Bahia de Caraquez is bursting at the seams with good restaurants and teeming with fresh seafood of every description. Ceviche, langostino, river fish, crab, calamari. Take your pick. You’ll also find good burger and pizza joints.
As soon as we get close to the city, Gary starts wanting to make a beeline for his favorite restaurant, Puerto Amistad. It juts out over the water and the food has never failed to tantalize our taste buds.
On our last visit to Puerto Amistad, neither of us could resist the grilled fish with shrimp sauce, the best entree we’ve had in a long time. The menu is full of items featuring fresh seafood and there are also crepes, quesadillas and yummy salads.
Our friends Rene and Merci, who have been living in Bahia for a year, have some favorite eateries of their own.
They recommend El Hermanacho for the best ceviche in Bahia. It’s a diminutive beach shack on the shore outside Hotel la Herradura. While their ceviche is $5 a dish, twice the price of ceviche offered elsewhere, Rene and Merci say it’s definitely worth every penny.
In their opinion, the best hamburger can be had at Lulu’s Bar and Grill.
They also say that the best BBQ in town is in a restaurant on the other side of Hotel La Herradura, but we didn’t have time to check it out.
Although you can’t really tell because the place is so crowded, these locals are gobbling up big bowls of a Bahia specialty called encebollado de piscado. That is Spanish for fish soup, a hearty dish chock-full of onions, tomatoes, yucca, cilantro, garlic and fish such as tuna, then topped with crushed banana chips and doused liberally with all kinds of lemon juice and mustard.
Maria Emilia is one of the popular street restaurants that serves fish soup and the place is generally packed.
The Arena Bar has pretty good pizza.
While we were enjoying breakfast and the beach breezes from the open air patio of our hotel restaurant, two men came in and ordered a strange-looking item on the menu. I couldn’t help but stare as they each attacked a large ball of something with apparent gusto. My curiosity got the best of me and I asked them what they were eating.
The men were brothers. One has lived in Bahia all his life and the other brother spoke perfect English from his many years in the UK. He told me he looks forward to his visits to Bahia every two years so he can enjoy one of his favorite specialties, bolon de platano.
It’s a giant round concoction of banana, cheese and bits of pork. I politely declined his gracious invitation to have a taste, not wanting to deprive him of a single bite.
Got to this blog page for a more about Bahia de Caraquez and one of our visits there.