LETS TALK ABOUT THE FOOD
Dominican Food is SO good. My first trip to the Dominican I was volunteering for an English teaching organization. Which means that for the most part all of our food was taken care of. We had a fantastic lady that would cook for us (mainly our dinners) and it was to die for. Something that quickly became a crowd favourite was something that we ended up called "gorditas" or "little fatties" because we would eat so many of them. Although I don't remember the technical name for them, I believe they are called "Arepitas de Maiz". They are almost like a corn fry bread. All of us volunteers loving sweet things would put honey butter on them to make them that much better. Typically for dinner we would have something called "La Bandera" which mostly consists of eating a plate full of rice, beans, veggies, and some type of meat. Although other times we would have chicken salad, or spaghetti.
LA BANDERA |
COOKING ON OUR STOVE |
There is no shortage on the fruit situation either. It's so refreshing to be able to eat any citrus or tropical fruit you want at basically anytime. From mangos, pineapple, papaya, and Oranges. I was also able to try some new fruits such as Chinola (passionfruit), guava, guanabana and one other called Zapote. You are able to buy fresh juice at almost every colmado, and if you are lucky some of the locals will even teach you how to make it!
Here you will also find the biggest and best avacados as well as guineo. Guineo is basically eating boiled green bananas. They are used quite frequently because they are cheaper than plantains and are easy to cook. A few new vegetables that I tried here are Batata, Tayota, and Aji Gustoso.
FRUIT MARKET |
GUANABANA |
AVAVADOS |
PASSION FRUIT |
GUINEO |
Now I'm not going to lie to you, the food here is very different than what you are probably used to. I admit that I love chicken, rice and beans but there were a few times that I had some food that I wasn't a fan of. These experiences came when I was not a volunteer but a tourist. I was staying at my friends house and not in a hotel/resort, but I got the full experience of what locals ate. Mostly it was the same rice, beans, and meat but on special occasions they would make something different. Some new items better than others.
First Up: BBQ's :
BBQ ON THE BEACH |
HOME BBQ |
CHULETA (PORK) |
BBQ COMPANY |
I've been to a few BBQ's in the Dominican and while they do taste different than Canadian or American BBQ's they are still delicious. Mostly Chicken, Pork, Hotdogs and Coca Cola.
Definitely a good choice!
Second: BOFE :
Or Just walk past a food truck and pick up some yaroa, tacos, or quesadillas.
If I could recommend ANYTHING it would be to stop by a heladeria and try out some bizcocho icecream!
Once my roommates and I went on a vacation, but didn't realize that in this specific tiny village there was no restaurants or grocery stores to buy food. While we were walking around the town looking for something to eat the sweetest lady and her husband invited us in and cooked dinner for all of us. I don't know if it was because I was so hungry or what, but that was the best dang chicken I have ever eaten.
All I can say is that food brings people together, and there are some different dishes that you don't even know about yet that could very well become your new favourites. So get out there and try something new!!