St. John VI restaurants

[liamsaunt]

10 hours ago, Smithy said:

Well the food looks good even though it took forever. Is that an actual stiltwalker, or just a good statue / sculpture beside the "Sails Beachside" sign?

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. 

[liamsaunt]

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.  

[MaryIsobel]

Sorry that it was not a stellar dinner for you but you seem to do pretty well with eating out on vacatione. Hopefully things will turn around food-wise for you!

[Smithy]

I would never, except perhaps at gunpoint, order coconut cake, but I'm surprised and disappointed on your behalf that even the dark chocolate ice cream wasn't worthwhile! Too bad about the rest of the meal too, but as MaryIsobel notes above you generally seem to do well. This helps us see that you aren't prettying things up for our benefit. 🙂

 

[liamsaunt]

10 hours ago, Smithy said:

I would never, except perhaps at gunpoint, order coconut cake, but I'm surprised and disappointed on your behalf that even the dark chocolate ice cream wasn't worthwhile! Too bad about the rest of the meal too, but as MaryIsobel notes above you generally seem to do well. This helps us see that you aren't prettying things up for our benefit. 🙂

 

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! 😀

[liamsaunt]

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. 

 

 

Edited March 14 by liamsaunt (log)

[liamsaunt]

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.  

[TdeV]

Thanks very much for the journey, @liamsaunt. Delightful!

 

And I definitely think your husband should buy you that derelict seafront property. Think how much fun you could have with renovations. 😁

 

And just think how many eGulleters would be happy to come visit. 🤣

[liamsaunt]

We are back on St. John. We arrived Saturday evening.  Everyone was tired, so we just went into town for some light snacks at the island brew pub, mostly so my nephew and husband could pick up some crowlers of beer for the house. I thought I took a picture of the beer menu, but I guess not. Here’s the food options. 
 

 

 

Niece chose chicken wings

 

 

The rest of us shared a hummus plate

 

 

and a salad with some mahi mahi on it

 

 

We stopped by St. John Scoops so niece could get her favorite chai tea latte ice cream

 

 

We got in an evening dip in the pool before crashing

 

 

We had the house provisioned by a grocery delivery company before arriving. That’s because when you try and go shopping on the weekends, everything is sold out. We stopped by yesterday to pick up some water and ice, and attempt to get some salad stuff (no luck on that front until the second store).  Empty grocery! The only vegetables were onions, potatoes, red cabbage, and winter squash. I did snag the last loaf of raisin bread, and they had ice, so it was ok. 

 

 

We just spent the day reading at the villa.  Too tired to beach it.
 

 

 

Nephew made the drinkers watermelon margaritas (we brought a cooler from home with some stuff, including fresh squeezed and pre measured juices for cocktails and mocktails) 

 

 

He grilled some bread (got a bit charred) that I topped with garlic scape butter I made at home, and a couple of ribeyes (also brought from home), supplemented with pasta and a “salad” made from the only vegetables I could find at the second market we stopped at-a cucumber and some peppers.

 

evening views

 

 

 

Breakfast under the palapa

 

 

with our trusty scavenger companions

 

 

We were blocked in this morning by the pool and landscaping maintenance guys, but it’s finally time to go to the beach! 

[liamsaunt]

We spent the day at Cinnamon Bay. I did not take any pictures of the beach for some reason, but here’s one from a prior visit.

 

 

I did take some snorkeling photos.  Almost all of the coral is still dead, but there were some fish around.  Jacks

 

 

blue tang

 

 

squirrelfish

 

 

Nurse shark

 

 

and one of my favorites to see, a big permit

 

 

Dinner was at Longboard. Menu

 

 

 

Drinks. The two on the left are mocktails

 

 

Chips and dips because we were starving

 

 

wahoo seveche

 

 

Mahi mahi sliders

 

 

Pork sliders

 

 

Fish tacos made with wahoo

 

 

Carnita tacos

 

 

A Tidal Rose cocktail for my husband. I think it was tequila, rose, and pampelmousse.  It looked cool but was disliked

 

 

we were too full for any dessert.  We caught the tail end of the sunset

 

 

And then headed back to the villa. The house you can see lit up on the beach was hosting a somewhat raucous wedding, so we listened to their DJ until his mixes got so bad we fled inside. It was the mashup of Bon Jovi Living on a Prayer with the Black Eyes Peas I Got a Feeling that was the final straw 😂

 

[KennethT]

Thanks for bringing us along again but I'm sorry to see the state of the coral.  We spent a few days diving in Indonesia and I was so happy to see the great state of the coral walls and reefs there.  I'm still trying to get video and stuff off of my GoPro - I'll add it to my trip report when I get to that point....

[liamsaunt]

23 hours ago, KennethT said:

Thanks for bringing us along again but I'm sorry to see the state of the coral.  We spent a few days diving in Indonesia and I was so happy to see the great state of the coral walls and reefs there.  I'm still trying to get video and stuff off of my GoPro - I'll add it to my trip report when I get to that point....

