Scarlet

Last night, with the blessing and kindness of our guests visiting from New York, Didier and I were able to go out for the second time in a year.  For dinner.  Together.  Without the children.  While I was a little nervous about Virginie who is in a wicked separation anxiety phase, I had to seize the opportunity when it was available.  It felt so good to put on some clothes on that hadn't been spilled, vomited, or peed on, wear some heels and basically look how I looked before the people came. 


Scarlet is a sweet, little restaurant in Paynes Bay on the West Coast of Barbados, opposite the more familiar and more expensive, Daphne's.  It was a lovely surprise for me, a red jewelry box with Warhol portraits of Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe, lacquered surfaces and exotic flowers.  The music was a mix of 50s and 60s hits, rhythm and blues, early rock n' roll, girl groups, and a little George Benson thrown in.  George Benson will always make me smile because he reminds me so much of my dad because of his good looks and because he was one of my dad's car driving music faves.

Didier selected a bottle of wine, which I prefer to cocktails with dinner and, while I immediately announced that there was no way we would be able to finish the bottle, that was not the case.  It was kicked before dessert.  We started with the sesame prawn toasts in a cheeky presentation with tiny Chinese food delivery carton, the sticky soy chicken and noodle salad with coriander pesto and cashew nuts, and a Bajan favorite, flying fish lollipops.  The plates were well presented and prepared.  Each taste put a smile on my face.  For our entrees, we chose the lemongrass salmon skewers for me and the catch of the day, barracuda served with sweet potato fries for Didier.  The sweet potato in Barbados is more like a wild yam, a bit tougher that the orange buttery sweet potatoes from home, but they were quite tasty.


Finally for dessert, which was more standard and less adventurous than the rest of the menu, but do the trick with chocolate, for me anyway, we chose the hot chocolate pudding and the sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce.  The most delicious treat of all was the time and the conversation with my husband.  I had not realized how much we really needed some time away.


Stephane and Sophie, the owners of Scarlet, are a very nice couple with a beautiful little girl, who know the struggles of the restaurant business and raising a family.  I'd met Sophie at my first Toddler Group and liked her instantly.  Didier had the opportunity to meet the couple at an event at the US Ambassador's residence for a discussion and presentation on US trade and import of various foods.  Didier and I have often wondered what the next path for us will be and have talked extensively about opening something again, something where we won't find ourselves working for anyone but ourselves.  It's a tough call.  We know the hours are deadly and that restaurants and all service industries really, are dependent and often hostage to the whim of the public, but it would be ours.  Ours to win or fail. 

But last night we let that topic, like all others, come freely and loosely in and out of play while we laughed, touched hands and feet, smooched and talked of life in the heady, romantic language of courtship, not the clipped, exhausted shorthand of parents.  It was glorious. 

(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.