Tuesday, August 3, 2010

FOODIE YOODIE IN PUERTO RICO!




(Wednesday, June 9, 2010 )







Puerto Rico is a beautiful country.


Recently, my husband, my brother in law Sung and my friend Tammy were able to take some time and explore the city, culture, people andfoods and some things we saw and ate were unforgettable. We spent some time on the main land of Puerto Rico and we also ventured to a smaller island called Vieques, where we all agreed held one of the most amazing things we've ever seen! The water there was so clear, the sand was soft and the beach was not crowded.



































Picture taken with the Tam Cam

So our trip started with a 4 hour plane ride and we bought some snacks to hold us over and enjoy. Hanareum has some of the best snacks. These LUCKY snacks were much like cappuccino cream flavored pepperos . I got "lucky" and got an little extra chocolate on mine! :)


And here are some strawberry flavored ones that were really good. It tasted like strawberry pocky in the form of a mini mountain. yarm yarm yarm.





































































































So one of the first things we did was the neatest thing we did in the country: Bioluminescent bay. To give you some background, in bodies of water around the world, there are many microorganisms inhabiting it including Puerto Rico's waters. When those microorganisms are stimulated, they instantly light up displaying the shock of the encounter ("yikes!") but they're so small so no one can see the light that they emit. However, there is a bay that has the highest concentration of these microorganisms in the world in Puerto Rico. So what do you get when you have little lights in high concentrations? A bigger light, right? So whenyou swim in the water at night, the water you touch actually glows! Imagine water that glows, echoing everywhere you'ved touched. It's nothing short of amazing! Just thinking about is so surreal, but when you actually see it, you can say anything less than that God is the great creator.

If you can imagine people discovering this many years back before science understood what was going on, what would they think it was? Water that can give special powers? Healing? Fountain of youth??

Here we are in the water, but unfortunately, camera lenses can't capture the glow, but if the light was out, Kee and I would be surrounded by a bright glow.





Picture taken with the Tam Cam


































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































When we got to Puerto Rico, we were able to have a good eating experience. We got to experience eating by the blue waters at a restaurant and even more neat was eating in kayaks tied to a buoy in the middle of the Carribiean Sea!! The later had to be one of the most unique dining experiences and this was while watching the sunset. We couldnt' get a picture of that though.


































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Picture taken with the Tam Cam



































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































The best breakfast there was at our bed and breakfast at Haciendo Tamarido in Vieques. The staff was friendly and dining was outdoors overlooking a beautiful view of the waters.



There were warning signs of animals around the place...










and then later, there was a lazy sheep dog walking around the yards with no threatening owner walking around to disturb it's peace.




Picture taken with the Tam Cam




Picture taken with the Tam Cam


Before our food came out, we saw a parrot sitting on a tree so close to us. Sneaking up to the bird thinking nice thoughts worked because it didn't fly away. It was neat that they had wild birds like this flying freely around the hotel! Later, I found out that the bird actually lives at the hotel as the pet. It has a name, Lucia, who is quite friendly with people. Here I am being really careful when I don't need to be.




Picture taken with the Tam Cam


The ambiance was so peaceful and beautiful and the food was great! Our meal started with some fresh strawberries topped with sour cream and brown sugar. I hadn't tried the toppings before so mine was ordered without, but Kee tried his with it on and it was a great combination, making me regret not getting the toppings.





The colors across the table were vibrant and the food, especially the spicy hashbrowns were also vibrant with flavor. It'll definitely be something we adopt into our culinary repertoire in our house.






and there was a curious fruit on the side...






In a previous entry, our friends, Henry and Amy, brought back a bottle of cashew juice from Thailand which they let us taste. It had a picture of this fruit, but here it was on our plates. A cashew fruit!! So we tried it and it really does make your mouth pucker! What a strange texture!






Note to a particular individual that you cannot eat the cashew without roasting it first. :)

We were off to the beach and we went to Red beach and Secret beach to spend a day in the sun. We packed an ice chest of drinks but left out the lunch because a local told us about a food cart by the beach that we had to try. We found it!




