Taloula Mango's

The second stop on the Quantum was St. Maarten. After breakfast, we headed into the port, grabbed a cab, and made our way to Maho Beach. We were hoping to see more than one beach during our time in St. Maarten, but between the weather and limited time, we only made it to Maho. That was our priority though, since we really wanted to see the planes landing at the airport, especially the giant KLM one. It was fun, even if we were huddled under the umbrellas at the bar in the pouring rain, and later under towels we had taken from the ship as blankets for warmth. After we watched many planes land, we took a cab back into Philipsburg, walked around a little bit, and then decided to get some lunch at Taloula Mango's, which was located on the Philipsburg boardwalk.

Taloula Mango's bills themselves as a Caribbean cafe, and most of what we found on the menu were pastas, sandwiches, and other standard cafe fare with a Caribbean accent. To start, we got an order of the Caribbean conch fritters (6 for $10.25, prices as of two years ago and we think in USD) to share. These were described on the menu as "tender conch minced with red and green peppers with a touch of fire in a cornmeal batter served with two Caribbean dipping sauces." One of those dipping sauces was sweet and the other seemed like a yellow curry mayonnaise.

The conch fritters were kind of crunchy on the outside, maybe a little bit over-fried, but the filling was good. You could even see the pieces of conch inside. We really liked dipping the fritters into the yellow curry mayonnaise.

A chose to get ribs for lunch, more specifically the one from the tapas section of the menu called "good ass baby back snack" ($10.95). The menu noted that this was "one slab of deliciously marinated fall off the bone baby back ribs." A really liked these and thought they were cooked well and had a nice char flavor. They didn't exactly fall off the bone, but they also didn't take much effort to eat.

I decided on the jerk chicken caesar wrap ($8.25) for my lunch. That was described as "classic caesar salad rolled in a toasted spinach tortilla with jerk chicken," and came with sides of red cabbage slaw and watermelon. Pretty sure I gave the watermelon (or most of it) to A, but the cabbage slaw was nice and crisp. The jerk seasoning on the chicken was pretty light, not as spiced as most jerk rubs we've had before, making it more like a regular, nicely seasoned grilled chicken wrap, but that was fine for lunch.

From our seat on the second floor at Taloula Mango's, we were able to see the beach and take in the atmosphere of the boardwalk, which was pretty fun. It was so nice to be able to escape winter and sit in the open air with ocean breezes while we ate and drank some lemonades to rehydrate. While the food may not have been the most exciting we had on our trip, it was solid and we were happy with our choice.