Back in town

After a 11 day trip through Belize & Los Cabos (Mexico) wearing only flip-flops, shorts, and a t-shirt the entire time I am back in the chilly Northeast again in a heated apartment.

Belize was unfortunately not the culinary experience I wanted. I landed there with visions of escabeche, stewed chicken, rice & beans, beans & rice (apparently its different), and some other creole/mexican creations. Unfortunately, the first destination was an enclosed resort in the jungle (awesome for many other reasons, but not food) called Chaa Creek and the other was a resort island called Ambergris Caye filled with mostly North Americans on scuba diving trips (also awesome for reasons besides food).

Cabo San Lucas was also a bit disappointing. It pretty much catered to Americanized palates on a holiday trip that either included packaged tours with glass bottom boats or multiple nights at El Squid Roe or the Giggling Marlin. I fall between the two groups now. Haven’t quite hit the age where packaged tours appeal to me and I can party enough in New York that Squid Roe doesn’t really interest me either. To be fair, we only went there on two nights and one was new year’s eve so I shouldn’t really expect too much on the culinary front that night, but the other night didn’t impress me much either.

The other cabo, Cabo San Jose, was fantastic though. Great street food of all sorts including quite possibly the best tamales I have ever had and a fantastic restaurant called Damiana, where I actually had a chance to chat with the chef for a bit after dinner and try some of their home-made damiana liqueur at the bar.

I’ll try to post on these soon (this week) and then catch up on a couple of backlogged restaurant posts that got lost in the shuffle of the holiday season.