I have mentioned a few times the different places I ate dinner but might as well pull it all together in one page.
For years, the first night, Wednesday 1/8 in this case, has been LA HABICHUELA. It is not far from the ADO bus station and just off Parque de las Palapas. The Parque has to be seen to be believed. It comes alive at sun down when the food stalls open and the year round inhabitants of Cancun bring their children. Even on a MOnday night! In 2019 there was an ice skating rink. Maybe it was there this year, 2020, and was just taken down by the time of my arrival.
The walk from my Airbnb to Habichuels is just the right length, a little time outside and a challenge at the end. Digging my way into the Parque is never straight forward even with the phone GPS. It is main roads until the last 1/4 mile and then smaller streets that may or may not end/weave.
I have my normal 3 drinks: Margarita, house white wine and a local beer. Always get the same thing, Chicken in Mole sauce. I think I have sometimes had a soup but none appealed to me tonight. Usually the bread is a basket of rolls that one can choose from but this time it was good pieces of fancy bread. They always put me at the same table, just next to the garden as I usually request not to be in the garden.
Next night is PETER S RESTAURANTE. I have stopped in the night before to make a reservation for 6pm. I have talked elsewhere about the RAIN getting to Peter’s.
This is really the top of my food chain in Cancun. Notice that Peter has brought over a lamp for me to read with after seeing me using the flash light on my camera. I have other years been able to exchange a few words with the diners a at the next table but not tonight. I passed up the mushroom appetizer and I think this is a port special. Peter’s stuff is wonderful. One has to be a little careful to ask the prices of the specials as once I got an unexpected surprise on the bill.
Sonya Mexico is the other high end dinning on the same Cancun street but it is closed. The web site and reviews still act as if it is in operation but I think this is the second year in a row that it has been closed. I even got to talk to Sonya in person last year and she hoped to be open by now but no luck unless I am missing something.
Friday is my beer bar EL ESTADIO CERVECERIA. The bar keeps name is Barbara or at least that is what she uses for English. Her English is hospitality level. This Friday they had a sewer problem! We had to all move out onto the outside patio. Barbara really could only signal the problem, she did not have the English words. The beer is the best in Cancun. I used Beer Box for years but it is now closed and in the last years had a slow death with less and less great beer. Barbara has everything from Mexican to Belgium to US to German.
I had a chicken Burrito. Barbara directed me to the top one instead of some special one. Because of the sewer, I went out on the patio and sat with a couple. She was from Sweden and doing transcription for YouTube video in Swedish. She does not do translation, just transcription. He is working in Cancun. They met on a hiking trip elsewhere in Mexico while she was visiting.
Saturday is LA DOLCE VITA CENTRO just a nice walk from my Airbnb, just off the central traffic circle leading to the hotel Zone. This was new to me last year and I ended up eating there 3 times last year and this!
They always have a too rich free appetizer, Pata in this case. Looks like I am having the Veal Marcella after the Margarita and with the glass of house white. They have delivered the excellent bread but you can see that I have asked to hold onto the Pata just incase I decide to pack on a few more pounds. The owner arrives about 6:30? and makes the rounds of the tables. He will bring me a light he uses to see checks. He offers me a free aperitif drink after I have paid the bill but I promise to indulge the next time. You can see that I am working on Portrait of a Lady by James. I really enjoyed it! I am about 1/3 through and saving it for the next trip. I had started it on a previous trip but instead of picking up where I left off, I started near the beginning again. For a number of trips I have been reading Conrad so it is nice to find another author I can enjoy.
Sunday is SAMURA JAPANESE CUISIN.
Note the bottle of water that I always try to carry to save the money of ordering a bottle. Note the Sake can. And of course the Poke bowel. Daughter Emily and Son in law Kevin had introduced me to this item in California. It was quite good. Very inexpensive and filling enough. I was on a kick to find a new Sushi restaurant. I always have lunch the first day in Cancun at Hanaichi, on the hotel road a short walk from Surfin. This year I was a little disappointed. The Spicy Tuna roll seemed too mushy. The choice of items in the combo sushi was a little on the tough side. I decided to make an effort to find a new Sushi and this was my first of 4! Sushi dinners in the quest, though indeed I am counting my second visit to Samura in that review.
