Cancun, Part 3, Food

Cancun, Mexico, January 2015

Food

One of the first things you think of when you think of Mexico, is naturally the Mexican food. Tacos, burritos, ceviche etc. Cancun has a wide variety of choices: you have your Burger King, McDonald's and Buppa Gump, if you're into that, and yes you guessed it: these are mostly found in the Hotel Zone. Then you also have the small restaurants selling mostly tacos and the likes, which can be very tasty, and not necessarily at all spicy, if you're worried about that, since you get to build your own taco from the ingredients they bring to you.

But what we went all in for, was sea food. Despite the first cockteleria/cevicheria -type restaurant in the rather outskirts of the town that we tried was a bit... strange. The house in itself was a sight to behold. A building resembling a garage, in lack of a better word, covered in murals of all kinds. Inside the walls were covered in paintings of mermaids and topless white, blonde women... The plastic table and chairs seemed to be a bit sticky. The music was on full volume, we were the only customers and the waitresses were rather odd. The first thing they offered us when we ordered beers to drink, for example, was their special offer of ten beers for some "amazing" price. Hmm, I think ten beers might be a bit much to go with your lunch around noon... We did however order a wide range of seafood, from soup to a plate of fish and ceviche mixto. Ceviche, the raw seafood "cooked" in lime juice, was an interesting experience. It was alright for the most part and didn't cause us an upset stomach (this didn't happen at all for neither of us, which was unlike Mexico's reputation would have lead us to believe), but there was a mystery creature there with very strange gristly texture. We never could identify what this sea monster was, that we were eating.

Having decided to steer clear of ceviche, the seafood options were still plentiful and we ate more prawns than anywhere before. Basically every day. One seafood restaurant was the pick of the bunch: El Pescado Ciego on Avenue Carlos Nader. Wonderful seafood soup, amazing tuna, nice tacos, good seafood pasta with a whole crab... We just kept ordering more and more as we ate.

Prawns

Seafood soup

Pasta with some crab

Mmmm... more prawns...

Around the Parque de las Palapas in the centre of the old town there are many restaurants and bars to choose from. We mostly stayed outside of this area, but we did try out one of the places there as well. Pescaditos, a seafood place (what else?), was our choice. Sampling their offerings, they were mostly just regular, but the charm of the place came in the form of a three-metre-tall puppeteer in front of the entrance trying to lure tourists in. And seemed like it was successful, seeing that there were some foreign girls inside getting a lot of attention and free alcohol from some local playboys... Luckily for everyone the girls ended up leaving without the guys.

Tacos then, lime juice, coriander (or cilantro if you like), guacamole and the optional hot sauce to compliment your choice of meat. Mmmm, awesome! My favourite was arrachera which translates to skirt steak, if I'm not mistaken. A seldom-used cut of meat in Europe, but rather tasty one. However, al pastor style tacos, similar to döner kebab or gyros, which was brought to Mexico by Lebanese immigrants, proved to be a bit over-hyped for me, which was a real shame.

To be continued...