Anguilla: Tokyo Bay at CuisinArt (April 2016)

My spouse and I dined at Tokyo Bay at Cuisinart for dinner on a Saturday evening in late April 2016. When we planned our 4-night stay at the resort, we did not intend to dine at Tokyo Bay, instead choosing to eat at Cusiniart’s AAA 4-diamond restaurant Le Bistro Santorini; however, on Saturday evenings, Santorini offers only a $95 per person BBQ buffet, which we were not interested to eat. Initially, we overlooked Tokyo Bay because we thought that it only offered a hibachi/Teppanyaki menu; however, we could not have been more mistaken! Upon further investigation, we noticed online that Tokyo Bay offers an a la carte menu of both raw and cooked dishes, cold and hot dishes, ramen, Teppanyaki (hibachi), as well as 6-course and 9-course chef’s tasting menus. (We love Japanese omakase tasting menus! In Japanese, “omakase” means “in the chef’s hands”, so the chef chooses what you will eat and in what order.)

What further strengthened our desire to dine at Tokyo Bay was our successful pre-dining investigative visit to the restaurant, which is located on the third floor of the “spa building”. (The first floor contains a gift shop, locker rooms, hamam [steam room], and some treatment rooms.) Take the elevator to the third floor, where you emerge into a chic and sophisticated dining room! Although there is one hibachi table located towards the back of the room, the middle of the room contains the spotlessly clean open kitchen and the sushi bar area, and the front of the room contains elegant table dining. Two outdoor terraces (one with a bar) are accessed from opposite ends of the restaurant space. Tokyo Bay boasts that it is the only completely enclosed (air-conditioned) restaurant on Anguilla! A DJ plays music on Friday evenings. We chose to eat at the sushi bar so that we could watch the chefs at work.

We ordered the 9-course Chef Joe’s tasting menu, which costs approximately $165 per person (a smaller 6-course tasting menu costs $125). Our tasting meal at Tokyo Bay was the highlight of our entire Caribbean vacation! The entire restaurant staff treated us like royalty! Chef Joe Richardson comes to Anguilla by way of Las Vegas, where he worked at SushiSamba (in Las Vegas at the Venetian) and Bar Masa (also in Las Vegas at the Aria). Chef Joe trained at Le Cordon Bleu. The chef artfully designed and innovatively presented each dish. Some of our courses follow. We only wish that we had requested a printed menu so that we could exactly remember every course and ingredient.

• Tomato ceviche with yuzu, olive oil, togarashi yuzu powder, and puffed rice (the tomatoes are grown at Cuisinart’s hydroponic farm)
• Koal keel grilled tuna, topped with fried Chinese noodles and served on a banana leaf (in Anguilla, charcoal is still made the old-fashioned way, by building a "koal keel" of wood and dirt that slowly burns the wood down to charcoal)

• Snapper with Ponzu gelée and cucumber strings
• Tuna with foie gras, sherry unagi reduction, gold leaf
• Salmon sashimi with pickled onion, garlic ponzu
• Tokyo Bay kamikaze roll with shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, unagi sauce
• Miso crème brulee (This was the only course that did not “knock our socks off”.)

Our meal at Tokyo Bay was the highlight of our stay not only at Cuisinart, but on our entire 9-day vacation to St Barth and Anguilla. The quality of the food, and the service that we received from every one of the employees at Tokyo Bay is truly exemplary.

A meal at Tokyo Bay (and in particular, participating in the 9-course tasting menu) should be a must on any visitor’s list!

Anguilla: Azure Beach Bar at CuisinArt (April 2016)

My spouse and I enjoyed drinks at Azure on a Saturday afternoon in late April 2016. Because we visited the bar late in the day (at approximately 4:30 pm), close to the closing time of 5:00, the bartender was selective in what guests could order at that hour. This small, picturesque beach bar at the Cuisinart Resort in Rendezvous Bay reminds one of being in the Mediterranean although you are really in the Caribbean. (The owner of Cuisinart built the property to resemble the Greek island of Mykonos.) With a panoramic view of the sea, this breezy outdoor bar features whitewashed décor with a sparkly blue tile bar top. Terraced water fountains lead from the main property elevation down to the round bar, the dining deck, and the beach. The bar offers some roof cover; in fact, on the afternoon that we visited, it rained (it was the only time during our 9-day Caribbean vacation that we experienced any inclement weather), and although there was simultaneously a good breeze, we remained dry under cover of the bar’s roof. You can also sit on the deck in a completely al fresco environment, where you can eat a casual meal while still enjoying the beach and the view. (The only drawback is that there are no restroom facilities near Azure, so you must climb the steps and make the walk to either the hotel lobby or to your own hotel room.) Fresh ingredients for the cocktails (basil, sage, cucumbers, and tomatoes) come from the resort’s own hydroponic farm.

