liamsaunt

A few recents. Potato chowder Arancini with tomato and spinach sauce Spaghetti with meyer lemons and bay scallops

Sir fried noodles with bok choy, broccoli and scallions, with an egg on top

It rained quite a bit overnight and remained overcast today. Instead of swimming, we spent the day birding and looking for sea glass. Dinner was at Mim’s Seaside Bistro, a long time restaurant on St. Thomas The menu is massive. This is one of the three drink menus. The setting is very casual. They have an outdoor patio area right next to the water, but were seating everyone under the roof as it had been raining off and on all day. I think they were a little overbooked because of not being able to use those outdoor tables. I grabbed a picture in between seatings We had to start with conch fritters. They were very good with big chunks of conch I had grilled shrimp with seasoned rice and vegetables And husband had a big lobster We shared a slice of key lime pie for dessert Moon rise from the patio We fly home tomorrow. We are booked to come back to St. John for two weeks this summer, and I doubt we will come back over to St. Thomas during that trip, but I ended up liking the visit very much. There are certainly more restaurant options on this island, and we enjoyed most of the places we tried.

Same condo breakfast as yesterday We spent the day snorkeling again, and had better luck finding lots of creatures hiding inside the mostly dead reef. I still have not looked at our underwater photos yet. At this point I will probably wait until I am home, since tomorrow is our last full day. We took a sunset sail from the hotel side of the resort. Leaving from the beach I was able to get a better shot of the ruined house I am obsessed with. It is massive. I suggested that my husband buy me this waterfront property. A reasonable request, don’t you think? 😂 A view of St. John across the water. This side of the island is where most of the residences and businesses are. The other side is mostly National Park and undeveloped. There was food on the boat, but we didn’t eat much since we were going to dinner. I saw caprese skewers, shrimp seveche, chicken sliders, and goat cheese tarts go by. There was an open bar too, but we just relaxed and took in the views. Back to the resort, and then out to dinner We went to Three Palms. Menu Drinks. Husband had a cucumber cocktail, and I had club soda We shared the gambas ajillo, which were nice and garlicky. They were in a deep bowl, so it was hard to get a picture of them. Husband also wanted to order the lobster dumplings. He liked them. I tried a bite but wasn’t in the mood. I had the swordfish, which was nicely cooked And he had the mahi, which was also perfectly cooked Dessert was a passionfruit panna cotta with guava crust and mango. We did not like this. It was too bitter. The rest of the dinner was really good though, so we did not mind too much.

It was probably a mistake to order the coconut cake. However, it’s one of our favorite desserts in Provincetown on our Cape Cod vacations. The “dark chocolate” ice cream tasted exactly like a kid’s fudgcicle. We were…not impressed. Tonight is looking more promising though. We are going on a sunset sail and then having dinner at a “new to us” highly rated seafood restaurant. We’ll see! 😀

Today was another relaxing day. Condo breakfast And then off to the beach. We borrowed some fins from the beach hut and spent most of the day snorkeling. I have not looked at my photos yet. The snorkeling on St. Thomas cannot compare to St. John, not even a little bit. We did see some grouper, snapper, barracuda, rays etc. The coral was almost all dead, not surprising given how warm the ocean has been, but sad to see. We cancelled our original reservation for this evening, and walked back to Caribbean Fish Market for dinner, mostly because husband wanted to get the wahoo I had the other night. This ended up being an unwise choice. Husband ordered a martini, and I ordered a club soda with lime When I took a sip, it turned out they gave me a glass of vodka with a splash of soda and a lime wedge! That was a big surprise to say the least. They swapped it out pretty quickly. We shared tuna nachos. They were OK. Husband got the wahoo he wanted. The piece I had was thicker and better cooked than his portion. I ordered coconut shrimp. They were a little bland. I ended up peeling off the coating. The menu description said they came with mango salsa, but instead there was just what tasted like a jarred sweet mango chutney. The rice on the side was terribly overcooked too. The pickled carrots were tasty. Good thing I was not really hungry! Ever optimistic, we shared a slice of coconut cake with dark chocolate ice cream. One bite each and we were done with this dessert. It was….not great. We will leave it at that. Oh well. Not every meal is going to be great. We are going to some new places the next few nights and hopefully our luck will improve.

It’s a person. The stilts they dance on can be up to 15 feet high. These were a bit shorter than that. The mocko jumbie is the cultural ambassador for the USVI.

