Anguilla XV: Straw Hat, Tasty's, and Another Day of Sheer Perfection

Passing showers during morning coffee

Despite the late night (by my standards anyway!), I rose with the dawn on the first day of the year and read while Michael slumbered a bit longer. Before long we were  both feeling a bit hungry, but Roy’s is closed on Mondays, so we broke our fast on with coffee and granola bars that we brought from home. We checked with Wayne first to make sure it was okay, and then brought our coffee downstairs to the closed restaurant to enjoy by the water.

We would not have wanted a full breakfast anyway since we had luncheon reservations at Straw Hat at 12:30. After it stopped raining we took a shorter walk up and down the Sandy Ground beach but the direct sun with no ameliorating breeze was starting to get a little too intense for my husband, who hails from northern stock much better suited to the cold.

Gorgeous Meads Bay

Looking for a change of scenery, we decided to take our chances to see if Straw Hat might have chairs & umbrellas available and packed up our beach bags to head to Meads Bay early. Luck was with us as we checked in and inquired whether they had anything left and we got the last set of chairs & umbrella in the front row facing the beach – huzzah!

With more than an hour before our reservation, we alternated between reading, hanging out in the water, and simply enjoying the breeze. Other times of year Meads can feel a little still, a little hot, but on this particular visit it was all bliss. We ordered a couple of Tings to enjoy and then eventually wandered up for our lunch table.

Sea Rueben

Banh Mi - minus cilantro

It’s always so hard to make up my mind what to eat at Straw Hat – I’ve never had a bad meal there, and their menu has changed so often that I’ve never fallen into any kind of food rut – but I have never hesitated when it comes to my drink order, and that’s their Ti punch. It’s one of my favorite rum drinks anywhere – not too sweet, and each ingredient gets to shine. Michael ordered the Island Passion, and then we decided on the Sea Rueben (him) and the Tuna Banh Mi (me), after I was gratified to learn that it could, in fact, be made without cilantro.

The whole experience was basically sublime. Our original plan for the day was to scoot somewhere else by 2:00, but we were experiencing a serious gravitational pull there. My husband’s preferred way of doing things is to stick to whatever plan we may have (it’s a plan – that’s what it’s for!), but even he seemed delighted with my proposal that we just stay put. Meads Bay was tossing up waves that were just large enough to demand our full attention when in the water so that they wouldn’t crest directly on our heads, and so our afternoon was spent in rotation between that glorious water, reading on our loungers, dozing off, and repeating.

This book pubs in May. It's SOOOO good.

Peter and Anne stopped to chat with us and we caught each other up on the broad strokes of our lives in the last couple of years, and then Peter mentioned that Waves had moved down to Sandy Ground and that it was amazing and we should try it out since it was so close to our home base at Roy’s. Around 4:00 pm we settled up our beach tab (which is separate from the main restaurant) and made our way homeward.

For this trip we were trying to alternate bigger ticket meals with more moderate ones, and so originally we thought we might pick up take out for dinner from Blanchards Beach Shack since we were in the neighborhood. After some discussion, however, we determined that we really wanted to sample something new-to-us and so we decided to give Tasty’s POV a try.

We arrived while it was still light enough to appreciate the view over Sandy Ground and were only the second table occupied. I think this is the second occasion on the trip where our server may have forgotten to put our order in, because we were there for nearly 30 minutes before she came back to say that they were out of a key ingredient for the drink I ordered. Again, luckily, we had not arrived hungry and we were in no rush whatsoever, so it was no hardship to sit and enjoy the view, the breeze, and the music which had started up in the interim.

I’m happy to say that our drinks arrived immediately after that, with our food not long to follow, and it was all worth waiting for. Michael had the seafood pasta, which was delicious (although not beautiful to photograph), while I chose the coconut crusted fish, coconut rice, and roasted veg. We loved it all and frankly it was hard not to lick the plate. Our bellies were full and happy, and it was a fantastic ending to a perfect day.