Sunday Adventures In St. Barth

Sunday morning, while Jim caught up on the laptop, I went to the Anglican church where there was a Lenten service with excellent musicians: a woman who played violin (the Music Director), a pianist and a guitar player. Later, I left our apartment here to play Chopin and Schubert on the church’s Yamaha. For lunch we drove to the beautiful Bay of Angels and Flamande Beach where we first walked along the exquisite beach, perhaps the most lovely one on the island. Then we had a delicious meal at La Langouste, a favorite. Jim started with the soupe de poissons, served hot with a subtle rouille, which is rather like an aioli sauce. I had a ‘Tiramisu’ made with layers of guacamole, tomato salsa and crab, an rewarding combination. Jim then had an entire grilled fresh snapper, which was tender and not dried out; the extras on a nearby plate include a sweet potatoe ‘pie’ of miniature size, with rice and curled eggplant. My monkfish with leeks and mushrooms was served with a fine cream sauce and rice. We both indulged in the Moelleux au chocolat for dessert, the cake with hot sauce, accompanied this time by a small scoop of pistachio ice cream instead of the usual vanilla. We washed all of this down with a light and excellent white Sancerre wine, Les Barrones 2013. In the afternoon, while I’m playing Chopin Jim went to Shell Beach nearby our flat. Since we had a large lunch, we decided to do a light dinner. We walked down from our apartment to Isoletta, an Italian pizza place run by Isola, the most famed local Italian restaurant. However, we did not order pizza! Jim had a spinach salad with potato, parmesan cheese and hard-boiled egg. My mache & citrus salad was refreshing with avocado, grapefruit and orange slices. Then we shared a parmigiana eggplant nicely melted and full of chewy cheese. But the best item—not on the menu—was the fabulous Chianti wine, “La Porta di Vertine” 2011 which we both agreed was a 5 star ***** wine. The dessert, a cake made by Isola’s chef, was an excellent Black Forest. –Dan