Scallopalooza

Seared Scallops with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

It’s taken a while to trickle down but the recession has hit the BVI hard this year.  The two industries upon which our island economy depends, tourism and financial services, are both feeling the downturn.  Rumor has it the government is running out of cash (not really surprising the way they spend it).

When we were on Virgin Gorda a few weeks ago for my brother’s wedding, there weren’t many other patrons in the restaurants and the newlyweds had the resort almost to themselves.  If you want to travel to the Caribbean on the cheap, now’s the time.  I’m betting there are plenty of deals to be had now and through the slow summer season.

Bones and I have tightened our belts also but we’re also both members of the ‘you only live once’ school of thought.  So we recklessly decided to celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary on Saturday with dinner at Brandywine Bay Restaurant.  We don’t have “our” song, that’s not our style.  But we do have an anniversary place and it’s Brandywine Bay.  We’ve put up with each other for sixteen years of marriage and several years on a 32-foot sailboat before that.  I think that’s worth a good meal.  And a great meal it was.

Pork Belly with Chipotles and Caramelized Onions

Sous Chef Nick Matush was in the kitchen on Saturday (Chef Davide Pugliese was in Italy) and Nick sent out a stunner of a meal.  Bones started with the pork belly with chipotle and caramelized onion, two slices of porcine perfection.  The crispy, crunchy skin and smoky chiles provided the perfect counter to the rich pork belly with its creamy fat.  I had the vegetarian carpaccio, thinly sliced beets and shaved parmigiano reggiano on a bed of arugula, an old favorite and a lighter choice to start a multi-course feast.

Bones and I always share a pasta at Brandywine and this course was where we could really see the result of Nick’s time in the kitchen with Chef Davide.  Nick’s ravioli were superb – satiny soft, thin and filled with tender shards of scallop that seem to have been separated with a pair of tweezers.  Served with a buttery, piquant piccata sauce, I could have eaten another plateful.

Bones had grilled salmon with a salmoriglio sauce, not at all like the simple olive oil, lemon and marjoram salmoriglios I’ve had in the past.  Nick’s salmoriglio was what Chef Andrea Brizi at the Hosteria la Quintaluna calls a salsa verde, an emulsion of olive oil, parsley and capers.  Whatever you want to call it, the pungent sauce was the perfect complement to the salmon.  And I had more of those lovely tender scallops, this time seared and served on a bed of Israeli couscous with a warm bacon vinaigrette.  Simple and satisfying.  I do love my scallops.

Saturday's menu

With my little scallopalooza I drank a wine I’ve been wanting to try since I saw the movie Bottle Shock, a 2006 Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena.  It’s the wine that bested the French at the infamous 1976 Paris Tasting and got the world to sit up and notice American wines.  Bo Barrett, the Chateau Montelena winemaker who features heavily in the movie, was recently on Tortola and hosted a winemaker’s dinner at The Dove restaurant that I desperately wanted to attend.  Alas, the $230 per head price was too much of a splurge for us these days.

And the wine?  I tend to avoid American Chardonnays with food because I’ve had a few run-ins with overly oaky, fatty Chardonnays that slapped down the flavor of whatever I happened to be eating.  No such problem with the Chateau Montelena.  The wine had a bright citrus flavor that complemented but didn’t overpower the scallops.  I can’t wait to have this wine again and priced at about $37 a bottle a Caribbean Cellars here on Tortola, I can afford to, at least on occasion.

Bones and I were glad to see that Brandywine was busy on Saturday with a good mix of locals and tourists.  I hope they, and all the local businesses, can hang on through the slow summer.  And we’ll all keep our fingers crossed for next season. 

Note:  I wish the photos were better but it’s pretty difficult to shoot at night in a crowded restaurant. We don’t want to disturb our fellow diners and we certainly don’t want our food to get cold.  But take my word for it, all the food was beautiful as well as delicious.

Tagged as: Brandywine Bay Restaurant