Picture taken with the Tam Cam


Sol Food! They sold various sandwiches, emapandas, kabobs, desserts and drinks. We ordeed a few of them and had a great meal on the beach. The food was great; plenty in portion, cheap in price and full of deliciousness. The people who own this cart used to live in the east coast as well, but decided to pick up and move to this beautiful country. Quite understandable why.

Afterwards, it was back to the main island on a tiny tiny 8 person plane. On the way TO the small island, it was our first experience riding one of these and it happened to be a windy day. Ah! We were right behind the pilot and he turned around and spoke to us without a mic to give us our instructions. We were up in the air again to return, but this time the flight was much better and less nerve wracking than the first :).










When we got back to the main island, we chased the sunset and watched it on the beach, then headed to dinner at a strink of kiosks. Kiosks are basically a string of small builidings with open fronts. They had something like 80+ Kiosks and we hit up 2 popular ones. The first one is where we experienced the best food we had in Puerto Rico! We ordered some seafood paella and seafood ceviche that was out of this world! The seafood was tender, the rice had a delicious slight chew to it and everything was seasoned to the dot.









The pictures don't really serve justice to these...

We filled up halfway at the first kiosk and then we hit up another one. Here we started with some sangria margaritas and then ordered seafood salad with a side of mofongo and a whole snapper stuffed with ink stained rice. The seafood salad was cold and had a chewy texture that was alright and the mofongo is a combinatin of mashed plaintains and a meat and is one of the most popular things to eat in Puerto Rico. The snapper stuffed with ink rice had us pleasantly floored. The ink rice may make you cringe at the thought, but it's actually really good. Black rice! Who would have thought?

















The next morning it was off to old San Juan, a colorful and vibrant part of Puerto Rico. The buildings were colorful, the water was a deep, dark blue and even the cobblestone roads were blue.















Picture taken with the Tam Cam


We started in the morning at Bombonera with these sandwiches that were amazing. They are called mallorca con mantequillas and it is a round, flat pastry dusted with confectioner’s sugar and served with butter.










They also come in sandwiches where you can put ham, bacon and eggs in them. We were a little hesitant of a sweet breakfast sandwich, but again the savory and sweet combination rules! It was a perfect compliment to eacother. For the sandwiches, they get a mallorca, cut it in half, put the filling in and put it in a press to make it look like this:






Are you a coffee drinker? Than this is for you! The coffee is definitely something to try in Puerto Rico. It is a slightly stronger cup of coffee and they make it by mixing, I believe, espresso and hot water. The coffee machine is really really old since this restaurant has been around for more than 100 years!





Another great breakfast place we visited during our stay is Kasalta. Our friend Joanne recommended that we hit this place from previous visit.(thanks Joanne!) This place was great. They had an assort ment of pastries, cakes, breakfast and lunch hot foods and chocolate.! We got some assorted pastries with coffee and some chocolates to go for the beach. Again the coffee was so good here I had to get some of this to go too! Some favorite pastries included the cheese stick pastry and the sweet apple bun.


















My eyes got glued to this one right when I walked in...maybe it was cause the buns looked so sticky! I pointed to the applebun in the window, but the lady brought out a pineapple bun. I really wanted the apple bun. Luckily, she was nice and changed it for us and it ended up being my favorite. :)






We went to the Parrot Club for lunch and had some of these sandwiches that were very filling, but delicious!













That meal required a lot of walking around Old San Juan before dinner. While walking around, we visited a lot of the small shops and I even found some mini statues of animals for my mini collection!






This was one of my favorites because it was mini, cute, and the owner gave me the giraffe for free!





We visted some famous forts there and there was a good view of Old San Juan from up there. The rain held us in the forts temporarily but the time of the downpour couldn't have been better. We spend it in the watchtower, but that was okay since we were dry and had that good view.




Picture taken with the Tam Cam


And for dinner, we decided to catch some more mofongo and plaintains amongst other things and suprisingly, one of the best things was rice and beans! We ordered a seconds of that. :)














And last but not least, we went to get some pina coladas at Barracinos, the place that claims to have originated the pina colada! It ended up being across the street from our condo! In short, the best pina colada EVER.














haha




So, if you're looking for a affordable, close vacation spot, we highly recommend Puerto Rico! It's a short plane ride, they speak English there, same time zone, same monetary system, great beaches and great food!



Till next time, Bon Appettite!








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