An Unconventional Sunday on Anguilla

View from the upper level of Villa Ella

Sunday turned out to be a lazy day all around for us.  We slept a little later than usual, and after a morning stroll on the beach, we decided to have wine & cheese for breakfast.  We’d bought quite a bit of snacks at Best Buy a few days ago, including two bottles of wine, and were a little afraid that, given our roster of dinner reservations, some might otherwise be wasted.  So, taking one for the team, we had a boozy breakfast. Really, since we added a splash of passionfruit juice to the sauvignon blanc, it was really more like sangria, or better yet, a tropical and non-fizzy mimosa, which is a totally reasonable breakfast beverage.

Same view as above, but zoomed in

The day before I requested, and had been granted, permission to have our morning coffee and evening cocktails upstairs on the upper level of Villa Ella. The mosquitos were just so terrible that it was impossible for us to enjoy sitting outside on the lower level, which is the level we were renting, and since the owner was away, she graciously agreed that we could carry our beverages upstairs and bookend our days that way.

Michael had gotten a bit sunburned the day before -- seeing the sun for the first time and being on Shoal Bay East made us a tad careless -- so we decided to be shade seekers for the rest of the morning. After breakfast we read under our umbrella on our beach until the sun crept over the sea grapes, then moved indoors to pack a bag for the afternoon.

We had decided upon Jacala for our lunch that day. I love this place, but I tend to prefer it for lunch over dinner. The location is so pretty right there on Meads Bay that it’s a shame to not see it in full sunlight. We found out after the fact that we were lucky to walk in without a reservation, since it was his first Sunday that Jacala was open for lunch for the season. But we got one of the last two tables available and counted ourselves fortunate. Jacques came over to welcome Michael, and welcome me back, to the restaurant.  I tried gamely to respond in French but I didn’t get very far.

I knew from the start that I wanted crayfish, and while Michael had technically tasted crayfish as a component in other dishes on the island, I wanted him to see it as the star of its own dish. We split a crayfish platter, which was the perfect amount of food when combined with the cucumber soup and the conch ceviche. That soup is one of my favorite soups on the planet -- so simple, but the spicy tomato sorbet elevates the cucumber in a sublime way.

The conch ceviche was beautiful and delicious. We shared both appetizers as equally as possible before delving into the grilled crayfish, which I forgot entirely to photograph. Between the beautiful setting and the incredible food, we were enjoying ourselves immensely. Because they forgot to bring me my glass of rosé until the crayfish had been almost entirely devoured, they comped me a second glass, so we lingered a bit longer than we otherwise would have. But that simply gave us enough time to know that we wanted to dessert, so it was a win-win.

I had had the rum baba once before, after seeing Frank from Savannah Gallery write about it on his blog. With this dessert, you can have your cake and drink it, too.  It was just as delicious as I remembered, with a delicate cake surrounding a scoop of banana sorbet, sitting in a sweet rum sauce.

Ocean Echo’s Rumzie

After lunch, we had planned to stop in at Ocean Echo so that we could see Andrea once again and to hear Omalie 360 play in the afternoon.  We got there close to 3:00 and stayed for about an hour, sipping our rum punches and enjoying the music.  It was too loud to chat, so we didn’t get to talk with Andrea as much as we usually do, but it was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Ocean Echo’s famous drink is called the Rumzie, which was too sweet for me on its own, but I asked Andrea for more lime juice and it made it delicious. Michael liked it jussssst fine as ordered.

We left there to head home to Barnes Bay. There wasn’t much of a sunset that day, but we enjoyed our sundowners anyway. Around 7:00 we drove back down to Sandy Ground to give Criss Conch Shack another try, but nobody was around.  You can’t say we didn’t give them a fair shake, but we were both disappointed not to be able to try a new local place.

We contemplated going back to Elvis’s again, but Michael was torn between that and trying someplace new. Since we had had a very high end lunch, we wanted something more on the casual side, so we drove back to the west end to Picante to eat dinner without breaking the bank. We had a couple of passionfruit margaritas at the bar while waiting for a table to become available, which gave us time to deliberate over the menu.  Michael settled on the chili-crusted spicy tuna tacos while I went with the Picante tacos, and we were both extremely pleased with our selections.  The lighting wasn’t very good, but here’s the only photo that turned out clearly enough:

We were both pretty full by the time we finished our meals, but I have a terrible sweet tooth and Michael was hankering for something sweet, too, so we ordered a frozen lemon-lime pudding to share, accompanied by a lime-chili salt.  Well, it was delicious.  The salt absolutely made it a cut above, and we were both glad we’d ordered it.  With heavy bellies we drove back home where we were wowed by the clarity of the night sky.  Stars were everywhere and with the lack of light pollution we saw so much more than we ever get to see at home. Just gorgeous.

