Salud

Saturday April 21st, 2007

This past Saturday, against my better judgement, I decided to give Salud another try. A few months earlier I had had what is best described as a "leisurely" dinner at said Bistro due to the kitchen's slowness at preparing dinner after the appetizers came. As I am not accustomed to waiting an hour after my appetizer has shown up for my main course, i said never again. Well, just like James Bond, I should never say never again. As I was unable to get a reservation at my restaurant of choice for Saturday due to a St. Croix food and wine week event being held at that restaurant, I caved and said lets give it another shot.

Four of us had dinner. We ordered a bottle of still water, please note the wait staff is superb at pushing the bottled water, a grey goose gimlet straight up extra cold, and a whisky sour. Appetizers were a blue cheese, pear, and candied walnuts on microgreens salad and a beet and arugula salad with candied sliced almond clusters. So far so good. The drinks were made right, the salads were good and presented nicely.

We also ordered a bottle of syrah off what I consider to be a way overpriced wine list. Our waitress was helpful and honest about what she had tried and went to the owner to discuss the other bottles. I believe that we were given good and accurate responses regarding the wine choices. For entrees we ordered the cardammon andcumin scented chicken, the mahi special, and two rabbit cassoulet specials. While the chicken and the mahi were excellent, both rabbit cassoulet specials were so oversalted that the stew was inedible. The lone, and I mean lone, rabbit leg per entree, which for $30, is quite stingy when it comes to the portion sizing, was edible but the bean stew underlying it was inedible. The waitress did come to ask us how our entrees were (after a long enough time that I decided to eat the rabbit leg rather than knaw on the chair leg), and I told her that the cassoulet was extermely oversalted. She stated that she would mention it to the chef. Well, that was all we heard about it. We never heard a comment back from the chef, the waitress, or the owner.

For desserts, the group ordered tiramisu, limoncello cheesecake, and white chocolate mousee.
The cheesecake and the mousse were excellent. However, the tiramisu was "sour" and inedible. I can only guess that the mascarpone had gone bad. Our waitrees did not once ask how we liked the desserts, nor did she notice that the tirimasue was left completely uneaten.

For $250 with tip, we had two inedible entrees and one inedible dessert. For that price, its two strikes and your out, not three.

Blue Moon

The Blue Moon
2 Blocks north of 17 Strand Street
Frederiksted, St. Croix USVI
340-772-2222
Closed Monday
Lunch: T-F 11:30-2:00
Dinner: T-F 6:00-9:00 (Friday until 2AM), Saturday 6:00-9:00
Brunch: Sunday 11:00-2:00


I visited the Blue Moon restaurant in Frederiksted in January 2006 on a weeknight. Reservations were booked correctly and our table was ready immediately. The Blue Moon has moved from its former location on Strand Street about two blocks north due to construction. Their new home has been well thought out. You walk into a bar area which has a long hand crafted wooden bar running the length of it on your left, and small high tables on your right. From this vantage point, you have a beautiful view of the waterfront in Frederiksted. The back room is the dining room, which has been nicely painted in a warm yellow/gold and cheerfully decorated. The building is obviously one of the older buildings in Frederiksted as the concrete walls are a few feet thick and appear that they would be able to withstand hurricane force winds - note to self - this is THE place to be when the next hurricane approaches! Noise level was not too bad - you didn't have to shout to be heard across the table. The wall arches and slip-covered chairs should help keep the noise level reasonable when the room is full. The menu had a good variety of options from steaks, smoky pulled pork, pastas with Andouie sausage and cream sauce, mahi mahi, wahoo, and other seafood. Appetizers included crab cakes, salads, shrimp etc. Prices were reasonable with dinner items in the 22-30 range. Entrees generally included a starch and vegetable. Appetizers ranged from $7 - $15 range. The two page wine list, while not wine spectator award winning, was thoughtfully selected and appeared to be chosen with some thought as to good value wines. There were a few decent selections of wine by the glass. For my meal I had a salad appetizer and the smoked pork entree. The salad was fine, nothing to rave about, but it was properly executed with the non icerburg lettuce properly washed and not brown (a rare find on St. Croix in many restaurants) tomato, cucumber, red onion, sprouts, and radish. The blue cheese dressing was good, but could have used more blue cheese in it (I'm guessing here that the kitchen neglected to stir the dressing from wherever they were pouring it from and that most of the blue cheese stayed in the container). My entree was excellent. Smoky pulled pork with a tangy yet sweet but not too sweet homemade barbecue sauce served atop cornbread with a side of very spicy baked beans over rice. The baked beans were superb - I think they may have made them - they were tender, spicy, slightly sweet, and smoky. A perfect compliment to the pork. My only criticism is that while there was a generous quantity of food, they were a little light on the meat portion - e.g. I could have used about 1/3 more of a portion of pork on that cornbread! Service was friendly - the waitress was new to the island (this is usually a good thing in the service industry here). Drinks, wine, salad and entree were all served in a timely fashion. As the place got busy, service sadly declined. I was never offered a second glass of wine, and we waited and waited to be offered coffee, dessert, or the check. After what seemed like an eternity our waitress finally showed up and we just asked for the check as we were tired of waiting.

In general, I'd say the Blue Moon has done an excellent job setting up in its new location and that it is one of the better dining destinations on St. Croix. The food, wine and atmosphere were all top notch. Service, while courteous, need to be improved a great deal and I hope they work out the kinks. I give it a recommended rating and would go back again.


Food - good to excellent
Wine - good variety with value focus - not your standard merlot (thank God)
Service - needs work
Atmosphere - upbeat, funky - charming old building
Parking - Strand Street - easy access
Food Value - good bordering on very good
Wine Value - good

Frommer's review

Fodor's review