Ssmura is a few blocks away from my airbnb. It is in a cluster of restaurants that I have visited on many other trips as Beer Box used to be located here. Samura is in a building that used to house a pirate playhouse? I watched a football game years ago upstairs. It was fun to rewalk this familiar route. The manager came over and apologized for no English menu. Afterwards, I took my normal walk to Estrada for a beer.
In the past I have come here almost every night but I guess Surfin was helping with my loneliness and while Estrada has great beer, it does not have customers that want to talk to me.
Monday was back to LA DOLCE VITA CENTRO.
Amazing how alike the dish looks but I swear I ordered something different each time. At least you can see that I again held onto the pata.
Tuesday was another sushi experiment, Umami. This is about the only time I can remember eating in a hotel! One had to walk through the lobby and around to the beach side to find the restaurant.
The view out the window.
Sure looks like an octopus appetizer. Hmmm Hmmmm
The pieces
And finally the roll. I was going a little slow as the sushi was expensive but the roll was very good size and I came out feeling full.
Wednesday I went to EL SOCIO TAQUERIA NAIZ. It is in the direction of the ABO bus station. I had tried to go here Monday but it was closed so I just went to my old stand by at the end of the street, Dolce Vita. There are a number of restaurants near this Naiz. Hopefully I will try more of them in the future but as you can see I am an obsessive person and continue to return to the same places over and over.
This was a wonderful Taco bar. Great baked chips. Lots of sauces that I could try on things. An order included two tacos and you can see that I got two orders. Very interesting, new flavors, good setup. They even provided bug spray but I did not need it.
Thursday was back to the Sushi quest at TORA CANCUN.
Sorry the last picture is so dark. Hopefully I will have time later to take it into PC tools and lighten it up. It has the picture of the sushi, if you can see them. I think there is only 1 of each and they are presented on an elaborate devise.
Tora is a great example of the kind of tourist restaurant I want to skip. Wonderful view. Wonderful service. If you read the reviews of these types of restaurants on Tripadvisor and Yelp you will learn a great deal about the view, the atmosphere and particularly the names of the staff. I guess I am more focused on great value for great food. They were out of the least expensive saki and then found it. They recommended that I did not drink it warm. I can cross this one off the sushi list.
Friday was Chinese, GOLDEN SEA RESTAURANTE. It again is right in the center of the Hotel Road town at 9K. Walking distance to Surfin and so many other things I mention. I found this one last year, after a lot of wrong turns into shops etc. Last year there was a bus load of chinese tourists, probably mainland.
This year I was the first customer at 6:15. I was informed that Friday was the bar tender’s day off but my waiter was not apposed to selling me a glass of Sapphire gin so we got over that hurtle nicely! The menu had english so I was able to choose without too much trouble.
Mongolian beef and dumplings as I remember. Wine and beer. I really like the place. A small tour group came in and I made it an excuse to ask a chinese couple who were not with that group where they thought the group was from. The young man said he could usually tell by listing to the speech and seeing if it was short, Beijing or if the sound of the characters was elongated, it was southern. I prepared my next approach around places for me to visit in China but they made it out of the restaurant before I could attack them for a second round.
Saturday was an all day bike ride that you can read about elsewhere.
Sunday I ate in Playa del Carmin that again is recorded elsewhere.
Monday, back to SAMURA JAPANESE CUISIN, this time for sushi. I decided it was unfair to compare them with the other sushi places when I had only had a poke bowl.
One of the main reasons I had gotten the poke bowl instead of sushi last time was that I could not make enough sense of the mexican menu. This time I really worked at it. Used google translates. Even found that warm was not working with the waiter for saki so I found a word for hot or warm that worked and resulted in warm saki!
I think at one point he referred to me as napolian in the sense that I was ordering him around. Again it is theis disconnect that I want to pour my own saki, etc. I move the dished I want control of over to the non-waiter side of the table.
In the end, I have to put the 4 sushi restaurants in order. Easy to pu Tora at the bottom. I guess Umam is at the top, followed by Sumara and Hanaichi. Hopefully in 2021 I will have a new quest goal.
Tuesday was back to LA DOLCE VITA CENTRO
Same appetizer and I think rabbit special. Not as adventurous as one should be in Cancun but it is nice to have some comfort zone when one is traveling and riding every 6am with people that do not speak your language. I flew home Wednesday and hopefully in 2021 I will be more aggressive able=out asking the people I ride with to suggest places to eat!