Anguilla: Lobby Bar at Cuisinart (April 2016)

My spouse and I enjoyed drinks at the Lobby Bar at the Cuisinart Resort, where we were staying for four nights in late April 2016. The Lobby Bar serves lunch, dinner, and drinks. The bar is located in the main hotel building, near the lobby, the boutique shops, and the business/computer center. The bar is adjacent to the resort’s fine dining restaurant, Le Bistro Santorini, and is close to its casual breakfast/lunch restaurant Café Mediterraneo. The bar features a partially open-air environment: although it is part of the main building, one wall is open to the pool area and terrace, and the other “wall” is open to a lounge/sofa grouping and the attractive long indoor fountain surrounded by green plants. You can at the bar itself or at one of the nearby high-top tables. Sometimes live piano music is played on a baby grand piano in the bar. Although we only had drinks (the fresh-squeezed lemonade was yummy!), the bar offers an interesting light dining menu, including a mezze platter (with hummus, feta, pesto, baba ganoush), falafel, tostones, cheese plate, flatbreads and pizzas, burgers, and desserts.

 

 

Anguilla: Blanchard's (April 2016)

My spouse and I enjoyed dinner at Blanchards on a Friday evening in late April 2016. Blanchards is open for dinner only on Tuesdays through Saturdays (closed on Sundays and Mondays). We made a reservation via email a few weeks before our trip, and Melinda, the owner, was most pleasant when she initially confirmed it, then again when we needed to change our date. (Blanchards also participates in the Open Table online reservation system.) Reservations are a must at this bustling restaurant – every single table was occupied on the evening that we dined, with several tables hosting large parties of 6-8 people. (The full occupancy at this restaurant surprised us, because every other establishment that we visited for both lunch and dinner on our 4-night stay on Anguilla was nearly empty!) The owners also operate Blanchards Beach Shack, located next door to Blanchards, which offers a casual dining (lunch) option in a laid-back environment beneath a thatched roof decorated with white string lights.

The first iteration of Blanchards opened in 1994, when the owners arrived from Vermont and built a restaurant in Meads Bay. The original building as well as several replacements were destroyed by hurricanes over the years, but the owners and staff continue to rebuild. Blanchards occupies an open-air cottage that showcases an airy white candlelit room with tile floors, ceiling fans, open teal shutters on the huge windows, and colorful artwork. (The couple’s son creates the artwork, some of which we admired, but the asking prices were “too rich for our blood”!) Fine china, crystal, and white linens adorn the tables at this restaurant, and the effect is pleasant. A small bar area that also houses two tiny tables and a sofa for lounging precedes the dining space; the dining area covers two levels, with the smaller rear level offering the best view of the sand and water.

Blanchards serves Caribbean fare that uses colorful presentations and varied ingredients. As a starter, we shared the lobster/fish cakes, which came two to an ordered and served on some greens with a dipping sauce. As our main courses, we ordered the citrus chicken scaloppini (served with mashed potatoes and spinach and covered with an orange/lime/lemon sauce) and the jerk chicken (spicy chicken [also available with a shrimp alternative] served with grilled bananas, mashed sweet potatoes, and cranberry chutney). For dessert, we shared the exceptional cracked coconut. Really too rich for one person to consume herself, this dessert contains a semi-sweet chocolate shell covered in toasted flaked coconut that is split in half and served with one half of the shell facing up (filled with creamy coconut ice cream that contains a divot of Kahlua or Baileys or some other liqueur), and the other (unfilled) half facing down. The chocolate shell is the approximate size and shape of a real coconut.

Although we did not order it, the Caribbean sampler, which arrives on a 3-tiered metal serving tray, looks impressive! It contains samples of three different main dishes: mahi mahi, crayfish, and jerk chicken. A 3-course pre-fixe menu is available, which initially seemed like a good value because it contained some of the dishes that we planned to order anyway, but then we realized that there was an upcharge for some of those very same items that we planned to order, such as the lobster cake starter and the coconut dessert, negating the cost savings. (After seeing the coconut dessert, we can understand the upcharge, but we cannot say the same for the seafood cake appetizer, which seemed somewhat ordinary and was not packed with protein).

