First Night

The front lawn of Our Lucaya resort was gaily decorated for our welcoming party. Of course the bar is always a good start. Nambara ordered a Kalik (Bahamian beer). It was refreshing and light, and that's THE beer we drank for the rest of our stay. I had the House Special, which tasted like a Long Island with gold rum.

We stayed and mingled a little. Jeremy Wade, Uptown Bistro, asked what we're doing the rest of the night. We told him our plans and invited him along.

Little did we know, by the time we left our group grew to about 10 people. This was fine by us, but everyone had their own taste and ideas. We wandered around the Lucaya Marketplace, trying to find common grounds for everyone. Finally, I suggested we go to the Stoned Crab, as I've heard good things about the restaurant. Besides, I love eating crabs.

We walked to a taxi stand; one of the girls in our group asked a taxi-driver for a good place to eat. We asked him about The Stoned Crab, but he kept promoting another restaurant called Ruby Swiss. In the midst of it all, we 'lost' Damien (chef from Wichita Country Club) and his friend, Lee.

Fifteen minutes later, with everyone all talking at the same time, we somehow ended up at Ruby Swiss - the opposite direction of my original plan (and direction too, no pun intended).

There were 8 of us in the minivan/taxi, the short 10-minute ride costs us $4 apiece, which was not bad at all. But for some in the group, they fussed over the fact that the short ride costs us $32 altogether. Since we didn't have change, the driver ended up with $45, the balance was left as tips. Feeling a little foolish, we made it a point not to ride with this cabbie again.

The place looked like something out of the 1970s. The diners there were in suits or evening wear. I felt out of place as I was in shorts and T-shirt; the rest of us were also in jeans or shorts. Somehow nobody minded, the hostess didn't even bat an eyelid as she sat us.

The moment I stepped inside, I harbored this nagging feeling that this was not something I expected, and fine dining was certainly not the place in my mind for a casual group dinner.

In short, here's my take on the Ruby Swiss

* Decor = early 70s, with heavy velvet-y red drapes throughout the restaurant; white tablecloth; servers in bow-ties, tuxedo shirts and jackets;

* Ambience = quiet and relaxing; solo musician playing a wide repertoire of popular songs did a good mimic of Barry White, Louie Armstrong and Stevie Wonder, etc.

* Service = extremely slow. Whoaaa! I'm sure those of you reading this will roll your eyes at me - the workaholic, complaining about things being slow. But for a 2-course dinner to last over 3 hours (we spent only 35 minutes eating), this was painfully slow.

This was not a relaxing, take-your-time kinda dinner. It was a waiting-excruciatingly-long-while-the-server-took-your-order-and served-your-first-round-of-drinks-40-minutes-later kind. We ordered a bottle of wine, and it sat unopened on the next table with our glasses for close to an hour before it was served, even though we asked the server to go ahead and serve it straightaway.

Being restaurant-owners and operators ourselves, this is a loss of potential revenue for the restaurant. We could have been ordering our second or third bottle of wine by that time.

Service was also not attentive, again this was supposed to be a fine dining restaurant, right??? Refills on our waters and bread basket had to be asked several times before they were being done.

They brought out the bread basket with only 5 slices of bread in it. There were 8 of us, remember?!?

* Food = Okay. Menu = nothing exciting, nothing of the unexpected.
1) Conch fritters = tasty
2) Soup = okay
3) Pepper Steak = prepared the old fashioned way - tableside. The server left it on the stove to simmer and 'disappeared' twice for long intervals, leaving poor Keith agonising over the state of his steak.

He'd ordered medium rare, and 45 minutes later, he was so sure his steak had turned to rawhide. The waiter's little fire show with the cognac flaming the steak, did nothing to appease his already starving and grouchy disposition. But when it was finally ready, we were all relieved to know the steak was done just right - a little more cooked than what Keith would have liked it to be - but it was tasty and tender. [Restaurant people - we always have to have the last say, don't we?]

Ana (Two Brothers BBQ) ordered the same thing and she LOVED it. I tasted a piece from Keith and I liked it.

4) steak = described by Jamie Stephan (owner of Cafe Nouvelle, Uptown Bistro, Bellini and Eggs-cetra) and Jeremy as "bad". It didn't look appetizing to me, and it was overdone, according to Jeremy.

It wasn't a great first-night dinner. I'd give the restaurant 2 out of 4 stars.

I somehow ended up taking the heat for 'suggesting' this place... Oh well...

We headed back to the hotel after dinner. I didn't suggest going to the dance clubs like I had planned - as I was still smarting from some caustic remarks from the group about 'my' choice of restaurant. But it was a lesson well-learned, and a step to knowing certain people in our group a little better.

Nambara and I checked out the casino next to our resort, but couldn't get a seat at any of the blackjack tables as they were all full. Then Jeremy suggested we head over to the Prop Club, also on the resort's property. They had a deejay there that night, spinning dance music.

At the entrance, we could hear music pulsating away. My spirits lifted - there was no lines to stand in - the music and beat sounded great, just when I thought I could dance my blues away. We stepped inside to find the whole place deserted.

That's it - Nambara and I decided to call it a night. At least the Heavenly Beds at the Westin have not failed us yet. And a wonderful sleep we had that night.