Eleuthera Restaurants Mapped

Dining is definitely a high priority for us whenever we travel. We're old school diners. Whenever we visit a restaurant, we want to take our time and savor the atmosphere and the food. Unlike today's culture where the 10 second Big Mac rules, we get perturbed if our food is served too fast. We like to give up our meal order in bits and pieces so we don't wind up on the curb an hour after arrival. The restaurants on Eleuthera, as well as the many other Bahamas restaurants we've visited over the years, cater perfectly to our Greek eating style where dining out is an event, not a chore.

Over the years of checking out the various Eleuthera restaurants, I've recorded the geo locations of these restaurants with my Global Positioning System and now list them on my interactive satellite map of Eleuthera and list them again with their telephone numbers on a new Eleuthera restaurants page.

If there's one point in particular to share about restaurants in the Bahamas it's about their service. If you're used to using drive-up windows and intercoms, you need to think in terms of shifting into a slower gear. For our friends who flop on the floor from food deprivation within 10 minutes of giving up a food order, we tell them in advance they need to relax -- “This is the Bahamas, Mon! Chill!”

Another element to dining island style is knowing the servers are geared differently than back home. A 15% gratuity is most always built into the bill so it's not like they're worried about getting tipped. In the same token, they're not setting the world on fire trying to get that extra 5%. We've found it's sometimes helpful to drop an extra $5 bill early on if we think we feel the need for speed.

And then there's the element of price. I've seen some reviews where people complain about how much food they get relative to the price, or simply bitch about higher prices in general. For them, I say let's get real, folks. You're on a freakin' island where everything has to be shipped in by boat or grown / raised on the island. It's a real challenge for the islanders to keep the right foods fresh and in stock to satisfy our whims. It's not like a refrigerated tractor trailer pulls up every Tuesday to drop off a load of tomatoes.

With this in mind, it's highly recommended to call in advance, even days in advance, to be sure your choice for a restaurant on Eleuthera is going to be open and will meet your expectations. We usually ask if there are any specials, sample a price or two, and sometimes ask whether a particular dish we like is going to be available. Some examples of this would be conch, lobster and fish. On occasion, we've asked the restaurant to set aside some delectable we want when we make our reservation. The restaurants appreciate this too since it helps them with preparing their daily grocery list.

While I'm at it, I'll throw in a recommendation for our fave Eleuthera restaurant DolceVita (now closed) at Runaway Bay near Palmetto Point. We love this place, the food and the owners, Paolo and Flipper. Talk about yummo food!

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a few others like Mate and Jenny's in South Palmetto, known for their pizzas, and Captain Jack's near North Palmetto, known for their Louisiana style cooking and their excellent view of one of the better Eleuthera beaches. In fact, one of my more favorite Eleuthera photos is from there.

Are there more restaurants than the ones I listed? Of course! Just ask around when you get there. The islanders are very friendly people. Have a suggestion of your own? Just drop it into the comment box.

Bon Appetit!

pj

Eleuthera Videos - Surf's Up Dude!

 

Loved these recent videos of Eleuthera hosted by Nick Guilarte, Lance-O and Lexi. The show is produced under the moniker of "Island Hoppers." A good chunk of the production is dedicated to surfing on Eleuthera; Surfer's Beach near Gregory Town in particular.

 He had made the trip to the Bahamas so he could go surfing on Surfer's Beach. Gotta love that spirit of island adventures! Unfortunately, the wind wasn't right and his mission to surf Surfer's Beach was a wipeout.

Given he was an experienced traveling surfer who had been to any number of surf destinations around the world, I asked him whether the surf site Magicweed was any good. I had been linking to the site on my weather page. He dissed the site saying it had been wrong any number of times when he used it. I kind of guessed that might be the case since I know of no active weather station that provides the kind of fresh data they were giving for surfing Eleuthera -- items like current wind speed, etc. If I'm wrong, holler. I've since ditched the link. Happy to link back up to it when someone shows me where and how the data is being collected and distributed.

I did manage to shoot a 360° virtual reality image of the very cool Surfer's Beach shack while I was there and should have it posted on my Eleuthera photos page soon. I also have a number of photos from the better beaches that I will soon post.

I was going to try and shoot all the major beaches but have come to find a number of them aren't near as worthy as others and probably shouldn't be suggested unless you plan on being on the island for months and don't have anything better to do. I've found other beaches that have been missed. I now pay more attention to what I see on the satellite map and what I am told by the local Eleutherans than anyone else -- they are the best beachologists

So if you're planning on going surfing on Eleuthera, be sure to check out Island Hopper's Surfer's Beach video. Cowabunga dude!

Update: Unfortunately, Surfers beach shack was torn apart during one of the tropical storms that visit Eleuthera from time-to-time. A new hut was subsequently built. The new Surfers Beach shack does not have as much personality as the old one, but it is still most definitely a surf shack. Don't miss it next time you're down. Bring your beach bum look with you!

pj

Lighthouse Beach - Bannerman Town

This is one of the pictures of Lighthouse Beach on Eleuthera that is currently on my screen being groomed and noodled for Eleuthera-Map.com. Bannerman Light House is by far one of the better photo ops on Eleuthera. In fact, this was one of the best sunrises I have seen in the Bahamas, or the Caribbean for that matter. Don't hate me for saying this, but I've seen a large pallette of sunrises and sunsets in the Bahamas on quite a few of the Family islands dating back to the 70s. We'd live on a Bahamas island, but who wants to get stuck on one island when there's so many Bahama islands to see?

So check out the shot and tell me... What were the odds of my catching the sun just right against this spectacular cloud group?

My good friend Ralph and I hit Bannerman beach just as the sun was beginning to peek over the ocean. It was a classic "Oh My God!!" moment. And it's not easy to pay more attention to setting up the camera then it is to gape at a panoramic phenomena like this one. I'm sure you pity my dilemma.

Pat Metheny's "The Way Up" was the perfect soundtrack for this shoot. I usually dial up his better tunes on the Nano when I'm in OMG mode.

Thankfully, I had practiced enough 2-minute drills setting up the gear before I went on the trip. It's easy to screw up these kinds of shots if you don't do everything rather perfectly. It's not like you can yell to the sun "take two!"

The original of the panoramic image you see here can easily print to 12" x 36" consisting of 48 different exposures -- a guaranteed "wow" when properly framed. I'll be sure to include this as one of the choices in my Eleuthera picture gallery.

I promise it won't be as long until my next post as I definitely have more coming. Time to show folks some of the better landscape shots of Eleuthera. I have another unprocessed panoramic image / virtual reality photo of Lighthouse Beach and Bannerman Lighthouse that looks like it might blow away this one. If nothing else, I have some more single and triple exposure pictures of Bannerman that I'll be exhibiting shortly.

See you on the beach!

pj