To kick off my week of Dominican blogging, I'm starting with the easiest subject (and the one that I was made fun of the whole week for taking pictures of): Food! Trying new foods is one of my favorite things about traveling. It's a way to jump right into the culture, and there's no better way to make friends than to share food!
In all my travels, the only regret I have is that I didn't get gastronomically adventurous sooner. I regret that I didn't try the Chicken Butt or 1000 Year-Old Egg in Taiwan. I regret that I didn't try the Stinky Tofu (okay, maybe not that one...). But after that trip to Taiwan, I decided I would try everything a country has to offer from then on, and I have! Remember the
grubs in Peru? There was nothing strange in Dominican Republic, but everything was delicious! Wanna see some of it? I thought so!
Unfortunately, this is the only picture of our first meal in the DR that I have. It was at a fast-food type place (Sort of...there was a drive-thru window, and it was fairly fast) that served chicken, beans, yucca. They had a dozens of chickens roasting on spits near the dining room. There were no doors or windows, or lights because it had all been damaged by a hurricane (it was very close to the water). Anyways. I was sitting and went to scootch my chair in, when my flip-flopped foot slipped, hitting the horizontal metal leg of the table. I knew as soon as it happened that it was bad. I looked down to see my big toenail broken and blood already dripping down my toe. So, I quickly excused myself with some water and tissues to perform minor surgery on myself. At one point, as I was carefully removing part of my nail, I had a small crowd of Dominican men around me making sound effects and "ooohhhh!!" and "aaahhh!!" noises. (I'll put up that picture as soon as I get it from my team mates) Kinda fun! haha. The final damage was half a toenail missing. I kept it carefully cleaned, bandaged, and wrapped the rest of the trip, but by the time I got home I didn't even need a regular bandage. In case you were wondering, it's pretty hard to make a pharmacist understand that you need gauze, tape, and an antibiotic ointment when you don't speak the language!
One of our first days was spent in Nagua, a coastal community on one of the most amazing beaches I've seen in real life! A few pastor's there took turns feeding us during that day. Meal one:
Fish, rice, some sort of crab dish, tostones (my new favorite thing!), and fresh avocado. Fun fact: I didn't like avocado until I had it on this trip. Now I can't get enough!
After service that night, we ate and fellowshipped at another Pastor's house:
The most surprisingly delicious meal ever: Yucca, Onions, and Cheese. I don't know what they did to the onions, but it was all so yummy together! I've actually been craving this since we've been back.
One night we decided to eat at a mall food court, and I quickly decided on my usual mall-food-court-fare, Chinese.
It was pretty good, more like real Chinese food than what we get at home. I was happy...until I saw what Pastor discovered.
They ordered these fish, pork chops, chicken, rice, and salads. I tried some of the fish and it was so good! I was definitely jealous. Plus, their place had a waiter who brought their food to our table in the food court. On the bright side, I learned the proper way to debone a fish from Pastor!
Here's another lunch at one of the minister's homes. This cheese was everywhere and SO GOOD! Those pita-type things were actually crunchy, so not really like pita...more like over-sized crackers. Those drinks are homemade orange juice and tamarindo which is made from some local fruit. It was yummy, almost cider-like.
And of course, no food discussion of the Dominican would be complete without my new favorite fruit...coconut! There were vendors all over the place, so we had some twice. This time was right in front of our hotel, and bought for us by a fellow visitor (who lives half an hour away from us in the states!). The vendors use machetes to cut off the top. Some will pour the milk in a cup, others just give you a straw. Once the coconut is empty, they pull some quick moves with the machete to slice the coconut in half, then use a spoon to scrape out the creamy white fruit. Which, by the way, is way better than I thought it would be! Real coconut tastes nothing like the shredded coconut used in desserts back home.
So, there's my little wrap-up of foods I ate in the Dominican Republic this trip! It's not terribly varied, but it was all so good!
My new favorites? Tostones, Coconut, whatever that cheese thing is!
What's the best (or worst!) food you've tried while traveling?
Check back for tomorrow's post: The Country and Sights.
