EmiEats at Cooper Island Beach Club Part I

Afternoon!

So I've just got back from the most incredible holiday ever! I was lucky enough to travel to Cooper Island, in the British Virgin Islands, and then onto Miami for a few days. As it was quite a long holiday I'm going to split my antics into a few posts to be released over the next couple weeks...here is the first...lunch and homemade ice cream at Cooper Island Beach Club.

Let's start with a bit of background about CIBC - it's a small eco-resort on Cooper Island of the BVI. They're becoming more and more self-sufficient, through solar energy and rain water collection, as well as growing their own coconuts, passionfruits and much more. They use local producers where possible and source the best ingredients to produce a tantalising menu for lunch and dinner everyday. The ice creams, sorbets and treats in the coffee shop are all made fresh on site, and it's located next to their rum bar, which has the biggest selection of rums in the BVI.

Here are some photos of the homemade ice-creams from the coffee shop - mascarpone and raspberry, berry sorbet and coconut sorbet! Also on offer was of course rum and raisin, as well as M&Ms icecream and pineapple sorbet.

Onto lunch at the restaurant...

Everyday the restaurant was full of people fresh from the sea, as they moored up their boats on the shores of CIBC. As the clientele is mostly American you can guarantee hearty sized portions all day. Throughout our stay we had plenty of time to try almost all of the menu, as you can tell from all the snaps! Day 1 of course I had prawns - as soon as I see them on a menu, my decision is made! While I chowed down on my prawn skewers I had a little taster of my sister's BUCKET of fish and chips. Of course there has to be a traditional British dish on the menu. The chips were hand-cut into thin fries and the fish was coated in a soft batter in the classic way. I also had a thick slice of my mum's yellow fin tuna. It was seared to perfection, so nice and red raw in the centre. The tuna slices were served up with a healthy serving of salad and asparagus.

One day I was lucky enough to go scuba diving in the reefs of Ginger Island, called Ginger Steps. I saw some incredible sea life including reef sharks! That day I made sure I had a light lunch and I had heard the lobster was fantastic, so I had a garden salad with poached lobster with a drizzle of passionfruit vinaigrette - this was the perfect salad.

On our last day I had the salt fish potato cakes.

This was served with a pickled ginger salad, like that found with sushi, so obviously complimented the fish perfectly. It was also served up with a sweet chilli mayo.

Also pictured is the jerk chicken on the burger, which was another popular dish among us vacationers, but I ran out of time to give it a try!