Quest for the Dominican Dish

Fish and tostones.

Half the experience of foreign travel comes in eating the local food. 

Before our recent trip to the Dominican Republic, I was excited to contact Lucy, a dear friend whose roots run deep in that country. I asked her if she had any suggestions on food that we must try. Her response was enthusiastic and extensive. 

She messaged me a list Dominican dishes, complete with pictures, the Spanish translation, where they could be found, and how they tasted. And she didn't stop there. I was sent pictures of fruits, desserts and drinks. By the time she was done, my mouth was salivating and I was anxious to begin my quest.

But my search proved to be a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. Our trip would be split between beach and city. Our first stop, Playa Dominicus, had one of the prettiest beaches I had ever seen! But authentic Dominican food was another story. This coastal town on the Caribbean Sea, popular with Europeans, proved to have almost exclusively Italian food! 

Plantains are common throughout the Dominican Republic.

After enjoying an evening of fine white sand, calm blue waters and a beautiful sunset against a silhouette of palm trees, we wandered back into town for our first sit-down meal. We decided on an outdoor restaurant serving pizza, spaghetti and linguine. There was one sole Dominican dish on the menu, and of course, that's what I ordered: arroz con habichuelas. 

Rice and beans are a staple in many Central American countries, including the Caribbean. This meal was simple. I received a scoop of herbed rice alongside a small bowl of black beans, stewed in a broth of spices. It came with a tasty leg of chicken. I think this meal could also be called la bandera, which is considered the national dish. Translated as 'flag', this dish consists of rice, beans, meat and salad. No matter what you call it, the meal was simple and satisfying. 

Arroz con habichuelas.

The next four days proved just as challenging. We didn't eat constant Dominican food like I had hoped, but rather a taste here, a bite there. The one constant was the free breakfast at our hotel. Every morning we were brought a plate of fresh fruit: always a sliced banana, pineapple and papaya. The papaya and pineapple were probably the juiciest and sweetest I had ever eaten. 

On another day we had a pleasant surprise on the beach when a lady came around selling small samples of sweets. When she announced what she had, I immediately recognized it as one of Lucy's recommendations. I bought a small cup of dulce de coco for 50 pesos. It was easily the most wonderful dessert I had the entire trip.  A coconut dessert par excellence! Each day after that I kept an eye out for that lady, hoping to buy more, but never saw her again. 

Sweet Dominican fruit.

Little cups of heaven being sold on the beach. My favorite was dulce de coco.

Twice we took a boat tour to an exotic island where we spent the day either snorkeling or lounging on the beach. Each day they fed us a buffet-style lunch. This gave us a chance to sample several kinds of food, but we didn't know the name of any, nor if it was authentic. We dished up rice and beans, fresh fruit, rolls, sausage and grilled chicken. They tried to charge us an arm and a leg to boil up a fresh lobster, but we passed. Maybe we should have done it. 

Buffet on the beach.

One of the fascinating aspects of Dominican food is that much of it is a fusion between many different cultures. Just like the people who inhabit the island, any food could likely have roots in Africa, Spain, other Caribbean countries, or even West Asia and China. 

One such dish is mofongo, a recipe influenced from Africa, with Spanish and Taíno influence. It consists primarily of fried plantains which are then mashed and cooked with a variety of spices. We found ours at a restaurant in Playa Dominicus where it came served with a salsa and topped with several (hard) chicharrónes (or pork cracklings). It had a wonderful, but simple flavor, especially when topped with sauce. 

Mofongo.

My favorite eating experience came after swimming at an isolated beach in Bayahibe. Lucy had told us that the beach was the best place to eat fish and tostones, and she was right. After crawling out of the water and drying off, we walked across the dirt road and found a so-called restaurant in someone's back yard. (For the longer version, click here.) 

We walked inside an area enclosed by a bamboo fence and sat down to a wobbly table. There were no menus. A lady with an Aunt Jemima scarf around her head took our order and a few minutes later we watched her taking a slimy fish back to her little shack. 

After another thirty minutes she returned with a beautifully grilled fish, which included head and fins, as well as a plate of rice and tostones, or fried plantains. The fish was arguably the best I ever had; moist in the middle and well-flavored. The tostones had a hint of salty sweetness. 

We saw no other customers while we were there and I enjoyed every minute. We even got to watch a gecko crawl on the wall behind us! 

A gecko watching us eat.

