Local Dominican Food in Cabarete
Cabarete has a range of local eateries that serve delicious food to fuel your active vacation. Whatever the adventure, Cabarete’s local restaurants have got your back. As well as traditional Dominican food, you’ll find German schnitzel bars, tapas places, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Tex-Mex, sushi, US-style steak houses. A doner kebab shop just opened up this summer. Even with something simple like pizza, you have the pick of the town. You can head to Roma for your fancy Italian pizza and focaccia, or to Antonio’s or La Chabola for a chill-vibes local pizza bar. Of course, there’s also your standard late-night takeaway fare. With all this variety, you could almost be forgiven for not sampling any Dominican food. Almost forgiven, but not quite. Comedors are all over town. If you potter along the main road, you won’t have to walk far before finding one.You can also journey into the Callejon (Callejon de la Loma, by the traffic lights) for an immersive Dominican experience. Here’s what you need to know about typical Dominican food around town. Basics of local food The bread and butter, if you will, of local cuisine is the cafeteria-style Dominican comedor meal. It’s cheap and cheerful food, made with love and a good deal of oil. Sometimes you serve yourself, other times you are served over the counter. Expect big portions of rice, chicken and beans for just a few dollars. On that note, don’t forget to carry smaller Dominican notes to pay for meals in comedors. They won’t be too keen on you if you present a 1000-peso note for your 75RD meal. Key words when ordering Dominican food: aguacate: avocado almuerzo: lunch arroz blanco: white rice bacalao: cod. Served in comedors as a tasty, tomatoey stewed dish. berenjena: aubergine or eggplant cena: dinner chicharrón: fried pork belly or rind coco: coconut. Pretty obvious, but important in the Caribbean. desayuno: breakfast empanadas: deep-fried dough pockets, filled with chicken, cheese or sometimes curried vegetables. At 15-30RD each, empanadas are a cheap but sustaining option. Seek out these semi-circular treats early in the morning, up until around noon, from little stands on the street. Exception: the empanada guy on the beach, who wanders with his plastic box of goodies well into the afternoon. Here’s a blog about Dominican street food, where you find more details about empanadas and co. ensalada verde: green salad. It’s not super recommended that you eat this at comedors, especially if you have a sensitive stomach. frito: fried. Another important word here. guisado: stewed habichuelas: beans horneado: baked la bandera: the classic Dominican meal of baked chicken, rice, red or pinto beans and some sort of salad. Tostones and avocado, too, if you’re lucky. Called ‘The flag’ because it contains the colours of the DR flag, and is central to Dominican culture. Also referred to as ‘el plato del dia’ (dish of the day), or just ‘el almuerzo’ (lunch). Dominican Cooking mangú: mashed plátano, topped with vinegary onions. Key component of the Dominican breakfast, along with the ‘tres golpes’ (three hits or blows) of egg, cheese and salami (all fried). mofongo: mashed plátano, with garlic and chicharrón. Sometimes made with chicken, fish, or seafood. Read this article from Dominican Cooking for a fantastic Mofongo recipe! moro: spiced rice and beans papas fritas: French fries or chips pedazo: piece. e.g. un pedazo de pollo pescado: fish pica pollo: Dominican fried chicken. Crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. A mouth-watering local staple. plátanos: plantain. Remember this word, as you’ll hear it a lot around town. Watch out for the pick-up truck filled with plátanos, blaring its sales pitch over loud speakers! Read more about the power of plátanos, and how to prepare them at home. pollo guisado: stewed chicken that falls off the bone. This deserves a special mention, as it’s what you ask for to order the standard chicken, rice, and beans lunch. puré: mash. e.g. puré de papa or puré de yuca. queso frito: fried cheese salchicha: sausage sancocho: brothy meat and vegetable soup, served with rice alongside or straight in the bowl. servicio: a serving, portion, or helping tostones: twice-fried plátano slices, Dominican equivalent of French fries. A must-try. yuca: cassava. Very widely eaten in the DR. Top tip: Watch out for diminutives, they are used all the time when talking about food. Or anything, really. So, pollo becomes pollito, pescado might be pescadito, empanadita, platanito. Don’t let it throw you, it just means ‘little’ and is an affectionate mannerism. Dominican Cooking is a great place to find recipes, if you fancy recreating your vacation comedor meals at home. The local Dominican food in Cabarete is delicious and cheap. Make sure to take note of comedor culture, while you shovel yummy rice into your mouth. Stick around for a bit, absorb the sounds and smells. The real Dominican cultural experience comes when you tune into the local banter, bop along to the bachata or merengue music, and try to master the art of not flinching at every moto horn beep.
