Friday, March 27, 2015

Honduras Trip part uno: la comida

Hola from Honduras! I'm just hanging out at Susie's apartment before I catch my ride to the areopuerto. (I like Spanish cognates so I will be throwing them in periodically. Don't worry, you'll figure them out;)
So this was a quick spring break trip to Central America but I saw and ate enough to make dos blog posts. So this one will cover the food, as the title states, and the other will cover the travel and sights.


Meal numero uno was great! Susie couldn't meet me at the airport (see, I used this word in Spanish earlier, it's like I'm giving you hints;) so her lovely amiga Julie picked me and took me to the place in la pictura. Many places here are open air/patio like seating because the weather is wonderful! Julie said my dish probably wasn't authentic Honduran but close enough. It was basically the good version of the Taco John's taco bravo. A hard shell taco wrapped in a flour tortilla with refried beans. It was topped with guacamole and chismol (what we usually see labeled as pico de gallo). We also drank passion fruit juice - super good!
Sorry for the out-of-focusness. All pics are from my phone.
Susie led me around an older part of the city called El Centro before we left for Roatan. We stopped and had frappés at Espresso Americano. This place pops up about as often as Starbucks does in the States. It was about half the price though:)
We also grabbed lunch at a small, probably family run, food joint. We had baleadas and fresh OJ. The orange juice was soo good! Not just because it came in a bag with a straw, but it was just juice. No added junk. And baleadas are homemade tortillas with cheese, refried beans and crema. Crema is their version of sour cream, kinda.


That afternoon we flew to Roatan and got moved into our little cabin for the weekend. The section of the island we were on has several restaurants within walking distance. After scoping out the main road, we decided to stop at Thai Place; yep that's the actual name. We sat on a deck over the water and enjoyed cashew chicken and ginger chicken. 

Our favorite food find of the whole trip was a cute German Bistro. We went tres times in the tres days we were there. Too much? With views like this, the answer is no. Plus, the name of the restaurant is Porque No? = Why Not?

Spatzle at Porque No?
Oh, I want to go back. I miss that water and sun! Not the water in the glass...you know what I mean. Being German-born, Susie loved having authentic food from her homeland. I thought it was quite tasty too. We also had bratwurst and crepes with bananas and Nutella. This was the only place on the island I got coffee, which was actually an Americano (espresso and water) but still met my coffee needs. 


Little French Key is an island of the island. Really though, it's a small but beautiful island we went to for one afternoon on the opposite side of Roatan. We took a water taxi out to the island and looked around a bit. The package we purchased to get on the island included a meal, pictured above. The lobster, shrimp, and chicken were great but the beef, which is hard to see in the pic, was very overcooked and tough. The restaurant was open air and surrounded by the beach! 

Another beach we wandered to was at West Bay. It is ranked 15th best playa (beach) in the world by Trip Advisor! The sand was clean and the water clear. We didn't get a full meal here because there aren't many restaurants in this section. There were more resorts with restaurants but nothing stand-alone. 
One thing I really wanted to do was drink from a coconut! I had seen a picture of someone doing that when I was researching the island and figured that was the most tropical thing I could do! So, at West Bay, we saw some men selling coconuts, chopping the top off with a machete and plopping a straw in. We shared one in some beach chairs and got the full island experience!



After finishing the coconut water, the same machete-wielding, coconut-selling men chopped the coconut in half and created scoops with pieces of the coconut shell for us to scoop out the flesh of the coconut! The coconut flavor was more mild than I expected but still refreshing.

We did eat more than I mentioned but I had to choose the highlights rather than posting a food diary. 
So, if you made it through all that reading, congrats and thanks! If you simply scanned the pictures, I understand, I do the same sometimes;)