Last Night in Aruba

"Is the restaurant in an exciting area," my mom asked the cab driver. "No, it's residential," he replied. Our last night in Aruba and we're headed to an island favorite, Madam Janettes. A French Caribbean fusion restaurant, known to have good food and a great atmosphere. As excited as my mom and I are about the upcoming food selection, we're thinking about the nonexistent possibility for getting a drink after dinner that's walking distance. "Yeah, you can take a cab back to the high rise hotel area, lots to do over there as you know, cost you $9," he pitched. Lovely, well, I guess we'll just keep racking up the cab fare as we've done all week.

We pull up to the restaurant and are immediately chipper. White Christmas lights shine and sparkle from, what are those, trees? It's an indoor/outdoor restaurant with trees throughout, which means sparkle as far as the eye can see. We get seated right away, and start to peruse the menu. Not too many options, but enough to get my mom and I excited. I get my new favorite fish, grouper, Caribbean style and a glass of Argentinian Malbec. My mom gets a seafood salad and a mango mojito. Delicious herb covered bread and spread greets us with pickled onions. Yum. My wine is full bodied with a sharp, but pleasing after taste. Our food comes out promptly. Mothers is a luscious salad of mainly shrimp, calamari and scallops. My grouper came lightly sauteed with a side of a sweet cilantro sauce and light salad. Very good. The dinner was light, so we ordered dessert. What better than the Jamaica Mama, sliced pineapple, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, fresh whip cream and all topped with my fave, toasted coconut. That was to die for. At the end of our meal, as we were in food bliss, getting ready to head out, a storm was brewing and rain poured on the pretty inside/outside restaurant. Luckily, after a few seat changes everything was fine, but my mom and I looked at each other as we knew this would limit our last night activities.

We decided to hop back in a cab and head over to a piano bar called Sopranos. Feeling more tired than we thought we would, we get there and order one drink. The piano singers good, but after a few songs we finish our drinks and decide to hail a cab back to the hotel. Nice last night, but time to get a little rest before we pack up and head to Miami and Key West tomorrow.