Saturday, August 10, 2013

Blanchards Restaurant

Agnolotti Pasta

Cracked Coconut dessert

Key Lime Pie in a Glass

Grilled Tenderloin of Beef

Sesame-Crusted Mahi Mahi

One of the best known restaurants in Anguilla is Blanchards, located on Meads Bay near Carimar Beach Club.

There are two options for dining here.  The first is the beach shack, which serves burgers, beer, ice cream and more with picnic tables on the beach or lounge chairs near the water. This is perfect for lunch or a quick late night snack.

We ordered a "3-pack" of the Blanchards Beach Shack Street Tacos. We chose the jerk chicken, jerk pork and blackened mahi tacos. We also took home a pack of the chocolate chip cookies. Everything was delicious.

However, if you are coming by here at night, bring some bug spray as it gets a little buggy around the beach shack and tables.

Alternatively, Blanchards Restaurant, located next door, is a beautiful table service restaurant with big quality service, fantastic food, and views of the ocean from your table.

At the restaurant, we ordered from the pre-fixe menu, which offers a 3-course menu for $48, a great deal! As the appetizer, we ordered the Agnolotti Pasta as an appetizer.  These are half moon stuffed pastas filled with grilled veggies, tomatoes, and goat cheese and served in a delicate citrus sauce. They were delicious and a larger portion would have been a lovely dinner. We also ordered the corn chowder, which is made without cream but full of vegetables and flavor.

For dinner, we ordered the grilled tenderloin of beef and the sesame-crusted mahi mahi. The tenderloin was good, well cooked and well prepared.

The mahi mahi, however, is something we are still talking about. The fish tasted like chicken and cut like meat and the Dijon mustard sauce was the perfect balance to the sweet fish. It was served with curried rice, which brought a nice heat to the plate. Definitely give this one a try.

For dessert, we ordered the key lime pie in a glass, which was rich and decadent and sweet. We also ordered Blanchard's signature Cracked Coconut dessert (for a little more), which is fresh coconut ice cream inside a coconut encrusted chocolate shell. This was definitely the winner when it came to dessert. The ice cream was sweet and creamy and the chocolate shell was hard and complemented the ice cream.

For the restaurant, we highly recommend making reservations, which you can do online here.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Oliver's Seaside Grill, Anguilla




Oliver's Seaside Grill, located at Long Bay, offered a beach BBQ on Saturday night, with flyers on car windows at nearby hotels advertising a pre-fixe dinner for $40.

Dinner included a small soup, an entree and a dessert. For dinner we ordered the steak and the half chicken. The entrees were very slow to come out, but were very well cooked and very good.  There was also live music in the dining room throughout the meal, which was excellent.

It also took a long time for dessert to be brought to our table, and, once we were finished, we wanted to ask for the check a number of times but the wait staff never came back to our table until the very end of the evening.

And, while we enjoyed our meal and had a lovely evening, we were very surprised at the end of the night when the bill was $10 more per meal than the special advertised on our flyer and the waiter and manager wouldn't honor the price on the flyer, which left a sour taste in our mouths.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Da'Vida


We stopped at Da'Vida, on Crocus Bay, for afternoon drinks and were even more pleasantly surprised to find very comfortable lounge chairs out on the beach perfect for relaxing and enjoying a beverage.

At the lounge chairs, waiter service is available, however, payment is taken at the bar. There was live music on the stage in the afternoon and in the evenings. Floaters, kayaks, canoes and more can be rented from Da'Vida from the beach as well.

Da'Vida is definitely a little off the beaten path, so it's not as packed as some of the more popular beach bars like the ones on Sandy Ground.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Paramount Studios VIP Tour


When visiting Hollywood, a movie studio tour is a must do.  Pretty much all of the major studios offer these.  While they do all have their merits, if you can only choose one, you probably should choose based on the shows/movies the studio makes.  In our case, Star Trek is one of our favorite franchises, so we decided to go with a Paramount Studio Tour.  

There are two choices for this: The regular 2 hour studio tour and the 4.5 hour VIP tour...we opted for the VIP tour.  Our tour guide was excellent.  He was very friendly and knowledgeable about Paramount's history and current productions.  He guided us around the studio in a golf cart style vehicle and got us into all the different areas of the studio including sets, the props area, the archives, and more.  In addition, an amazing high-end buffet lunch was served to us outdoors in a gorgeous courtyard.

While the VIP tour is much more expensive, you do get a lot more out of it and it is something we'd highly recommend.  



Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Universal Studios Front of the Line Pass


Universal Studios gives people a different option to Disneyland in the Los Angeles area.  The rides here are fun such as the Simpsons 4-D and Transformers 3-D rides.  There aren't as many rides as a place like Disneyland, but there are a good amount of shows and you can get to do/see everything in the park in a full day if you get the Front of the Line Pass.  This pass, which can be purchased in advance or at the gate (although there is a limited amount sold per day), is an excellent idea for people that don't want to spend their day waiting in line.  The pass does exactly what you think it would do...you get to cut the line for each ride once for the day it is purchased.  In addition, you get preferred seating at all of the shows.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Hollywood Museum


The Hollywood Museum, located right off of Hollywood Blvd., was built right in the historic Max Factor building.  There are all sorts of Hollywood memorabilia in here from various movies and TV shows.  While the organization of it is is kind of all over the place, it's definitely a fun visit to reminisce on some of your favorite Hollywood productions.



Sunday, August 4, 2013

Grammy Museum


Right in the middle of Los Angeles's "L.A. Live" complex is the Grammy Museum.  This multi-floor facility gives visitors a walk through the history of the Grammy's by showing various memorabilia of winners, videos of performances and interesting tidbits about the show.  You can even see Grammy awards up close.  There is also currently a video tribute to Whitney Houston, who won 7 Grammy's and was nominated 26 times.  Most will probably spend an hour here, but you can spend a few hours if you really want to experience every thing.