Antiguian Island Delights

Once again I've been lucky enough to be invited back to Villa Nuovola in Gally Bay,  Antigua.  This place is really the epitome of perfection.  The scenery alone is what you would visualize as paradise, turquoise sparkling ocean water, clear blue skies with white puffy clouds, and as you look out, you can see cliffs, islands and cruise ships. One of the clearest days, we were able to look across and see the island of St. Kitts.


Our gracious hosts, Senor Geoffrey Bledin and his lovely lady Paula had prepared to have a group of 15+ friends to celebrate the birthdays of the twins, Dave and Justin.  Everything was amazing, from our rooms having flower pedals waiting in the bathrooms for us to the infinity pool overlooking the spectacular ocean view.

To our extreme delight, we were lucky enough to have a talented personal chef, Stevie Mendes and his sous chef, Angelo cook us to our hearts content. I called Stevie, Mr. Food porn star because we would just watch him at his craft.  He was the master regardless of breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  My favourite moments was when he was making wahoo cerviche, from the wahoo that was caught that morning. It was so fresh, he could just slice it and feed it to you and it just melted in your mouth.   Other moments was cooking the most perfect lobster.  Lobster in Antigua don't have the big claws, they just have tentacles that they whip around at you.  These lobsters are only caught on certain days so it was a treat for us to get them.  Daddy Bledin was in charge of the kill and then Chef porn star was in charge of cooking them.  The food porn star's calamari was outstanding as well.

Lightly breaded and then deep fried to a point where they had the perfect texture in your mouth.  Ohh delicious!  I definitely packed on some pounds from this trip.  Although we had a porn star, his sous chef would bake us the most decadent breads and foccacias all with different ingredients in them.  He would also make fresh pizzas for us!  We also had the pleasure of having our host Senor Bledin grill for us.
He made us some gorgeous grilled snapper that were caught fresh that morning.  It was quite a feat to cook16 snappers perfectly but he stepped up to the challenge and made us a superb dinner.

Every morning when we woke up there would be a fresh spread of exotic fruits for us to rehydrate ourselves from the festivities of the evening before and freshly baked croissants which we would stock up on.   They were at times a little on the doughy side but put some nutulla on them and you are good for the day.  Our lunches would differ between fish tacos, pastas and sometimes we would go out.   A few times we had jerk chicken roti out at the Roti King in town or we would go to Celicias which is one of the fancier restaurants in town and what I visualize for myself when I retire. View my previous Antigua food blog for more details about these restaurants.  Before our dinners, we would have cocktail hour and appetizers.  There would sometimes be dips in which we couldn't get enough of the homemade humus.  We also had the cerviche which is literally mouth watering and to die for and other appetizers such as smoked salmon and of course cocktails.  Our regular was passionfruit and vodka or vino.  At dinner, we would either have the catch of the days or beef tenderloin or stir fries.  Our bellies were always satisfied here!  On behalf of the group of us, we sincerely thank our wonderful hosts for their generosity and hospitality.  This was another memorable trip to paradise!