Dec 8th, 2007
Sol e Luna
After a quick nap to regain some of our energy from a day of sun and shopping, we were ready to head out to dinner at Sol e Luna.
Sol e Luna had come highly recommended to us from Kris, one of the owners of L’Esplanade and she had not steered us wrong up to then so we decided to follow-up on her advice and make reservations at the restaurant.
It was a quick drive from Grand Case and soon we were seated outside on the patio, enjoying the warm Saint Martin evening.
Both the exterior and interior of the restaurant have a slick, romantic feel, as you can somewhat tell from this picture:
Photo courtesy of Sol e Luna Web site
We ended up order the Lobster Bisque to start, which was tasty but could have used a bit more substance. For the main course my companion had the jumbo shrimp, flammed with brandy and green pepper sauce, and served on a bed of lobster risotto. I ordered the linguini, which was cooked in a garlic and spicy tomato broth with a healthy provision of seafood.
We polished off the meal with some fresh berries and cream and a couple of shots of ginger rum, which I ended up developing quite an addiction to during our trip.
In all, it was a great experience and Sol e Luna lived up to its reputation as being one of the top restaurants in Saint Martin.
Sol e Luna was highly recommended to my wife and me by surprisingly a server at another restaurant as a must-go on the island of St. Martin.
When we arrived at the restaurant, we were instantly impressed by the decoration and atmosphere. One of the server quickly checked our reservation (highly recommended) and got us to our table. She also quickly got us started with a drink. My wife took her recommendation and got a royal mojito, which used champaign instead of club soda as in a regular mojito (our server explained). We then got our appetizers, which were monkfish rolls with sweet and sour sauce and a crab cakes with papaya salad. They both were excellent. We then proceeded with our main dishes. I picked one of the day’s specials - steamed seafood with spicy tomato sauce and my wife picked one of the house specialties - jumbo shrimps and scallops with risotto. We were very pleased with our entree. Both were plentiful and well prepared. Our experience at Sol e Luna was almost perfect, if one of the proprietor did not try to hurry us to finish our meals so that she could have our table because more guests started to arrive. After we were hurried off our table and went to sit at the bar to wait for taxis, it was our horror to see with our own eyes that the same proprietor who hurried us prepared mojito drinks re-using mint leaves from the finished drinks from other restaurant patrons. We did not know if it was an isolated incident in which the restaurant re-used serving materials. As an afterthought, we should have confronted the lady about it.
NOOOOOOO!!!! Unbelievable! Come to think of it, which proprietor was it? I have to admit that although our server was amazingly friendly and warm, there was an older woman who was the hostess (and possible the proprietor) who was not terribly friendly. Perhaps it was her?