blue moon

there is this very cool and unique restaurant up in the hills here called blue moon. it is located about 20 minutes away from cabarete on the road to santiago. the restaurant is by reservation only with a minimum of 8 people and serves an "indian-dominican fusion" cuisine as the hostess calls it. the reason for the reservations and minimum number of people is that the staff has to travel to cabarete and/or sosua to get the food to be prepared for that night's meal. if they are serving fish, they for sure have to go to sosua. this means that the staff drives over an hour (roundtrip) to get the fresh ingredients for that night's meal.

the property and restaurant is a real zen like experience. for starters, the dinner is served to everyone who is sitting on the floor in a large circle. the food is served in small dishes, and then you take what you want and put it on your banana leave directly in front of you and the cushy pillows you are sitting on (or later lying on.) you eat with your hands! it takes a while to get the hang of this because rice is one of the elements of the meal - not to mention the fact that it feels quite wrong to be eating that way. i (sort of) got over it. the dinner area is under a tent like structure and can accommodate up to 30 people in a circle. you take your shoes off before entering in. it's decorated with all sorts of tapestries and colorful pillows.

the restaurant is part of a large property that you can walk around on. set amongst egg shaped hills with many palm trees, the views here are spectacular - particularly at sunset. at the top one of the hills is the owner's house. he's a doctor from germany who came to the DR about 15 years ago with his south african wife. their original intention for the property was to have it be a school for teaching spanish to foreigners. when that did not work out, they decided to open up the restaurant. they split up a few years ago and the wife left. now his girlfriend (wife?), eneda, who is from the DR, is the hostess at the restaurant. the restaurant is very popular with groups making reservations through the local hotels, the local mountain bike tour operator, etc. apparently flight crews like to go out there too.

calling it a restaurant is not really doing it justice. it's more like an "outing". you can go there before dinner and hang out on one of the hilltops on the property. as i said, the sunset is fantastic here and definitely a must see. if you'd like, you can go there even earlier and laze around at the pool. once you're ready for dinner, you pick your spot in the circle and settle into the pillows. the food is very good - just spicy enough and a with wide variety of flavors.

we went to blue moon on my birthday with some friends. here are some shots to give a sense of the place and the experience.




here is a link to their web site: http://www.dominicana-net.com/bluemoon/index.html