Last Day on Anguilla: Le Sigh

Thursday is our last full day on the island, so we decide to splurge. Go big or go home!  (Or more like, Go big, then go home.)  For us, this means eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner away from Caribella.  We got off to an early start, arriving at Geraud's around 7:00 for another pastry breakfast, then back home to enjoy Barnes Bay and have a chat with Vandra.

I don't know this flowering plant at Caribella is, but it's lovely

The ixora was in bloom at Caribella

At 11:30 we went inside to pack a beach bag (just in case) before heading out to Jacala. We have eaten quite a few expensive lunches on the island, but among them, Jacala has consistently offered the best food.  I've occasionally found the service to be a bit haughty for dinner (if not always directed at us, then directed at neighboring tables), but I absolutely love it for lunch.  We missed out on Jacala on our last visit, so I made sure we got there this time, saving the best for last.

The beautiful setting at Jacala

I love the crisp, cool interior

Once more, we were the first guests to arrive for lunch. This gave us the luxury of time to consider and debate our various selections without worrying about whether we were holding things up, or monopolizing any staff, and to ask questions about certain ingredients (such as undisclosed cilantro). I eventually settled on the grilled watermelon salad.  I don't know who I was trying to kid, as I've never gone there for lunch and not ordered it, but I guess I wanted to give other dishes a chance. Reckon I'll have to save that for next time.

Grilled watermelon and goat cheese salad

DH, in the meantime, chose the chilled cucumber soup with spicy tomato sorbet, which is the dish I usually pair with my watermelon salad, but this time, we asked if we could each have one grilled crayfish in addition.  It's a regular part of the menu, and the lunch portion is four crayfish per serving, which is just a ridiculous amount of food to eat during the hot part of the day, in my opinion.

This is one of my favorite soups, ever

Simple, grilled crayfish with garlic lemon butter. 

Every bite of our food was excellent from start to finish, and the slightly-out-of-character wine that I sipped with lunch put me in a very mellow frame of mind, indeed.  We sat for awhile, enjoying the breeze, the setting, the company, and naturally, our books.  I walked outside to the beach to make a few photos before returning to the table to order dessert. Looking left up the beach, Meads Bay stretched all the way to Viceroy without many people to interrupt the view, but looking right from Jacala was a very different story.  Between the chairs & umbrellas at Blanchards Beach Shack and the same at Carimar just beyond, it looked quite crowded indeed.  Makes me wonder what it might look like in high season...

Looking left from Jacala 

These chairs are complimentary with lunch at Jacala

Looking right towards Malliouhana

Our server brought a dessert board over for us to make our considered decision.  Once again, I found myself sinking into a rut, but oh, what a delicious rut it was.  I'm fairly certain that for dessert I've never ordered anything else but the mint panna cotta with a papaya mint marmalade, and it was fabulous, and DH opted for the crème brulée, which was good (it's not my favorite dessert). The accompanying meringues were also excellent. In retrospect, I now wish we would have tried the rum baba, after reading about it on the Savannah Gallery blog, but for whatever reason, it didn't jump out at me that day.

After that thoroughly leisurely meal that was satisfactory in every way, we were surprised and delighted that Jacques came by to offer us a taste of one of their special house-made infused rums.  I tried the vanilla rum, but DH's choice of the spicy vanilla rum was the better choice.  Both were good, but the spicy one was of a higher order altogether.  We vowed to ourselves after this superlative experience that we'd never let Jacala slip from our vacation roster again.

Our infused rums

One last panoramic shot before leaving

So, quite sated and beyond sassified, we made our way back to Caribella to read, nap, pack, and swim.  In that order. I don't usually nap on vacation, but the combination of the mellowing effects of wine and the melancholy notion that it was our last day on the island overtook me. Upon waking, I did the majority of my packing so that I could enjoy the last few hours on Anguilla to their fullest. After one last dip in our private swimming cove, it was time to head back home and get ready for the sunset and dinner.