Moving on we traveled to Santo Domingo. Here I hoped to find a new culinary experience, something less touristy and perhaps more authentic. 

We arrived in the chaotic capital. After checking into our hotel we immediately hit the street hoping to find a place to eat. We were away from the tourist section and finding an eating establishment didn't come as easy as I thought it would. Yes, we saw a few places here and there selling sandwiches, but nothing offering authentic fare. 

Lady selling samples of food for 75 pesos.

We must have appeared lost because a local guy came up and asked what we were looking for. I told him we wanted Dominican food. He then took us into the backstreets, places I would never have found on my own. I wouldn't even call them streets, but walking paths. If he weren't with us, I would have felt we were trespassing. 

He came to one restaurant, but it was closed. Another was open, but all the food was gone except for a serving of rice and beans. A third was selling food, but it wasn't Dominican. None of the restaurants had signs and none were on Google Maps. They were all hidden to the common foreigner. We thanked him for being so kind and parted ways. We settled on a sandwich shop. 

The bottom item is a quipe.

I will comment briefly on a few of the foods we ate during our time in Santo Domingo: 

Quipes. A lady on the street was selling a sampling of food for 75 pesos. It included quipes, which is a fried bulgur roll with flavored meat in the middle. It was brought to the D.R. by immigrants from the Middle East. 

Mangú. Served frequently for breakfast, mangú consists of mashed fried plantains. When it is served with salami, eggs, and cheese, it is considered mangú con los tres golpes (or with the three punches). At the time, we didn't know this was the typical Dominican breakfast, nor did we know that the caramelized onions were supposed to top the mangú. 

Typical Dominican breakfast. Mangú is the mushy stuff on the right.

Cane sugar. Driving anywhere long distance in the Dominican Republic will most likely take you past sugar cane fields. It is no surprise then that cane sugar is the sweetener of preference. I still don't understand the difference, but the sugar we ate in the D.R. had a better taste than that from back home, and the crystals were bigger. 

Batidas. These are smoothies, made with local fruit that is always sweet and fresh. Very yummy.

Yaniqueque. Pretty simple. Fried dough with salt, and sometimes accompanied with ketchup. We only ate this once, which was at family carnival on the Malecón. 

Cane sugar.

Street food cart selling yaniqueques and quipes.

For our final day in Santo Domingo we searched out a restaurant for one last hoorah. We decided on El Conuco, a cozy little place in the Gazcue District. We chose it because it specialized in Dominican food. 

Although outside the restaurant appeared like every other street in Santo Domingo, inside it looked like a giant tiki hut. The floor was laid in stone with wooden tables atop it. Walls were painted a variety of bright colors and ceiling fans circulated outdoor air. 

I ordered a bowl of sancocho, a typical Domincan stew with meat, potato, yucca, plantain, yam and a drumstick on top. It was accompanied with a bowl of rice. The stew had a very good, but not overwhelming flavor and the texture was thick and smooth. 

My family thinks I'm crazy, but I love stews. They are hearty. They are nutritious. They are savory. Stews from a foreign country usually represent what the typical person would eat. Perhaps everyday. Dishes that are stews usually don't become world-famous, but often they are more authentic than those that do.

I relished every bite. I alternated between the stew and rice, sometimes dipping the rice into the thick broth. Then I would pull the drumstick out with my fingers and take a nibble. 

Less than twenty four hours later we were gone, out of the country and heading home. Among my memories of the Dominican Republic were the beaches, the people, the chaos of Santo Domingo, and most certainly the food. ♠

 

Sancocho.

 

First Day in the D.R.

From the time we left our house it took us almost exactly 24 hours to arrive at our B&B near Playa Dominicus in the Dominican Republic. We first drove to Las Vegas, boarded a plane to Los Angeles, then another to Miami, and finally a third to Santo Domingo. From there we found a taxi to drive us the final hour and a half to Playa Dominicus. It was non-stop moving. 

As we descended toward Las Américas International Airport I was fascinated by the neat, cutout plantations and miles of neighborhoods with dirt roads. The thought crossed my mind that there would be much of the D.R. that I would never see on this trip. Also, as I gazed down, I was mesmerized by the vast number of baseball fields dotting the landscape. I'll bet I counted at least twenty. Béisbol, as it is called here, is the national sport. 

A common mode of transportation in the D.R.

Our taxi driver made sure we got a picture of the national beer.

