Tuesday was my daughter’s 29th birthday. And we all know, you only turn 29 a few times, so….

…we kayaked to Buck Island, then went on a sunset sail, visited with Maggie at the Deck Bar (haven’t been there in ages!) and got to see Christine, who has been living and working on a dive boat in Indonesia for a couple of years, then we went to the Pickled Greek.

And that’s how fast that day went by. Whew!

Oh, the new stuff……let’s start on the east end. The word is that chef David Trask will be opening a deli at the Reef where Lori’s used to be. It’ll be nice to be able to stop and pick something up on the way to Buck Island again.

Zebo’s has a new chef. Dave Vargas is now running their kitchen. We were there the other night and it is amazing! Vargas has been personal chef to some of the island’s most (ahem) interesting people, but now he brings his incredible talent and commitment to Strand Street, Christiansted.

We absolutely LOVE the fact that he is using as many local products as possible. Local fish, both fresh-caught and farmed at the university. Locally grown produce and meats. We had the lobster bisque  (which was fabulous), fresh wahoo, and local butter lettuce salad. Yum!

Our dear friend Mitchell, one of the owners, brought us some local cockles! We’d never heard of cockles, but they are shellfish similar to, but smaller than RI quahogs. And they are delicious! Mouth-wateringly tender and juicy. We’ll go back soon and hopefully have more of those! Dessert was also incredible. Mitchell has hired a pastry chef who put together a chocolate dream. Rich chocolate cake with berries and fresh whipped cream wrapped in a chocolate shell. Magnifique!

One of the best things about using locally produced products, besides supporting our own hard-working farmers and allowing us to be less dependent on shipped in foods, is that the menu changes daily depending on what’s available. We love people who think outside the box! Congratulations to Mitchell and Dave Vargas!

Oh, and now the irony!

Tuesday evening while we were in town talking to Maggie and Christine and other friends at the Deck Bar, a guy with a couple of adorable dogs was on the other side of the little inlet where the tarpon feeding occurs nightly. His dogs were barking like mad at the fish in the water. Their loud barking made it difficult for us to enjoy our conversation. So I went over to ask the guy to quiet his dogs down.

He said that he didn’t have to, and he said that if we had a problem, we should “go talk to the police right over there”, who allow him to have his dogs on the boardwalk. I had had a couple of glasses of wine (after champagne on the sunset sail), and since he refused to make his dogs behave appropriately, I said something about him needing attention and maybe it was because part of his anatomy was too small.

He then came over to the Deck Bar and asked Michael to make me behave appropriately. Michael happened to agree with me about the dogs, so we went over to the police officers on duty and complained about the guy. The guy came over with his very well-behaved dogs and showed us all how nice they were. And they are great dogs. But they shouldn’t be allowed to bark and carry on while people are trying to have a conversation at the bar.

After a while, Officer Hernandez walked over to the Deck Bar and asked Maggie and some of the other patrons whether the dogs had been bothering them, and they said that yes, they had. So Officer Hernandez asked the guy to keep his dogs quiet. Hooray!

When we went back to the Deck Bar to see Maggie, she related the story about the nice police officer. She also said that the guy with the dogs probably wouldn’t like it if someone sat across the street from his restaurant and allowed their kids or dogs to create make a nuisance of themselves and disturb his customers.

We asked which restaurant he owned, and she said, “Zebo’s”.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 11:15 am and is filed under Rants, Reviews, St. Croix, Terry Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.