Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Bonaire: Where We Ate


For a tiny island, Bonaire is packed with great restaurants. Unfortunately, between our schedule and the fact that many of the restaurants were closed for several nights because of Carnival, we didn't get try all of the places on my “list” (I really wanted to check out At Sea, Pasa Bon Pizza and the Ribs Factory). I guess it’s just another reason why we have to go back to Bonaire.

We did though get to It Rains Fishes, Paradise Moon Bar & Restaurant and Zeezicht, all of which are located alongside the ocean in Kralendijk, as well as Casablanca, which is located a couple streets in (all of these places are an easy walk from the Divi Flamingo). And as I mentioned over here, we also checked out our resort’s taco night one evening.

Food-wise all four Kralendijk restaurants were great and I couldn't pick a favourite. While I was disappointed that It Rains Fishes was out of a lot of menu items, I was thrilled with the creamy, cheesy salmon pasta that I ended up ordering. Also packed with cheese was the lime-and-tequila seasoned chicken breast I had at Paradise Moon. At Zeezitch and Casablanca I had fresh fish, tuna at the former and at the latter, wahoo in an amazing butter lemon sauce.

Atmosphere-wise, these four places really varied. It Rains Fishes was classy while Paradise Moon and Zeezicht were casual and laid-back. Casablanca could best be described as shabby-chic; it tried to be sophisticated but didn't quite make the mark (while the host was in a suit and was all about old-world class, the other waiter wore jeans and there was a really sad looking salad bar).

Bonaire’s known for a very laid-back approach to customer service and we found this to be true at every spot except for It Rain Fishes, which took a very North American approach to service. At the other spots, service was very slow and not overly polished (more than once we were brought another table’s drinks or food).

Still, despite the less-than-great service, I would return to all three of those restaurants as well as It Rains Fishes because all of my meals were excellent and there are plenty of other tasty-sounding items on the menus that I'd love to try. And all were very reasonably priced. I'd say our average bill was around $60 and that always include a couple of drinks.



1 comment:

  1. ohh my this looks delicious! $60 bucks isn't half bad for a meal with drinks, hope you enjoyed yourself (:

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