Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The French side of course

Thin Mint and Guilty are away next week vacationing in St.Martin, the French side of the island of course. Every year we travel to unique destinations around the world in search of new guilty pleasures and exciting menu ideas. Few places offer the epicurean luster of this divided tropical island of Dutch ancestry and French culture. Long known for their remarkable restaurants, barbecue shacks in Grand Case and famous Parisian chefs, this is the fourth trip to explore our French culinary heritage and to bare our souls in the warm aqua blue Caribbean waters.

Our last trip to St. Martin was in 1995 with Junior Mint in tow and our beauty was only nine months old. We had an incredible vacation with our young infant daughter and miraculously left two days before the infamous Hurricane Louis destroyed much of the island and leveled our boutique hotel, the Golden Tulip, forever.

On this year's trip we will staying at the new Radisson St. Martn Resort which just opened this past spring and has received excellent reviews. We heard their buffet breakfasts are fantastic and quite guilt-ridden. Usually we dine away from the hotel for dinner, but this luxury property has a chic five star gourmet venue, the C Le restaurant. World famous Chef Executivf Bruno Brazier is an exceptional talent and he will be preparing his incredible gourmet four course gourmet chef's dinner for us at table for two on the beach. Hopefully we will be posting our dining and vacation experiences online while we are away.

Look for our chefs to introduce some sensational new menu ideas this fall. Of course, Provence as always, will be open for business while we are away, Guilty as charged.