Today was very uneventful. We woke up and immediately decided to cancel tonight’s dinner reservation. Neither of us wanted another multi course meal. Condo breakfast We spent the day swimming. I went for a walk along the rocky shoreline on the side of the beach because I wanted to get a better look at a Balinese style property that I could see at the point of the bay. Coral rubble beach When I got near it, I saw that it was boarded up and abandoned. Many of the roof tiles were missing. I assume it was wrecked during the double whammy of Irma and Maria in 2017 and never rebuilt. It’s just odd to see such a large property in a prime spot sitting fallow. I would like to know what the house’s story is. Every afternoon at 3pm there are free freshly baked cookies in the lobby, and free cocktails on the pool deck. None of the cocktails have sounded good to my husband yet, but today we sampled the cookies. Pretty tasty. We went across the street to the local beach to watch the sunset and just went to one of the restaurants in property for a casual dinner. A mocko jumbie was there, which was cool. These guys walk in the Carnival parades every year. St. Thomas Carnival is in a month, and St. John Festival is always on July 4. We have been on St. John for Festival before, and have attended some of the events, but have never gone to the parade because it always starts late and takes forever. Kind of like our dinner tonight haha My husband’s margarita, delivered 52 minutes after we were seated for our reservation. Maximum island time! We ordered some fried shrimp, which arrived much later and another batch of grilled fish tacos to share No dessert, because we would probably still be there if we had ordered any!

So, remember how I said I was going to leave and go to a famous beach since there were no ships in today? Yeah…that did not happen. I got a serious case of lazy-itis and just stayed at the resort. Breakfast in the condo. I did do some exploring, though. I went across the street to the public beach It was rocky, but pretty. All beaches in the Virgin Islands are actually public, but you have to access them by the water. No crossing over private land. The resort I am at provides public land access to the beach on either end. I actually think many of the St. Thomas resorts do. The St. John properties do not. I did some exploring and visual beach combing. It’s illegal to take shells, rocks, coral etc. You can pick stuff up but have to leave it. This is why I collect sea glass, it’s considered litter here. Cool sponge Hobie cats that you can take out from the resort beach. I would probably break a leg or something. For dinner we took a ferry over to Lovango Cay. Drinks menu Husband had a margarita and I had the Lovango breeze Specials and the regular menu I really wanted to try the triggerfish, but they are one of my favorites to see snorkeling, so I passed. Husband had no similar qualms. I got the Lovango tomatoes, which were delicious And he had the triggerfish bologna. I chose the mahi. The fish was delicious. The corn was a tad chewy. And he had the triggerfish main course. He said the triggerfish was kind of sweet. I gave him part of my mahi and he preferred that. I guess triggerfish are better as snorkeling companions. None of the desserts sounded super appealing to us, so we just split a dish of sorbet and each got an espresso. We got a scoop of blood orange and one of coconut lime. Now we know what the mystery light pink flavor was from last night’s meal. It was blood orange. The coconut lime one was our favorite Goodbye Lovango

Yes agreed! I thought that was really weird. He did not try them so no idea if they tasted better than they looked. There is some cooking equipment in the kitchen, including a knife block. I just checked and they are tramontina brand. I would guess they are beater knives. I have never found a good, sharp knife in a rental kitchen, which is why I always bring my own when I am planning on cooking. I do have one small knife with me from home this trip. I have not really poked around much in the kitchen yet, to be honest. Here is a tree growing outside my building. I was told it is called a sausage tree and that the “sausages” are not edible. We skipped breakfast and went for an early lunch on the hotel side of the property instead. Menus We had frozen lemonades, but only had a few sips, as it turned out they were just too sweet for our mood. Fish tacos (snapper) View We spent the rest of the day swimming, which was nice. For dinner, we went to Easterly, which is the sister restaurant of Longboard on St. John. Setting Drink menu Husband had the Waterlemon Cay, and I had the burnt palm from the designated driver section. We both really liked our drinks. Mine was not too sweet and had a very interesting flavor. Bread plate: focaccia with passionfruit butter Food menu We shared the smoked fish dip with plantain chips. Tasty I had the tuna salad. I wanted the greens. It was nicely seasoned. And husband had the wahoo. He really enjoyed it. Dessert We shared the tropical sorbets. They did not tell us what the flavors were, so from back to front we had sorbet that looks like watermelon or strawberry but was not, definitely mango, and….we are not sure! We are not sure was our least favorite because it was more creamy than icy, mango was my favorite, and husband preferred mystery light pink sorbet. There are no cruise ships in port tomorrow, so I think we are going to head over to one of the island’s famous beaches that we have never visited. One day later this week there will be 20,000 passengers in port!