This trip was spontaneous for us. Usually I plan trips years in advance, but this one was dreamed up only a month or two prior. Hence, there were a lot of uncertainties on our path. For one, I didn't know which currency was most often used. For another, I didn't know how we'd get to our first destination, an hour and a half from the airport. 

All this was solved when a throng of soliciting taxi drivers approached and one offered to drive us for 110 US dollars. —I didn't want to worry any more, so we took it. 

Wilson, our driver of African descent, spoke both English and Spanish and in both we conducted our business. The more he talked, the more I could smell cannabis on his breath. He drove 5 mph below the speed limit while he read texts. But he was super friendly. I learned that both his mother and father had died, but he had five siblings. He was born and raised in a nearby town called La Caleta. 

First glimpses of the D.R. came through a taxi window.

It was in the back seat of his taxi where I got my first up-close glimpse of the Dominican Republic. It reminded me much of Mexico with the same style of tattered buildings and trash on the ground. We passed several fruit stands on the side of the road, some selling coconuts. I was fascinated with all the mopeds on the highways, some carrying up to three people and others carrying loads of lumber. 

Fields of sugarcane, or caña, lined the road. It was the first time I had ever seen sugarcane. It looked to me like giant blades of grass. 

Sugarcane field.

I was also impressed with their cattle. They had long protruding horns similar to Texas long-horns. They fed in pastures alongside the road. Once we saw them grazing in a sugarcane field. 

We finally arrived at our B&B where we checked into a small room with a balcony. After 24 hours on the move, we were excited to finally lay on a bed! Our bodies were exhausted and we had no idea of time. We had traveled back one time zone, then forward four with little or no sleep. 

Balcony view from our hotel.

With only three hours of daylight left we headed to the street. After purchasing a SIM card at a so-called mini-mart, I withdrew 15,000 pesos from an ATM machine. [Let me say that at this point, I felt like I was throwing money away left and right. I felt like I was getting scammed over every transaction and I didn't know what anything was worth. It was certainly a learning curve as far as money was concerned.] 

We then proceeded to walk to the beach, unfortunately having to circumvent a massive resort that claimed so much property. To get to the beach we had to walk the narrow Avenida Eladia, a street filled with gift shops and restaurants to lull the tourists. In front of every shop was a a black guy who usually asked if we spoke French. (My guess is that many of them were Haitian immigrants and mistook us for French tourists, hoping they could apply their common tongue.) 

They sold jewelry, including larimar pendants, ice cream, and who knows what else. It was like running the gauntlet and it was the only street we could take. But it wasn't our day to buy souvenirs, so we pushed through. 

Playa Dominicus.

At last we rounded the corner and onto the fine white sand of Playa Dominicus. What a paradise! The Caribbean-blue water lapped against the shore and a forest of palm trees dotted the beach. Never had I seen so many palm trees on a beach. 

A few places opened shop in shacks along the shore. They were of the same variety that we passed earlier, each with aggressive hustlers trying to get our business. 

Several resorts claimed property along the beach, with their clientele lounging in chairs along the water. We could pass through those private sections, but if one wanted to stop and lounge, he had to do it on the public section. 

Strolling here was a beach-watchers Eden. The coastline crawled with people wading in the water or cooking in the sun. Men lounged, some with tattooed tanned skin, while the women flaunted their bodies in bikinis. Somewhere off in the distance a rumba played and couples danced. 

Jenelle took off her sandals and walked along the shore close enough that from time to time the silky water came up and licked her feet. I, on the other hand, enjoyed the moment, but was foolish enough to wear Levi's and tennis shoes. That would change tomorrow. 

We timed our stroll just right to view the sunset. I have seen few better. As the sun approached the sea, deep colors of red and pink began to paint the thick clouds behind the palm trees. The sky above the sea radiated in orange and the pier darkened to a silhouette. We couldn't have had a more perfect evening!

Playa Dominicus at sunset.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped for dinner. It was funny that most of the restaurants served Italian food. That is probably to cater to tourists, but also because this little beach town has had tremendous Italian influence over the years. 

Jenelle ordered linguini and I the rice with habichuelas (one of the few Dominican items on the menu). Then we had one last surprise: 

A family of three pulled up to our table. The father played a guitar and the daughter strummed an instrument with a comb. Mother sang. —And while we ate they serenaded us with “Bésame mucho,” a song that made us smile. We gave them a couple bucks and they moved on their way. ♠

Evening serenade.