Restaurant & Café Gouverneur de Rouville, the first on my list of eight restaurants we visited!

Restaurant & Café Gouverneur de Rouville is better known as De Gouverneur by the locals and also by the once that visit the island often.

De Gouverneur is located in Otrobanda with a beautiful view over the waterside of Punda, as a result, you’ll see all the lights of the city during the evening.

With compliments of the Curaçao Tourism Board (CTB), the reservation was made for 6 pm. We only had to get ready, order, eat and enJoy! It did take us a little later to arrive at the restaurant, because of the scheduled day taking a little longer than planned.

We got ready and on our way to the restaurant, we met up with our colleague from Miami, Jody Diamond from Diamond PR, and invited her to join us if she wanted and could of course.

Our table was situated on the deck, where you could see the beautiful sight of the “Swinging Old Lady” (The Emma bridge).

There’s more than enough choice on the menu, each and every item on it is explained, so it was easy to pick. Since my cousin, Cheryl, didn’t know Curaçao very well, I wanted to let her taste Curaçao Authentic Foods… 🍽

The menu

Some things I’ll never give up! I’ve got a certain love for coffee, and most of the time I’ll try to have a little cup everywhere I go. Curacao was my second destination in two weeks, and the first week was fairly busy -running up and down-. This made me a little tired and sleepy. Coffee ☕️ was the best pep-me-up 😉.

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De Gouverneur serves it beautifully in a cup with a glass of water on the side, on its own little tray. Cheryl enJoyed a delicious glass of Virgin Pina Colada. “After such a long day, it was absolutely refreshing”, she remarked.

We ordered the following starters:

• Carpaccio; Parmesan Cheese, Chipotle Cream

  Cheryl isn’t one to try raw meat by herself. She did know this dish, but never really tried it or hadn’t seen it the way it is presented on the plate below.  The deal was: “If I don’t like it, you’ll have to finish it Jill!” A good thing she’s with me, my love for food makes sure that I’ll at least have a little space for carpaccio -it is only a starter right?- 😉   “I was scared of my plate! It’s a large one, and I still want to be able to eat my main dish.” She didn’t finish it, but she did enJoy the dish.

• Fresh Tuna; Tamarind syrup, chipotle cream, crispy yucca

  I love me some tuna, but I’ve never had me the Gouverneurs’ version. When I saw the description on the menu, it immediately intrigued me, I hadn’t tried this version so why not try now. I know it is often said that people would only eat what they know and I do know tuna, but I’m always willing to try new things, different flavors, almost anything that’s unknown to me. Just to make it known… Chipotle and/or tamarind aren’t unknown to me. The combination is though. When you mix up flavors, the taste would be different too. I was very curious to know if I would like it. A beautifully plated dish with sesame seeds, cress, spicy mayonnaise and… very thin slices of Aloe! According to the description, there should be a yucca crisp, but as I am allergic to it they did not place it for me. This dish tastes as yummy as it looks. The tuna was perfectly marinated with the tamarind and chipotle mixture. The tamarind you could taste at the end, I like the flavor of it, it kind of gives a little kick to the dish. Soft, good and yummy 😋 ! If you haven’t tried it, you should.

While we finished our starters our new friend, Jody, joined us. She placed her order and we continued with our main course, the view and we got to know each other a little better.

The main dishes:

• Keshi Yena:

  Cheryl’s father did ask her if she was going to try Kabritu Stubi, as that was one of the dishes he liked a lot, but that was on my list… I told her she could have a bite. 🙂 Here it is, a big well-filled plate with Keshi Yena…. as a side there were vegetables, deliciously dried fried funchi. “It looked like a well-stocked chicken pie to me, nice I thought. I started, but I did not even finish half 🙈.” Cheryl decided to bring the leftovers with her to the hotel, saying she might want to eat it a little later in the evening or the next morning for breakfast. “Finished all the funchi off my plate, it was deliciously dry and crispy, hadn’t tasted it anywhere else before.”
  
  

• Kabritu Curry:

  Kabritu is Papiamento for Goat 🐐. So this is literally curry goats, which is a dish not unfamiliar to me, and maybe not even to you. Still, it didn’t taste the same as our Surinamese Curry Goat. I think ours has more spices and lots more hot peppers in it. But this version has a good taste, deliciously soft. Yum 👅.

After spending a lot of time chatting, we eventually decided to walk back to the hotel, which was just across from the restaurant. We enjoyed a glass of wine 🍷… before heading back to our rooms to get ready for the next day. Presentation day!

There are only 7 more restaurants to write about. I hope you enjoyed this one. 😉

Next on the list of restaurants we visited, number 2:

Oporto Restaurant!