices
label.
CONTEST
Temptation Restaurant is sponsoring
the current contest, which will run until 16 May. Just click
their name to go to their website, find the link
to sign up for the SXM-Info newsletter, click it, sign up, and you are
entered. Obviously everybody that is getting this email is already signed
up for the newsletter, but you are not automatically signed up for the contest.
You do have to go to their website and click the email link to show you visited
their site. Just tell me you are already on our mailing list, and I'll leave you
signed up for the newsletter and just add your name to the contest list. You
could win a $100 toward a great meal at Temptation.
Here is the list of future sponsors.
We urge you all to sign up ONCE for each contest. Our clients want you to see
what they have to offer. Go to their websites at the appropriate time, click the
link, and you could be a winner. Look for future gift certificates
from:
Vacation Suites - 17 May to
30 June - prize: 1 free week over the
summer!
L'Auberge Gourmande - 1
July to 15 August - $100 off a meal for two
Sunset Café - 16 August to
30 September - $100 off a meal for two
Montmartre Restaurant - 1
October to 15 November - $100 off a meal for two
Sealine Charters -
16 November to 15 December
Chez Pat/Tropical Wave - 16 December to 6 January - $100 off a day at the beach:
food, drinks, chairs, windsurf lessons, etc
Escargot
Restaurant - 18 February to 4 March 2005
Hot
Tomatoes - 5 March to 26 March
2005
Celine Pub
Crawl - 25 April to 5 June 2005 - two tickets
on the Lagoon Pub Crawl
Another contest:
Hot Tomatoes has a contest
on their website to kick off their combination lagoon cruise/dinner
package. You can now take sunset lagoon cruise on White
Octopus and follow it up with a dinner at
Hot
Tomatoes. They are giving away a two pizza dinner
with a bottle of red, but you have to go to the website, click the comments link, and
send in some comments. Somebody's going to get two pizzas with a
bottle of red just for saying something that tickles our fancy. I talked to Brad
last night and we're looking for 25 entries. As soon as we get 25, we'll post
them, and pick a winner. While you are there, look over Brad's site, check out
the coupon, and take a look at the White
Octopus.
RESTAURANTS
On 10 April the
euro was at 1.205 and today it's at 1.932. Not much
going on there, but it's still heading in the right direction. French side
restaurants with many costs in dollars and many American (or Canadian) clients
have been offering more favorable exchange rates. Some restaurants offer
a 1 to 1 exchange. This list includes California,
Escapade, Balaou, Santal, Enoch's Place, Au Beaujolais,
Rainbow, Oizeau Rare, Pirate on Orient (not Repaire du Pirate in
Grand Case), Restaurant du Soliel, Pedro's (priced in dollars - no conversion
ever), Saint Germain, Petite Auberge des Iles, and Paradise View. Many
restaurants will offer you a better rate than you can get on your credit card,
so you can allow them to convert and charge in dollars. Note that California
only offers 1 to 1 on cash purchases. Some restaurants have lowered their
prices. I just did it again for Bistrot
Caraibes. As always, know what the euro is worth, what the restaurateur
is offering for an exchange, and what the costs are on the menu. Finally, you
are here to have fun and fine food, not complex financial calculations, so don't
worry about it too much.
On Saturday night we went
to Old Captain in downtown
Pburg for a sushi dinner. We had the $30 combo plate of sushi, sashimi, and some
norimake (rice rolls, hold the seaweed wrapper). We added two beers and had a
dinner for less than $40 on the waterfront. They even offered us our choice of
sixtops on the water as all the deuces were taken. Obviously, things are a bit
slow on the last weekend before the hotel and car rental rates
drop.
On Monday we went
to Domaine de L'Amandier for a
dinner by the sea in Grand Case. The sand is back on their beach, so it is a
lovely spot for lunch and a loaf on the beach or even a swim. At night, the
lights are on the water and Anguilla glows in the distance. The "wall" of the
dining room is the seawall, so you are pretty close to the water.
