We made our reservations (and back-up plans) mostly based on reviews on this site for our Christmas holiday in Bonaire. The report: Bistro de Paris: Good first impression, seems like frequent visitors are the mainstay -- everyone knew everyone. Plenty of greens on the salad (spinach roquefort, but not much spinach--no problem for us as the leaves are dark green and the dressing tasty). Beef tenderloin was perfect, chicken breast large and tasty, duck confit a bit dry, but tasty. Nice wine by the glass. Key Lime Pie (which as others said is more like a cheese cake -- agree) was very good. Papaya Moon: Happened to arrive while happy hour was still on...two margaritas for the price of one -- whew! Nicely decorated restaurant. The food was good -- we had chicken and pork choices for the main course and ceviche and one of the cheese dips for starters. The waitress was new, but did a great job (the management kept checking on her in such an overbearing way that we were uncomfortable enough to not want to go back -- wonder how she felt?). Donna and Georgios: A bit of a noisy location being on the boulevard. Appetizers were not the highlight for the price. Main courses were great. Shrimp pasta -- shrimp was so fresh and the sauce a light creamy, delightful choice. Special of the night was strips of sirloin on pasta. The guys said it was good, too. By the way, great fresh tasting bread. Dessert was large portions -- can't remember what we ordered -- but it disappeared. This restaurant gets the best designed toilets award -- gotta check out the decor! Richard's: Had a seat on the water (not the one at the end of the dock). Beef was a highlight. My shrimp pasta (a theme here!) was good, but not as good as the night before. The shrimp was really fresh and cooked perfectly, the sauce was ok. Mahi Mahi was simply prepared (the waitress steered us away from the wahoo and after having it at other places we were glad she did). We had chocolate fondant and loved it. Wil's Tropical Grill (Christmas day): This is a pretty little restaurant. They offered a special menu - four choices for starter, main and dessert. The five of us got them all. First, though, the mango margarita -- GREAT! Beef and fish were great. Starters were nicely presented. Bugs were a big problem even with the smoking strip right at our feet. We borrowed some spray from another table. Bongos (on the beach): This place is really on the beach -- bring cash as they don't have a way to take credit cards. We didn't have a reservation, but they set us up with a table in the sand (we had brought bug spray, so we were prepared). Enjoyed ourselves immensely watching the people and taking in the more casual attitude of the beach restaurant. The fish (wahoo) fajitas were ok, nothing to rave about. The chicken fajitas were the same. Burger was large -- but my daughter didn't like the sweet tasting bun. Salads were nice dark greens. Cactus Blue: They were very accommodating to our changing schedule. The guys decided on a night dive and they were quite late. No matter to the management (wasn't busy at all). They still offered their Christmas menus which turned out to be a great choice. Had a delicious shrimp starter (spicy, mmm!), then we had pork or fish, both very tasty. Dessert also tasty. The quesadillas were good. Which reminds me...all the restaurants serving soft tortillas had very fresh, soft tortillas -- do they get them at the same place? Bambu: This is a relatively new place, we gather from the site. We had high expectations and were a bit let down. We are U.S. expats living in The Netherlands the last five years and after arriving recognized Bambu as a contemporary Dutch restaurant with a tropical flavor. The wines by the glass, both white and red were tasty. The beef was pretty good and the shrimp dishes were not good. Shrimp risotto was presented as regular rice in the middle of the plate with a slightly creamy sauce around the plate -- who makes a risotto without cooking the rice in the sauce? My shrimp dish was the coco shrimp -- same rice as the risotto. The shrimp on both dishes was "old" tasting -- compared to the great tasting shrimp at many other restaurants on the previous days. Crème Brulee was served in a chipped bowl with no attempt to correct when we pointed it out. The chocolate dish -- which was something similar to chocolate fondant was overcooked -- only one of the servings had anything resembling the "melted" chocolate advertised. Patagonia: After sorting out the comments on this site about Casablanca and its staff starting Patagonia, we decided to risk the brand new restaurant. Things worked pretty well through the main course -- then the whole place fell apart - the kitchen was completely in chaos and the wait staff was all but gone (except for the friendly lady refilling water glasses). The caesar salad was not exactly classic caesar dressing, but it was really good. The wine came in large pours and was pretty good, especially the red. The beef and pork were excellent and the various sauces they offered were very nice -- none too strong. We wanted dessert, but after at least 30 minutes of waiting for someone to come by, we went to the manager (or owner?) in the bar and asked for our check. Bottom line: if they can get their act together on busy nights, the beef and pork were so delicious, that it's worth giving them a chance. Our last night was a repeat at Bistro de Paris. We were shown to the back room, not as interesting as the front room. The menu was the same as our first night, so we were a little less impressed. Note: we wanted to try Mona Lisa, but they were on vacation through the new year. Our highest recommendations for: Donna and Georgios Richards Cactus Blue Bistro de Paris Overall, we loved our 10 days of Christmas on Bonaire! |