A Tale of Two Tails: Madame Janette's Aruba

While in Aruba a few weeks ago, Shaun and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. Though most nights of the trip consisted of indulgent dinners and desserts (and heck, even breakfast wasn't exactly the pinnacle of health), we saved our favorite island restaurant to celebrate our big day. The place? Madame Janette's, an outdoor restaurant that is nothing short of romantic, gorgeous and decadent to boot.

Dotted with twinkle lights and guitar players strumming, Madame Janette's is really all about the atmosphere. Though I will add a note that since it's outdoors and semi-enclosed, I suggest wearing light clothing and a bit of bug spray.

So many restaurants in Aruba can be a bit pricey and Madame Janette's is no exception. But since we typically dine on the cheap, we splurged in celebration our big 2 years and ordered the Surf & Turf. Yep, it was as good as it looks.

The filet was topped with an oversized pat of herb butter (an item that, in my opinion, could make just about anything better). This is probably more butter than I'd need to consume in a month, let alone atop one bitty portion of beef. But oh was it good. Laced with fresh herbs, the silky smooth butter melted right into the hot filet, making this quite possibly the most decadent piece of meat I've ever laid my palette on. Moving on to the real star of the meal, the lobster tail. A giant, tender piece of er...tail...it was served with clarified butter and that was all it needed to rocket to the top of my favorites list. I know, by this point I was well on my way to a premature coronary. With all of that butter, is it a surprise that we had no room left for dessert? Oh and I should also mention that this followed a giant appetizer of tempura rock shrimp doused in sweet & spicy sauce.

So there you have it. A round up of our big anniversary dinner. Though we've adopted the cook-at-home-more-eat-out-less philosophy since moving into our new place, it was fun to splurge on a special dinner for the two of us. And the fact that we get to spend our anniversary in the place we got married is just the cherry on top of a giant, already-iced cake.