Yes it is definitely sad. The hurricanes destroyed most of it, and some is growing back, but as I am sure you know, it is a long, slow process, and some places have seen more growth than others. The overly warm ocean water is not helping matters.

 

Yesterday we finally had a chance to revisit Caneel Bay beach for the first time since the hurricanes in 2017.  The National Park has fenced off the ruins and created a path to the beach using the old paved walkways of the resort. The destruction was still shocking to see up close after all these years.
 

This was one of the restaurants, housed in the sugar mill on the old plantation grounds

 

 

The boiling tower chimney cracked in the storms but is still standing 

 

 

And here are the remnants of some of the resort rooms

 

 

The entrance to the one reopened public beach (five of the seven beaches on the resort property are still inaccessible due to dangerous conditions) 

 

 

The beach is still beautiful, peaceful and calm.  We once stayed in a room on that point you can see. All traces of it are gone now.

 

The last time we were on this beach, that big sea grape you can see was about four feet tall 

 

 

Here are a couple of snorkeling photos.  Lobster hiding

 

 

Feather duster worm and coral

 

 

Mid phase French angelfish

 

 

Stoplight parrotfish

 

 

Grouper eating an octopus

 

 

Beautiful flamboyant tree that we saw on our walk out 

 

 

Dinner was at STJ Speakeasy.  Menu

 

 

Drinks. I think we have two margaritas and a cucumber wasabi cocktail of some sort. There were no mocktails which was a little disappointing. I remember having something nice here last year.

 

 

We shared three starters. A wahoo seveche with plantain

 

 

A special of hogfish crudo

 

and the tuna rose from the menu

 

All were fantastic. We could not decide which we liked best.The sun set as we finished our appetizers

 

 

This is really boring, but all five of us got the same thing for dinner, the catch of the day (grouper). It had a fantastic green curry sauce, which is hidden behind the fish in this photo.
 

 

We shared two desserts, a chocolate cremeux with nougat

 

 

and a flambéed pineapple with ice cream

 

 

This was a fantastic meal, and will be hard to beat.

[liamsaunt]

Wednesday was pretty relaxing. We went to Francis beach for swimming. We did not snorkel and I did not take any pictures. We were feeling lazy so headed back to the house to swim in the pool while nephew made dinner. We saw a little rainbow (by the time I grabbed my phone it had mostly faded)

 

 

Nephew grilled some flatbreads. Tomato, bacon (cooked and brought from home, because cooking in the oven indoors here is generally not a good idea), and one with the leftover steak from the other night. We found a big package of basil from the farm on island so covered the flatbreads with it and called it our salad.  They looked funky but tasted good. 
 

 

Yesterday was our boat day. I did not take too many above water pictures, and haven’t processed the underwater ones yet, so not many photos to share. My niece and nephew really wanted to visit the British Virgin Islands, and my husband and I have not gone over since 2008, I think.  We rented a larger power boat to get us over there quickly. I don’t prefer this kind of trip because you lose time clearing customs.  Our boat is the second one in this picture. It was a very smooth ride, and the crew was great.

 

Morning fruit tray on the boat

 

 

We went to a couple of snorkel spots and then to Norman Island for lunch. There is literally nothing on this island but the beach restaurant. Here it is from the boat dock. A summer camp from a neighboring island was there for swimming lessons and lunch.  That’s the big group of little kids you can see in the water with their instructors.

 

 

Menu

 

 

 

We were done snorkeling so the imbibers ordered margaritas 

 

 

We had to get the conch fritters

 

 

Nephew ordered the mahi seveche. He let me taste and it was really good

 

 

Niece wanted mozzarella sticks

 

 

and chicken tenders.  She never eats like this at home haha

 

 

sister and I had fish tacos made with mahi 

 

 

husband got the mahi sandwich 

 

 

and nephew got the chicken roti. He said it was delicious. I should have taken a picture once he cut into it.

 

 

After lunch nephew really wanted to go to Jost Van Dyke, which is where many of the famous beach bars in the BVI are located. Niece grumbled a bit but perked up when I pointed out they would have smoothies. The captain warned my husband and I that it looked really different since the last time we had been over, as all of the structures here were completely leveled in the hurricanes.  There were more bars, and more people, but it was not too different, really.  

 

Nephew got his painkiller drink from Soggy Dollar, and niece and I went for a beach walk and found her a smoothie.  There are little bars up and down the entire beach. One of them had a huge sign advertising that they sold “magic mushrooms.”  I did not know that was legal in the BVI haha. 
 

 

We got home and the power was out on St John, so dinner was cancelled. We just scrounged some bread out of the dark refrigerator and called it a night.  Luckily power came back around 9pm, just in time for going to sleep with the AC on. 

