Belize Eats

If it's one thing I have learned from all of the retiree, RVing bloggers out there is that what you eat and where is important and even more important is sharing it with others. Now with that learning, I have decided that on my travels I will try and blog specifically about what and where I ate. See, I am learning from my elders! LOL!

Day One Elvi's - this restaurant came recommended to us my friend Candace who rented us her condo down here on Ambergris Caye. She said that they had really good food and that we were to try their jalapeno poppers - so we followed her advice and we were not disappointed. The poppers were home made and were served with a mango sauce of some sort and to me, they weren't too hot.

We also shared an order of coconut shrimp which came in a coconut cream sauce as opposed to being coated in coconut and fried - it was very yummy as well. As for the main course, Diane had lobster ala Elvi (it is lobster season here) - which was about 3 tails worth with some sort of coconut mushroom cream sauce on it with a side of coconut rice. I opted for the special of the day which was a seafood creole that had snapper, shrimp, lobster (1 whole tail), calamari, scallops and conch in a tomato type broth served with coconut rice as well. It was way more than enough food! Elvi's is a definite hit and would recommend.

Day Two Capricorn - we asked our dive master what his favourite restaurant was and at this end of the island, it was a place called Capricorn, which was about a 15 minute walk down the beach from our resort. It had a nice dining patio however the food was so-so. Upon talking with others, it has a reputation for being hit or miss and I think we got a miss day. The meal wasn't bad but it wasn't great. I ordered the conche ceviche for an appy - very yummy! Diane had a lobster cake with a roasted red pepper sauce - it was rather pricy for what you got. For mains, I had the catch of the day which was snapper - I love snapper. It was served pan fried with an olive tapanade and another sauce that I can't remember. The fish was a little overdone - okay a lot, but nonetheless edible. It was also served with this horrid squash that I thought was sauteed pears or apples - it got spit out. Diane ordered the grouper in some sort of sauce and it too was overcooked. Like I said, the dinner wasn't horrible however it wasn't great.

Day Three Waruguma - this was another recommendation from Candace and once again, did not let us down. Now Warugama is one of these hole-in-the-wall type of places that has absolutely nothing when it comes to atmosphere. It has plastic table clothes and plastic lawn chairs but damn the food was good! They made pupusas - which for those of you who don't know are a central american type of dish. Essentially you take some filling, in this case I had pork and cheese, about the size of a baseball worth and you coat it with a cornmeal dough of some sort, so you have an even bigger baseball and then you flatten it and fry it on a griddle. Here they were served with a nice little slaw and some tomato juice ttype of sauce - oh so yummy - and that was just the appetizer.

Lobster burrito

I ordered the lobster burrito - I know - not a traditional burrito filling but it was so good! There were at least 3 tails worth of meat in this burrito - which was huge! They say that they can feed 2 people and they can. I brought most of mine home and had it for lunch the next day. Diane ordered the fish tacos - made with snapper, and that too was a massive portion. It came with this innocuous looking salsa that just happened to have a piece of habernaro pepper in it that could strip your taste buds! Definitely a go to again place - and cheap!

Day Four Captain Morgan's - now this is a resort that is located on Ambergris that happens to have the casino and where the TV show Temptation Island was shot. It is also only a 10 minute walk down the beach from our resort, so after a day of diving for Diane, we decided to go there as she didn't want to take the water taxi into town. I had to admit that my hopes for Captain Morgan's weren't very high especially when we got there and found out that it was going to be a buffet of Belizian food :-( Not that I don't like buffets, but usually only if they have Chinese or Indian food in them and I am always a little cautious of "national foods" - I don't want to be eating goat or anything like that. Well boy was I ever surprised - it was delicious! They had chicken tamales, stewed pork, sweet and sour plantains, beef fajitas, rice and beans and a couple of kinds of salsa and to finish it all off, key lime pie! Yum!

Day Five Rendezvous - can't remember anything else now because it is over a year later when I am posting this :-)  however I have figured out how to back date my posts so they show up in the right place.  I think this is where we had the pork taquitos :-)

Where Have the Days Gone

Wow! Hard to believe it is Friday and the work week is almost over - that means I will be heading back to the salt mines on Monday :-(. Normally by now I have my next vacation in the works, this time - not really. I would like to head back down to the Baja to see my friends Brian & Kim (see last year's posts) but they are only there for a month and I don't think I can swing it due to some work obligations (yes, I do work). I am heading to Houston at the end of March for some meetings so was thinking of tacking on a week of holidays to that - need to give that some more thought. But until then, I will continue to enjoy my last couple of days here in Belize. My plan for today was to go diving this morning with Ecologic Divers however the weather is not cooperating. They came and picked me up at my dock at 8:15am as arranged and we went into San Pedro and the weather, mainly the wind, got worse. Inside the reef, the chop wasn't too bad but outside the reef, where we were to go diving, there were 8-9ft swells, making it too dangerous to go diving. So after waiting for about an hour, the decision was made by Ecologic to cancel the dives for this morning. It was too bad, however it was the right decision - safety first! Unfortunately I can't go with them tomorrow as I fly out on Sunday morning and my decompression time would most likely be too tight. As for what we are going to do today, not sure. Diane is writing her final exam for her Open Water Certification and then we might take the water taxi into town and do some souvenir shopping - need to keep the economy going. The nice thing about Belize, even when it is overcast, it is still about 80F - so still warm. Yesterday was a rest day for me and a diving day for Diane. She did her last 2 open water dives towards her certification. I had contemplated going with her but decided to take a day off. I went for a nice walk up island along the beach checking out the other places to stay. What is interesting about Ambergris Caye is that there are very few cars as everyone gets around in a golf cart with 4x4 wheels on them, so all of the "roads" and I use that term loosely are more like dirt lane ways. In some places, the road is replaced by the beach. The other way that a lot of people get around is on bicycles - which they also ride on the beach. We haven't done either yet - maybe today. AFter my walk, I just lazed around the pool for most of the day reading my book. Although it was fairly overcast, I managed to get some good colour and that is when I realized that I need Botox! I must furrow my brow when I am reading as I have these 2 lovely little white stripes on my otherwise tanned face! Late afternoon it pissed down rain for about 30 minutes, the water was really choppy and my thoughts of taking the water taxi into town were quickly fading, however when we did decide to go into San Pedro, it was as smooth as glass. We had a lovely meal at Wild Mango (I will be posting a specific