IT’S THE FOOD …
Blue House Boutique happy for recognition
IT’S NO longer a secret. The Blue House Boutique Bed & Breakfast is top class. And if you were to ask owner Elise Yap, she would tell you immediately that it is the food. “We are known for our food, that’s a huge draw for us,” Yap says. “We’re number one on TripAdvisor in Ocho Rios and number two in the island, and every one of our over 400 reviews scream rave reviews for our food; we’re the only property on the whole of TripAdvisor (where) every review talks about the food. Food is our biggest draw. We only have, like, two negative reviews, and even they raved over the food.” Blue House picked up the award for Best Kept Secret at this year’s RJRGLEANER Hospitality Jamaica Awards, and Yap couldn’t be more pleased. “We’re happy, we’re over the moon!” was her delighted response. “We need some serious exposure. We’re excellence, but nobody knows about us.” Yap said she was happy that a category opened up for her bed-and-breakfast facility to enter the HJ Awards and eventually in. “It’s been a long time in coming and I’m very happy that Janet (Silvera) put a category that we could win, because the last time the category we were in was best small hotel, and we didn’t have a chance against people like Round Hill and such. We only have five rooms.” Only five rooms, but service is excellent at the luxury property, located off the beaten track on Marcliff Drive, opposite Couples Sans Souci Hotel. According to Yap, Blue House doesn’t attract tourists but, instead, attract “travellers who want to know the real country that they go to, people who want to know the culture and mingle with the real people. But we’re luxury”. These guests usually want Jamaican food and this, no doubt, prompted the direction the culinary offerings have taken. “We serve Jamaican food because they mostly want Jamaican food. But if they come to us for a week or two, we break it up with some Chinese food, some Italian food, some Thai food, but mainly they want Jamaican food and we do upscale Jamaican food like, for a regular Sunday dinner, rice and peas and chicken, we throw in shrimp and papaya to make it upscale.”