 

Edited Friday at 01:31 PM by liamsaunt (log)

[liamsaunt]

Yesterday we were all wiped from the boat day, so we spent the day at the villa relaxing. I processed my underwater photos so thought I would share a few.  There were a lot of jellies in the water. We all wear long sleeved rash guards and long swim pants when snorkeling in case of stuff like this. I would rather deal with lots of big jellies like the ones we saw than the invisible and incredibly painful sea lice stings.  I am fairly certain that all of these jellyfish were moon jellies, which only have a mild sting, but others in my party are adamant that there were multiple types around. Anyway, here are some jellyfish. Their bodies ranged in size from just a few inches to over dinner plate. The tentacles stretched for a few feet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

blue tang

 

 

Black durgeon. We only see these in the BVIs 

 

 

Spanish hogfish

 

 

One of many caves that you could swim inside at Norman Island. It was creepy and dark in there, though we saw some fish that were not present elsewhere. I think you would have needed a dive light to fully explore it. We did not come prepared for that.

 

 

We went to La Tapa for dinner

 

 

Drinks

 

 

i got a cauliflower bisque to start. After I tasted it I realized I ordered this last time I was here too 😂

 

 

Everyone else shared a few orders of tuna tartare, but the photo came out blurry.

 

Husband and I had tuna with polenta cake and mango sauce, the usual

 

 

sister had hers with wild rice and coconut sauce

 

 

Niece and nephew had ribeyes with a Greek salad on top and a three potato mash

 

 

We shared a flan for dessert

 

 

Except for my niece, who got a bread pudding with saffron ice cream and raspberry sauce

 

 

No dinner reservations for the next few nights.

[liamsaunt]

Saturday was a pretty mellow day. We just spent the day swimming at Francis beach, and then went back to the villa to grill burgers and veggie burgers that I brought from home.  I remembered to take a picture of the beach this time.

 

 

Sunday was another fairly lazy day. My husband lost his snorkel mask on our boat day (the strap snapped when he jumped off the boat. The water was 60’ deep so there was no swimming after it) and we have not gone in to town to replace it yet, so we have just been swimming. Sundays in the summer are the worst day to get parking at the beach because that’s the day many locals have off from work, and the water is actually warm enough that they will swim in it. We ended up driving all the way to the east end to a rocky but calm beach called Haulover. Even here, at the farthest point of the island, there were about 15 other people on the beach. This is one of those spots you would typically have to yourself.

 

 

After swimming my nephew lobbied very hard for an early dinner at Johnny Lime, which is barbecue. The setting

 

 

 

The menu

 

 

Drinks. Husband’s lita mezcalita, a special passionfruit gin fizz that my sister chose, and my nephew’s danger. Niece and I just had water. 

 

 

Husband got brisket with mac and cheese and a salad with local greens

 

 

I had a blackened catfish sandwich with slaw and yucca fries. I am not sure when they switched from mahi to catfish on the menu, or why, but it ended up being very tasty. 

 

 

nephew had brisket with rice and beans and yuca fries

 

 

Niece had a pulled pork sandwich that I did not get a picture of, and sister was sulky because she didn’t want anything on the menu.  She didn’t end up ordering anything but a side of the chickpea fritters.

 

After linner we went to Trunk Bay for a late swim

 

 

And then back to the villa to shower.  I had a visitor in my outdoor shower though, so my husband and I ended up going for a pool swim instead and called it getting cleaned up 😂

 

[liamsaunt]

Monday we had a pretty relaxing day. The weather was raining off and on, so we decided not to snorkel. We visited Hawksnest Bay

 

 

This mongoose wanted to know if we had any snacks it could steal. They are clever little dudes and will get into your zipped beach bags looking for food. We did not have any, so it left disappointed

 

 

Panorama of the beach

 

 

We skipped eating out in favor of pool time at the villa.  Nephew made watermelon margaritas for those who wanted one

 

 

And then grilled sausages, peppers, onions, chicken thighs and garlic bread for dinner.  We brought the meats from home.

 

Yesterday we went back to Caneel Bay to do some snorkeling. This lobster was hiding 

 

 

French angelfish, adult phase

 

 

French angelfish, intermediate phase

 

 

grouper

 

 

Stoplight parrotfish

 

 

We went to town for dinner at Morgan’s Mango. Drinks

 

 

We shared a couple of appetizers.  Tuna tartare

 

 

and snapper seveche

 

 

Three of us had the catch of the day, which was corvina

 

 

Niece opted for coconut crusted grouper

 

 

Amd husband had a lobster. He had them take it out of the shell in the kitchen because of my nephew’s allergy. I think he missed gnawing on the shell a bit but didn’t say anything.

 

 

We shared a massive piece of key lime pie for dessert

 

 

It’s extremely hot today, so we are relaxing at the villa this morning before boating over to a floating taco bar for an early dinner later on.