Another lovely sunset

We usually do Veya on our last night on the island, but we had just visited them a second time (and had our first meal there that wasn't wonderful and perfect) with our new friends, Lori and Frank, earlier in the week, so we switched things around and decided to go back to Straw Hat instead. It was an excellent choice, and besides which, it gave us the chance to drop off our bag of books like we do every year for the Island Books program (Straw Hat is one of a few drop off points around the island). We tend to wait until late in our visit so that some books that we read while on Anguilla can be dropped off, too.

We had another great table that night, this time on the eastern end of the patio.  Because we didn't want to rush ourselves, we enjoyed a cocktail before placing an order.  Despite my track record from Jacala earlier in the day, I decided to try something new, Straw Hat's take on a Long Island Iced Tea. Like it's eponym, it's good but strong.

It was a beautiful evening.  Peter and Doris came by to chat, and we so enjoy talking with them.  Peter's always great for sharing island news and tidbits, which we appreciate. Eventually it was time to order, and to my surprise, my carnivore-leaning DH ordered their special eggplant dish.  It stood out on the menu as one of the very few vegetarian entrées available on Anguilla that's not a pasta dish, and afterwards, Peter, DH, and I talked about how surprising that is.  We all three agreed that it was an excellent dish and think that the many fine restaurants on the island should take note and provide at least one vegetarian option on their menus.

Doesn't that look yummy?

I had the crispy grilled snapper with my choice of sides: creamed spinach and garlic mashed potatoes, with various sauces on the sides.  It was also excellent, and DH and I traded several bites back and forth.

Foregoing our usual caramelized banana dessert, we decided to try the warm coconut tart instead, thus rendering all future dessert decisions at Straw Hat to be impossible, for it was divine.  This may well become one of those restaurants where I force strongly encourage DH to order a separate dessert, because choosing between my old favorite and my new favorite will undoubtedly prove to be too Herculean a task.

We enjoyed the breeze and the warm night and lingered there until we could no longer stave off our yawns.  We don't usually stay out late, but we were the last table remaining, but one. It's hard to say goodbye on the last night, isn't it?  So thus it was that we went home heavy hearted to pack the last few remaining items.

Since we transported a kitty from AARF on the way back to the States, I'll do a concluding post soon that features our travel day and any kind of trip wrap-up that comes to mind.  But in the meantime, thanks for traveling along with me and for sending me your encouragements, both here as comments and on the various travel forums where these trip reports are also posted.  I so appreciate it!

It's a small, small world!

Photo credit: B. Moser

Sunday, 10/10/10

Our second, yet last, full day in Anguilla.  How is that possible?  At the same time that my blood slows down to beat time with the island’s pulse, Time itself seems to speed up, mocking us all. 

In keeping with tradition at home, my husband whips up a big Sunday morning breakfast that is intended to carry us through the day until dinner-we’ve got eggs, bacon, fruit, toast, and kielbasa.  Our energy that carried us through two long, stressful days of travel and that kept us going once we hit Anguilla, is finally lagging, so we give in to it.  We declare Sunday a stay-at-home day, so instead of packing a beach bag, we simply roll out the door with towels in hand to lay claim to some prime beachfront real estate.

This was shot on a crowded Sunday.  Believe me, there
are hordes of people just out of view.

Santa Claus on vacation

My new best friend

 Waves, sand, surf, bird cries, and…kitty cats?  There’s a black and white tomcat who lives at SBE who decided I was his new best friend.  How did he know I was such a soft touch and would soon amble back to the room to fetch the leftover bacon for him?  I admit it—I’m a total sucker for cats.  I’m an animal lover in general and dogs (including my own big, sweet lug of a girl, Roxie) make my heart melt, but cats are the creatures who have bewitched my soul.  Perhaps I was a Bast-worshipping Egyptian in a former life. 