There is a new chef this
season, but the menu is much
the same. Nonetheless, all the dishes are slightly different. We had
the cooked foie gras on a bed of sautéed apples topped with crisp
potato slices so thin they qualified as nanotechnology ($23). All of this was
swimming is a sauce laced with Calvados. How do I love this dish? Let me count
the ways. First is foie gras. If you like it, no finer taste treat is available.
The subtle taste and the buttery smoothness are extraordinary. Next is pairing
it with apples (pommes in French), an absolutely classic combination of tastes
and contrast in textures (given a light sauté). The crisp potato on the top is
not only another crisp contrast but a little food pun from the chef (pommes de
terre, get it?). Finally, calvados is a brandy made from apples. They
also had a great sweet Monbazillac for a mere $5 per glass to accompany the foie
gras. OK, I liked it. For the rest of the meal we chose a 2001
Mercurey Premier Cru ($50), obviously a let-down from our Sunday wine, but a
good Burgundy. I had a rare ahi tuna with garlic mashed potatoes and two
sauces: a soy/sesame blend and a garlic/mayo ($26). This dish used to come on a
bed of mashed potatoes, rather uninspiring. The new chef doesn't mash the
potatoes as much and forms them into a column that tips up the slice of tuna.
Does it taste better? Actually, I rather like the texture of lumpy mashed
potatoes better, but even if you don't, this looks much better. Martha had
the chef's style shrimp, essentially sautéed shrimp with a saffron sauce,
but rather light on the saffron, given the expense ($24). For saffron, check out
Saffron.com: $36 per ounce delivered. They
also have vanilla beans and extract and dried mushrooms. The total bill came to
$134 using a 1.2 to 1 rate.
On Tuesday we went
to Casablanca at the Atlantis
Casino for a Moroccan dinner on the plush couches. It's a lovely space and the
food is quite interesting and not very expensive.We had a bottle of Monredon
Cotes du Rhone ($21) and the mixed ap called Kemia that has Khizou - spiced
carrots, Btata - lemon and egg potato salad with cumin, Zaalouk - mashed
eggplant salad with saffron, Hmmoss - chick peas with lime, cumin, and parsley,
Taktouka - cooked tomatoes and red pepper salad with garlic (I love this), and
Matecha - marinated fresh tomatoes with onions and coriander. They are all
interesting and it comes with pita bread. Our dinners were a long cooked lamb
and eggplant tajine and kefta, a tajine of beef meatballs, probably kosher beef,
and kosher for Passover. They were not big and juicy, but small and loaded with
flavor in a cumin sauce. We also received a large bowl of cous-cous
and an even larger bowl of vegetables in broth. The lamb was a shank, but was
falling-off-the-bone tender from the long cooking. The best thing was that for
more food than we could eat, we paid $83 and the bill made it quite clear that
service was included.
On Wednesday we went to Auberge Gourmande for the
smoked salmon with a bit of greens and lime juice. The bread on the table and
that used for the toast points is made in-house and is quite tasty. We had a
bottle of Jaboulet's Crozes-Hermitage, a step up from the Cotes-du-Rhone
Parellele 45 (that is quite good) and the Gigondas, but not as elevated as the
Chateauneuf-du-Papes (and not as expensive). It's a pretty good wine and doesn't
have the richness of the Chateauneuf, not all that bad with smoked fish and our
dinners: shrimp with a scallop risotto and chicken with foie gras and oyster
mushroom stuffing. Take a look at the photos on the website.
On Thursday some friends arrived for a week and we headed to
Le Mambo to sample Chef Eric's cuisine again.