Smith was our primary waiter, and he was not as professional or formal as we would have liked. For example, Smith compelled us to shake his hand as an introduction, which is a strange gesture to make in a restaurant before patrons are about to dine using their hands to consume bread/rolls, and so on (the handshake negates any recent hand-washing).

Our meal at Blanchards was our second-most expensive dinner on Anguilla, but we enjoyed it because of the lively atmosphere of the restaurant and the adorable cottage that houses it. We thought that the cracked coconut dessert was outstanding in terms of presentation, originality, and of course, taste. (In fact, the owners have appeared on the national US TV program “The Today Show” to showcase their unusual dessert.) Don’t miss an opportunity to order it!

 

 

Anguilla: Jacala (April 2016)

My spouse and I visited Jacala for lunch on a weekday in late April 2016. Jacala is open for lunch and dinner on Wednesdays through Sundays (the restaurant closes on Mondays and Tuesdays). Parking is available in their dedicated parking lot. Jacala offers its restaurant patrons complimentary use of their beach set-ups before and/or after they dine.

Jacala, owned by a man named Jacques, enjoys a prime beachfront location on Meads Bay, and it offers great views of the sand and ocean. The small open-air dining room, which holds about 36 people at well-spaced tables, features overhead fans to cool the space. This restaurant was conceived by two former employees from nearby Malliouhana (whose restaurant at the time was called “Michel Rostang”, now just called “The Restaurant”). Jacala is well-respected: Martha Stewart once called it her “new favorite Caribbean restaurant”, and in 2014, its chef Alain was named one of the top 25 chefs in the Caribbean.

Jacala serves French and Caribbean cuisine. We did not order a starter on the day that we dined; however, the restaurant delivers a complimentary breadbasket, along with three spices for dipping. As main courses, we ordered the lobster tortilla and the salad nicoise. The lobster tortilla (served with a small salad) was intriguing and unusual, arriving as sort of a cake/large muffin that was accented by an amazing coconut sauce. (When we saw the word “tortilla” on them menu, we envisioned some sort of wrap, so we were pleasantly surprised when the dish arrived, and even happier when we tasted it. As it turns out, a “tortilla” is a traditionally Spanish dish similar to an omelet that contains egg, potato, onion, and protein. How delicious!) For the salad, our waiter inquired as to whether we would like fresh or canned (tinned) tuna on top, and of course, we said “fresh”! (We are still perplexed that they asked about the tuna – who would not want slices of seared rare tuna instead of something pre-packaged and mass-produced?) For dessert, the host presents the menu on a chalkboard. With so many delicious options, it was difficult to make a choice, but we decided on the rum baba, which was a little vanilla cake filled with banana sorbet, topped with whipped cream (which did not seem home-made), and set atop a rum sauce. When we finished our meal, the host brought offered samples of house-made rum as a digestif, which was a lovely way to end a great meal!

 

 

 

Anguilla: Dune Preserve (April 2016)

My spouse and I visited Bankie Banx Dune Preserve in Rendezvous Bay on two occasions during our 4-night stay next door at Cuisinart in late April 2016. We visited one time for drinks in the late afternoon (when we were the only customers present), and we visited a second time on a Friday night when live music was offered. On that evening, the Dune Preserve requested a $20 per person cover charge, and we wondered whether the cost would be worth it. We decided that “we only live once” and that had we not been staying just next door, we probably would have made a drive to the Dune Preserve because we had heard and read so much about this Anguilla institution. (CNN once voted the Dune Preserve the #1 beach bar in the world!) The crowd was small that evening when a 4-member band was playing, perhaps 20 guests maximum, but everyone seemed to have a good time. Bankie Banx himself joined the group for a few songs, and we were amazed at his great voice projecting from his tall, thin frame.

The Dune Preserve consists of various rustic structures cobbled together from whatever flotsam and jetsam has washed up on shore over the years, such as driftwood and pieces of old boats. The location offers plenty of complimentary parking, which must fill to capacity when the annual Moonsplash reggae music festival occurs (the “party” occurred just days before we visited). Part of the Dune Preserve property contains a large stage and some low bleacher seating. Moonsplash, which began in 1991, is the longest-running independent music festival in the Caribbean, when musicians perform from dawn to dusk for three straight days.

“The Dune” is certainly something to see if you are in the area!