DH and me, after our cutthroat Bananagrams game

Our lovely DG at Madeariman's

Around 1:00, though still full from breakfast, we start craving some frozen refreshment so we amble over to Madeariman once more.  Lucy (short for Luciana) greets us with a friendly hug since we were just there two days ago for lunch.  Two rounds of Ting take us through one game of Bananagrams, but then it’s time to roll out the big guns: Pina colada (DG), passion fruit colada (moi) and banana colada (DH).  It’s about that time that I hear DG’s stomach from across the table.  Despite her protests that she wasn’t that hungry, she managed to put away a large fish burger, a mound of cole slaw, and French fries (okay, she had some help with the fries).  And a Diet Coke to wash it all down, of course!  But she wasn’t hungry.   Not at all. 

You're lookin' at the world record shortest cherry stem
tied into a knot, courtesy of DH's mouth.

We decide to walk off some of our indulgences at Madeariman, so we nab some more sunscreen and cover-ups to walk up the beach to Gwen’s to check out the state of the erosion.  We also bring along a small kite, hoping we can launch it into the air for some photo-ops.  Unfortunately, we didn’t realize when we grabbed the kite that the kite string had detached, so we didn’t have anything to fly it with.  Undeterred, DG tried to improvise.  We paused in the shade by Serenity to sit for a spell, where the rhythm of the waves mesmerized us.  Then headed back to Ku to catch the last rays of sun for the afternoon. 

Triple self-portrait at Upper Shoal Bay

Palm grove in front of Gwen's.  Another one bites the dust, sadly.

Just tryin' to get our freak flag flyin'

Jacala interior. 

For once, a decent photo of me.  Jacala.

Dinner that night was at Jacala.  DH and I had eaten there for lunch in June and were so impressed that we wanted to return for dinner.  Unfortunately for me, the grilled watermelon & goat cheese salad wasn’t available, and I have to say, the owner/host was a little off-putting and more than a little condescending when taking our order.  When the food arrived, it mostly made up for it though: Cucumber soup with a tomato sorbet – excellent. Grilled veggie & feta terrine with greens – excellent.  Fettuccine with basil & tomatoes – excellent. Ceviche of conch – very good.  Conch chowder – very good.  Mint panna cotta with papaya marmalade – excellent.  And last, but not least, mango sorbet – very good. 

After we were seated, I jokingly turned to my husband and said, “What do you want to bet that we’ll see somebody here tonight whom we know well enough to speak to?”  After defining the terms as “someone whom we know by name and who in turn recognizes us at least by sight”, he was eager to bet against me.  Silly man.  Doesn’t he know better by now?  It wasn’t Junior or his wife, neither Carrie nor her husband, but halfway through our meal, young Alexis (the young woman in the San Juan airport who fought to get us all to St. Maarten) walked in with her beau.  We stopped to chat with them after our meal, but before their food arrived (did I mention that service was VERY slow?), where they told us that they finally arrived in Anguilla the night before.  Having overslept and missed the American Eagle flight to St Maarten, they caught a LIAT flight to Anguilla via Antigua.  They loved what little they had seen of the island and were raving about Viceroy in particular (you didn’t really think they were staying anywhere else, did you?). 

DH still owes me $10.  Guess that's appropriate for 10/10/10.

Escaping the heat on our porch with my new best friend

Sunset at Ku

How I spent my summer vacation, part XI

The road to Caribella

Anguilla Day 6

Our last full day on the island always leaves us feeling a little melancholy, because no matter how much we’re enjoying ourselves, there’s the constant undercurrent of, “well, this is the last time we eat breakfast/ go to the PO/ visit with Vandra/ snorkel/ walk on the beach in Anguilla for another year.”

Isn’t it the way it happens? We discover our new favorite spots for breakfast and lunch on our last day. For breakfast we drove over to Koal Keel’s Le Petit Patisserie, where we sat at the single table on the balcony and lingered with our books over pastries and coffee. The elevated position on the balcony afforded us a wonderful breeze, the strong coffee reminded us very much of the chicory coffee served in New Orleans, and the fresh, flaky pastries were excellent. We remained there for nearly an hour, just soaking it all in, and marveling that the pastry chef’s shift begins at 1:00 am just so people like us can enjoy the fruits of his or her labor at the more leisurely hour of 8:00 am.

Our private balcony breakfast. We LOVED this place!

We went back to spend the morning at Barnes Bay, and this time we were the only souls on the beach all morning. The surf was up a little bit more than it had been in previous days, with waves about 18-24”. We read and walked and read and swam and read some more before heading back to the room to clean up.

