In the event…

During a recent commercial flight, I was perusing the safety briefing card and noted this icon:

Water landing on the safety briefing card.

I don’t know. I think they need some more words on these cards. You see the graphic of the airplane pointing toward the water. Then there’s the red arrows indicating how to exit the plane onto the yellow rafts. But, who knows what all these things are? Could be slip and slides for the party crowd. Of course, the graphics are supposed to avoid the need for multiple translations. Either way, words might soon be a thing of the past and we’ll all write in little pictures like children. Some places do this already.

Amuse Bistro, Aruba

Amuse Bistro in Aruba serves up inspired food as I discovered last night. So, let’s get right to it because there’s a lot of eye-candy here for you foodies. We sat down with a couple of generously-poured glasses of wine and along comes a little treat from the chef, a shot glass size sample of the potato soup. This was a great little palette teaser. Perusing the menu (which is shown at the end of this post) you’ll see there are many choices here. Well, we started with escargots as seen below:

Amuse Bistro, Aruba, escargots

Those little buggers were tasty and backed up by neatly sliced bread in an inventive way. There was also a chicken salad topped by a slice of crispy pancetta as seen in the next photo:

And then there was this inventive dish: Goat cheese with red bell pepper atop a puff pastry with sugared black olives. Check it out.

Amuse Bistro, goat cheese/red bell pepper pastry.

Yeah, that’s a chef who knows what he’s doing. Right? Of course! Now, let’s move on to the main course. I decided to go with appetizer size portions for the main course to save room for dessert. Here we go with a roast pork loin cooked EXACTLY right as you see here:

Amuse Bistro, Aruba, roast pork loin.

When I say that was cooked exactly right, I mean that you could cut it with a fork and each bite was full of flavor. Speaking of flavor, take a look at the shrimp and lobster linguine in the next picture:

Amuse Bistro, lobster/shrimp linguine (appetizer portion)

That was a nice combination as well. Moving along you see the scallops plated beautifully:

Amuse Bistro, Aruba, scallops.

Another work of culinary art there, eh? Absolutely. At last we get to dessert, which was a brownie with red wine ice-cream. Here you go:

Amuse Bistro, Aruba, brownie with red wine ice-cream.

All in all, a very fine meal, served by a staff that is highly professional. In fact, the staff was as much a pleasure as the food. They described the dishes, offered suggestions, and kept things moving at the perfect pace. Here I post the menu so you can see the very fair prices and options currently offered.

Amuse Bistro, Aruba, current menu.

Perhaps what I liked most about this (and there is A LOT to like) was the option to have appetizer size portions for entrees. These days I like to eat a variety of dishes and by having smaller portions I was able to make it through to dessert. In fact, next time I go to Amuse, which will be soon, I’m thinking about ordering several different appetizer to start and several more for the main courses and sharing them across the table like a family-style meal. There are lots of choices here and every one is good. Why hold back? Bon dia.

A Trolley Coming to Aruba

For the past several months, the infrastructure for a trolley system has been under construction in Aruba. Here are some recent photos. The first showing the Y junction behind the Renaissance Mall.

Y junction of Trolley in Oranjestaad.

The next photo shows the tracks down the center of the shopping street:

Trolley tracks down shopping street, Oranjestaad, Aruba.

Eventually the line will connect over to the cruise ship terminal. This will give passengers a new option for getting to the various shopping and dining areas around Oranjestaad. Bon dia.

Tony and Jezebel, Aruba

So, behind my shack in Aruba, I have bit of land where some chickens like to linger. I started feeding them last year. Lo and behold, more chickens. Here’s a shot of Tony and his main hen, Jezebel.

Tony and Jezebel, my Aruba chickens.

Tony is one tough character. He attacks any other rooster that comes around and isn’t afraid to stand up to the smaller stray cats. That’s a bit risky because when the food gets short, those cats may turn on him. Either way, these chickens are absolutely hilarious as they go about their day. If you know where to find it, entertainment is cheap on this island. Jezebel had a couple of peeps recently. We’ll have to wait and see how many make it. To date, the flock numbers 4 hens (Jezebel plus Daisy, Maisy, and Crazie) and Tony, plus a few itinerant roosters named Bill and Al. Peeps don’t get a name until they grow up. Stand by for updates in the fall when next we check the flock.

Published in: on July 22, 2012 at 6:02 pm  Leave a Comment  
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