$2 lunches, 3 cent bananas, and $5 lobsters

Food is an integral part of our adventures. Phillip and I love trying the food in the countries we visit. I always include food photos and stories in the postings during our travels. This posting is dedicated to a few of our recent food adventures.

Since we are renting a condo, we have a kitchen. However, it is still cheaper (and easier on the cook and dishwasher, i.e., me and Phillip) to eat lunch at a local restaurant. We’ve found this restaurant, about 6 blocks away in a residential area, where the almuerzos are always delicious… and cost $2 each. The word almuerzo means “lunch” in Spanish, but in these small restaurants, an almuerzo is a set lunch, it’s what the cook fixed in quantities that day. An almuerzo consists of a glass of fruit  juice (the kind of fruit varies, but the fruit is juiced on premises), a big bowl of soup (actually, the soup is hearty and sufficient to be the meal by itself), and then a plate of meat, rice, and usually fried banana or plantain slices. The banana is slightly green, so when fried it is vaguely sweet, but also starchy like a fried potato slice. Sometimes the meat is beef stew, sometimes a helping of menestra (seasoned lentils) is included with the meat and rice…. just depends on what the cook fixed. We haven’t gone wrong yet by ordering the almuerzo at Dona Luca’s restaurant.

We generally cook dinner in the condo. I am finished with Spanish tutoring at 6:30 pm, about the time it gets dark here. It’s safe to walk after dark here, but it just seems so late to me…. and we always have fish or shrimp in the refrigerator! The vegetable prices at the market for fresh produce seem so cheap to these gringos from the Estados Unidos (United States). As we frequent the same vendors, the price we pay keeps going down. And I thought the prices were good during our first week!  For example, our last haul from the mercado included a bunch of 15 bananas for 50 cents. Big bananas, not the fingerling ones I ate in Thailand. That works out to 3 cents a banana. Those limes… they are the size of American oranges. Our first week, we paid $2 for twenty. This week, same vendor, $1 for 20. I asked the lady who sold us the limes to give me 25 cents worth of cilantro. Even at Fiesta (the Fort Worth Mexican grocery), I would have paid $1 for that much cilantro.

Yesterday, while I was in the grocery store getting milk, Phillip stopped at the bakery across the street from the store and got pigs in a blanket. Back at the condo, he heated them in the microwave and served them…. pigs in a blanket? They were more like hogs in a comforter…. Full sized hot dogs wrapped in a small loaf of bread. You can see the size in relation to a full-sized paper towel. Mostaza is mustard, sold in a container that reminds me of the CapriSun juice containers.

And now for our most delicious adventure, today’s lobsters. Bob and Susan, Americans who are renting the penthouse above us, arranged with one of the fisherman to deliver lobsters. At about 10 am, Bob knocked on our door to tell us the lobsters had arrived, three for us. $15 for the three, fresh off the boat. Pacific lobsters, so they don’t have big claws like the Atlantic lobsters we brought back from Boston a few years ago.

Dona Luca didn’t get a visit from us today. I had to use three pans, because the condo didn’t have a pan big enough to hold more than one of our lobsters. Five minutes in boiling water. Cool down for a few minutes so Phillip could take care of getting the tail meat.

I noticed that their skinny little arms did contain meat, so I cracked their arms (legs?) with my teeth, as our kitchen didn’t have a tool to use, and got six more bites of lobster meat.

These lobster tails were tender and flavorful, more so even than the tails of the Boston lobsters.

Delicious to the last bite, which you see me eating in the last picture!