Jacala for lunch

By 1:00 pm we had pulled up to Jacala where we spent the next few hours, first dining and then lounging on Meads Bay. The atmosphere was really lovely, a cool white background with brightly colored, tasteful accents. We drank iced tea like it was going out of style, meanwhile ordering the chilled cucumber soup with spicy tomato sorbet (DH) and the grilled watermelon & chevre salad (me). The soup was excellent, very delicately flavored and refreshing on a hot day, but my dish was no less than a revelation. The heat from the grilled watermelon caused the chevre to melt, and topping it all was a chilled salad of arugula, dressed with a fine balsamic reduction. It was perfect—a perfect balance of flavors, temperatures and textures that was just out of this world (but I won’t forget that it was the chef at Veya who first served up grilled watermelon). My husband doesn’t even like goat cheese and he was even raving about my salad. For dessert we shared the mint panna cotta, which was topped with a papaya-mint marmalade and accompanied by two coconut macaroons, and it was also perfect. (As of this writing several days later, I can still taste the fresh mint, the lightness of the custard, and the unexpected savory dimension of the marmalade.) The whole experience was superlative.

After lunch we gathered up our books to relax on the beach for a while. DH claimed the hammock while I reclined on one of their brightly colored canvas chairs that are structurally similar to bean bags. The day was bright, but between the palm trees and the open umbrellas, we had plenty of shade. Meads Bay was relatively busy, with lots of people walking or jogging along the waterline. Carimar, where we stayed for our first visit last year, had a couple dozen chairs & umbrellas set up, and though not every chair was occupied, it gave the effect of being crowded. (NB: In fact, when informed back in May by the staff that Carimar had about 2/3 occupancy for the week we were considering, we thought it would feel a bit too crowded for us. We really like Carimar and would return in the future, though.) By the time we left that afternoon, I had come to the startling conclusion that though Meads Bay is, in fact, stunningly pretty, it seems to lack the character of our favorite beaches on the island. I’m not sure I can put my finger on the whys and wherefores. Just lacking a certain je ne sais quoi, I suppose.

Looking left on Meads toward Viceroy the beach was fairly empty, but looking next door
toward Carimar, it was really packed. Relatively speaking, of course.

Late afternoon we headed back to do most of our packing and then enjoy a last walk and swim at Barnes Bay. It was nice to bookend our last day the same way as our first day, and though I was physically feeling much better at this point, my heart was certainly heavy. Even the sunset was appropriately subdued. ☺

We rallied ourselves for our final meal at Veya, which is hands-down our favorite place for dinner. We always choose it for our last evening meal on the island because anything else would invite comparison and come up lacking. This was our fourth visit over the course of three vacations, and Chef Carrie never ceases to impress with the consistency of the quality and her inventiveness. The atmosphere is a soothing, sophisticated one with the feeling of a treetop escape.

Ahhh, Veya!

After the hot johnnycakes (I LOVE those!) and the amuse-bouche of spicy pumpkin soup, I started with the Moroccan spiced shrimp cigars despite their cilantro content, partly because so many people have raved about them online, partly because I wanted to make the leap and trust the chef’s ability to balance flavors to perfection. I wasn’t at all disappointed. The cilantro was present, to be sure, but the other flavors were so intense that I honestly couldn’t detect it. DH started with the calamari and he also was quite sassified. For my main course, I had the appetizer of grilled watermelon (I guess it was just a grilled watermelon kind of day for me!) with poached shrimp, fresh mint, and candied pecans, and it was blissful. DH had the vanilla-cured duck breast accompanied by wilted spinach and au gratin potatoes. I really love the way the chef uses ingredients that seem counter-intuitive to me, like using vanilla and watermelon to a savory effect, but I also appreciate that nothing on the menu seems over-the-top—just the best, freshest ingredients served up in delightfully unexpected ways. Though we love the dense, rich coconut cake on the menu, it was simply too much after our meal, so we asked if we could just have a serving of the coconut-lime sorbet that they use as an accent on one of their other desserts and they were happy to comply. DH discovered a rum called Methusalen that just might supplant El Dorado as his favorite, and two shots of that, plus a rum punch and a glass of wine for me and a shared bottled water, brought our total to US $176, plus additional tip.

Some buildings around the island that I liked, including the Wallblake House.

It was a bit startling to see a ship from the Royal Navy in Road Bay!


Barnes Bay on our last day