I think it would depend on the situation. In this instance, I just didn’t feel Ike dealing with complaining and then waiting for a new dish. It’s not really a kid friendly restaurant. I do know that they will make pasta with butter for kids if it is asked for. There are lots of options that are a better fit for families with kids on the island. We did start taking our niece and nephew there when they were in the 10-12 age range, but they looked at all the menus in advance and were able to find things that they wanted to try. I know it’s tough for people with ultra picky kids. We are now on St. Thomas. The seafood festival did not happen for us. It was supposed to start at 11, but they were still setting up at that time. We checked back an hour later, but it still was not going. Island time is a real thing! Unfortunately, we had a ferry to catch. Maybe next year. Here is our new view Our accommodation has a full kitchen. I am only planning on making breakfast in the condo, but they left a list of cooking equipment and spices you can request if you need them. There are grills to use also. We went to the Elysium resort next door for dinner at Caribbean Fish Market. Our table was not ready, so they sent us to the bar (and then forgot they sent us there…island time strikes again). I had the rose sparkling mocktail, which smelled good but tasted thin. This is a common mocktail problem that I am still trying to adjust to years after giving up alcohol! It might be a me problem. Husband had a gin and tonic. The dinner menu had lots of things that sounded worth trying. We opted to split the calamari. Not local, but fried calamari is hard to resist. I got the wahoo. It was delicious. I would have liked a little more wasabi sauce. It was a huge portion. I only ate a couple bites of the noodles. Husband got the stuffed lobster and it was massive. He did not even touch the potatoes or asparagus that came with it. Dessert We split the key lime pie. It did not taste of lime at all! The sorbet on it was excellent though and the whole thing worked somehow. It just didn’t taste like key lime pie. 😂 On the way out of dinner, we noticed this beached sailboat that we somehow missed on the way in. This is the second beached sailboat we have seen, and we have only been to three beaches! Strange.

The dry side, apparently. We have a running joke that it’s always raining on St. Thomas. There’s definitely a dry side of St. John so I guess it makes sense that there’s on one St. Thomas too. We spent the day at Trunk Bay. This time of year is peak visiting season, and every year it gets more crowded. Lots of people today We walked all the way to the end, where there were only about four other people, and no one in the water. We did not snorkel, but just swam for a few hours. My Apple watch measured the water temperature at 78-79 degrees. When we got back to the Westin I took a picture of the swimming area And then we headed in to town for dinner at La Tapa. Menu, basically the same as always Husband’s spicy blood orange margarita. This did not look like a blood orange drink to me. He was not a big fan. he had the smoked salmon bruschetta for a starter, which he enjoyed I had a special of cauliflower soup. It was really nice We both had fish entrees. My tuna looked pretty but was so salty I could not really eat it, and I love salt. Husband tried some and he agreed. Husband had the mahi mahi, which was bland. Maybe his taste buds got blasted by my salty tuna haha We decided to cut our losses and skip dessert. I guess it was an off night.

We are back in the VI. This trip is kind of different because it is a resort visit, and we are going to spend most of it on St. Thomas. We got what is essentially a free stay over there, so figured why not. For today and tomorrow, we are on St. John. We saved enough money on airfare by flying a connecting itinerary on a Thursday rather than a non stop on a Saturday to add on two nights at the Westin. The flight from Boston to San Juan was delayed, and then heavily turbulent for part of it, which was not great. We then had to run to catch our little Cessna to St. Thomas. We made it, our bags did not, but they brought them over on the next flight a few hours later, so it was fine. Here’s our trusty pilot And a view of Culebra on the way over We got to St. John late because of the bag delay, so just noshed on snacks in our condo and went to bed. Here’s the view from our condo. It’s not great, but we are leaving tomorrow so I don’t care. Breakfast menu Husband had an omelet And I had huevos rancheros We did a quick walk on the resort beach after breakfast. It’s probably the worst beach on St. John. The beach is man made, and there are many live aboard boats offshore. There is a roped off swimming area, but I would not go in the water here. This beached sailboat at the end of the bay looks like it has been there for a while We are having dinner tonight at old favorite La Tapa, and then tomorrow we are going to the Love City Seafood Festival before heading to St. Thomas for a week. I think the last time we stayed on St. Thomas was 2006, so it should be interesting.

Flour bakery's recipe for fluffy baked eggs on a sandwich with chipotle aioli, bacon, and arugula. Some fries baked in the bacon fat in the background.

Chicken satay with peanut sauce, coconut rice, and a cucumber salad