They were having a special on Joseph Drouhin's La Foret burgundy ($24) so we
started with that and ordered appetizers of snails in puff pastry with a creamy
chive sauce and a fan of asparagus, scallops and shrimp in a creamy Monbazillac
(sweet white wine from the south of France) sauce, and a Caesar salad. The
snails were plump and tasty and the sauce was quite good. The shrimp and
scallop dish was an outstanding combination of firm shrimp and scallops in a
creamy and very tasty sauce, a very well-conceived dish. The light red wine was
fine with the flavorful scallop dish and we moved on to Jaboulet's
Crozes-Hermitage ($27) for the heartier entrées: two duck confits, lamb chops
with a light herbed reduction sauce and a sweet and regular potato gratin and
vegetables, and conch with Caribbean vegetables (carrots, various peppers,
zucchini, and lemon peel) and a Reunion sauce. Allow me to explain. Duck
confit is a specialty from Gascony, where salted, cooked duck (generally the leg
and thigh, sometimes a wing or a few innards) is placed in a jar and
layered with duck fat. This will actually keep for several months without
refrigeration. Eventually, it is taken from the jar, the fat is removed, and a
very flavorful bit of duck becomes part of this classic dish with peas and
mashed potatoes. The lamb chops need no explanation, just a comment that they
were tender, cooked exactly as ordered, and accompanied by some very tasty
potatoes and veg. Conch, of course, comes from the standard large
shell with the pinkish interior that is for sale on all Caribbean islands. There
really isn't much around the islands any more as they have been fished out
everyplace but in the marine parks. The actual conch is a tough little creature
and it takes considerable skill to make it tender enough to eat. Eric's skill as
a Créole chef is such that this conch was tasty and tender and the
vegetable accompaniment was a very tasty and interesting combination. Reunion is
an island about the size of Rhode Island off the coast of Madagascar in the
Indian Ocean. This spicy sauce had tomatoes, pepper, and onion
in citrus juice, something like sauce chien which deletes the tomatoes and
uses oil rather than citrus juice. We stopped at this point as our guests were
fading after a long day traveling. Maryline brought some fine flavored rum over
and we paid a bill of $171, aided by a 1.1 to 1 rate for the dollar.
On Friday we went California. They have
a parking lot a bit down the street on the other side. Parking problems solved,
we proceeded to a waterfront table that we had reserved via email. We were met
by Patricia and Timothy Young of Esperance Car
Rental and Esperance
Hotel. The car rental firm is the oldest on the island,
started by Patricia's father. The Hotel offers one and two bedroom suites with
kitchenettes for $65 and $95 respectively. We started with a Macon-Village 200
Château de Mercey, a good crisp white burgundy for the benefit of the people who
ordered crabcakes. I had a sweet Monbazillac with my foie gras and the people
with the creamy mushroom soup with a puff pastry topping moved on to the 99
Savigny les Beaune from Antonin Rodet. The crabcakes came on a bed of greens
with a curry sauce. The mushroom soup brought raves. I've had the foie gras
before and it was just as good, only this time, Alain had added a very tart,
rather crisp onion chutney, rather than the sweet mango marmalade that I
had previously. It made for an interesting contrast in taste and texture. We had
a house salad thrown into the mix and it arrived an a large shell and was enough
for a party of six! Check the website.
Our dinners were lamb tenderloin (for
me, again) and a conch Créole (for Martha, again), a salmon lasagna with
tarragon flavoring, and scallops and shrimp dish. It appears that Martha and I
are on a lamb and lambi (French for conch) diet. Again, the conch were tender
and tasty. As Alain and Eric work across the street from one another, they may
trade secrets. The lamb tenderloin was another interesting dish, very tender
lamb with a crisp pastry shell in a morel mushroom sauce with a potato gratin.
The salmon lasagna was very good and the scallops and shrimp were fabulous in a
saffron sauce. We finally had some takers for Alain's specialty: Crêpes. This
one came with caramelized apples inside and a dollop of ice cream. The
complimentary rum punch ended another great evening. The price was a bit over
$100 per couple, largely because of the 1 to 1 exchange rate offered for
cash.