Plátano O’Clock: Mangú, Tostones & Mofongo
Cheers to plátano o’clock! It’s time to dig into Dominican culture via the humble plátano. (Here’s why plátanos are so important and worth celebrating, in case you need to catch up!) Today, we are going to take a closer look at three popular Dominican dishes: mangú, tostones and mofongo. You can eat these as part of a bigger meal, as a snack, or on their own. They are delicious and very nutritious. Mangú Mangú is one of the most popular and beloved dishes in the DR. While you can eat it for any meal, it’s an essential component of the traditional Dominican breakfast. Mangú is deeply rooted in family culture. Many Dominicans will talk about mangú in the same breath as treasured family memories. Maybe they can still taste the mangú their grandma used to make on Christmas Day. The love of mangú is passed down from parent to child, and this is a big part of what makes it so special. To make it yourself, peel, cut and boil unripe plantain in water until mushy. Mash the plantain to your preferred consistency, adding butter, water and oil as desired. Traditionally, you use the water from the pan where the plantains boiled. The optimal consistency of mangú is up for debate. Some like it lumpy, others super smooth. Some prefer it drier, while others enjoy the wetter, saucier variety. Top it with onions fried in vinegar and ‘Los Tres Golpes’ (the three hits) : fried salami sausage, fried cheese and fried eggs, and you’ve got yourself a day-starter. For Dominicans, there’s nothing like starting your day with mangú. Tostones The Dominican equivalent of French fries, tostones are a favourite side dish served alongside many meals. They are usually salted and served with some sort of tomato sauce or mayo for dunking. Simple but mighty, tostones are found almost everywhere, from hole-in-the-wall comedors, to established upscale restaurants. These little double-fried plantain chips take a proud place in Dominican culture. Tostones even sometimes feature in the unofficial Dominican national dish, La Bandera (the flag), so called because the colours and sometimes plate design match the DR flag. If you can watch them being made, the Dominican kitchen has a special wooden device just for squashing tostones, called a tostonera. The plantain rounds are fried once, then squished between two flat pieces of wood and thrown straight back in the frier for round two. The twice-fried technique makes them extra crispy as there’s all the more surface area to touch the oil and seasonings. I dare you to eat just one! Mofongo Mofongo is a seriously powerful dish. Close to many a Dominican’s heart (and belly), this garlic plantain mash with pork crackling is not to be missed on your trip to the Caribbean. Mofongo is super popular in Puerto Rico as well, and is thought to have emerged from their shared African roots. While traditional mofongo is made with pork crackling, many variations are served in restaurants, like chicken, bacon and even shrimp. To make your own mofongo, peel and chop plantain into little rounds. Fry them until soft and golden. Drain then mash roughly with plenty of garlic and pork rinds (chicharron). Use your hands or a container to shape and serve. Mofongo is very distinctive, as it is smooched into a ball and served on a pilon, a sort of wooden cup. On a plate, you’ll see it pressed into a half-dome. It’s often served with a little bowl of garlic or chicken broth on the side, so you can moisten the mofongo to your liking. De-licious. Join us next time, as we explore some more complex Dominican dishes. As always, Dominican Cooking is a great place to find details of recipes, written by a real Dominican!
Buying and Preparing Plátano: The Basics
Eating on a budget on vacation can be tough. All those Cabarete beach-side restaurants call to you with their delicious cocktails, I know. Luckily, I have the perfect solution for a Domininan home-cook experiment: plátanos! Mangu on the beach for breakfast, tostones with your fish. If you’ve spent any time in the Dominican Republic, you’ve likely already come across plátanos. They are a huge part of the national cuisine. Plátanos grow abundantly all year round, so they’re cheap and never out of season. They’re also packed with nutrients, and are quite low GI, so won’t leave you sugar-crashing hard on the water. All in all, a great addition to any meal. ‘But, I don’t know the first thing about cooking plantain!’ Don’t worry, it’s easy and fun. Give it a go! Here are some simple tips and tricks to get your plátano dreams started. Which colour plátano do I need? Before you chop or peel anything, you need to know what to buy. Just like bananas, plátanos start off green, then turn yellow, and finally brown as they ripen. The starch gets converted into sugar over time. Unlike bananas, you never eat a plátano raw. It’s bitter and hard to digest, just don’t do it. Cook it, it’ll taste way better. The colour plantain you are looking for depends on what you want to make. Plátano Verde or Macho – unripe, green plantains are starchy and hard. Kind of like a potato. They’re great for making tostones and putting in your traditional Latin American soups. Basically, use them as you would a potato. Plátano Pinton – This is the inbetweeny stage of a ripening plátano. It’s not green, but not yet fully ripe and sweet. Firm, but not hard. Keep your eyes peeled for that speckled yellow look. Perfect for mashing and roasting, and anything where you want a semi-sweet flavour. Plátano Maduro – Perfectly ripe plátanos are those brown/black ones at the store that look like they need to be thrown in the bin. Grab them! These are amazing fried, baked, stuffed, or tossed in a hash or omelette. Yum! Plátano Negro – Save these slightly-collapsed black beauties for your sweetest desserts. Like ‘temptation plantain’ (plátanos tentacion), a decadent treat cooked with sugar, rum and cinnamon. You can either buy the right colour plátano for your recipe, or ripen them at home. Put them in a brown paper bag to speed the ripening process up. You’ll find plátanos for sale all over the place in Cabarete, as well as across the Caribbean. Look out for fruit and veg stalls, but also for pick-up trucks driving past with mountains of produce! How do I peel a plátano? Once you have your plátano, you need to peel it open. Riper plátanos shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. Sadly, you can’t just peel a green plantain as you would a banana. It takes a little more work. Chop the ends off the plantain. Score the length of the plantain skin with a knife, along the ridges, just enough to cut through the skin. Don’t cut too far in as to slice the fruit. Score it four times, spaced about an inch or two apart, then try pulling the strip out with your fingers. Try not to use your nails, as you might hurt yourself. A paring knife can serve you well here, to help you remove the more stubborn skin. You can also boil or steam it for 8-15 minutes to loosen the peel. It should come right off, and you might have started to cook the plantain a bit. Inside the plátano, there is a milky sap that you want to wash off. Be careful as it can be persistent and stain your clothes and nails. Peeling the plátano under a running tap can be a good idea. Plátano sap is believed to have very healing medicinal properties, so if you’re into that, you can collect it. Once you’ve got your naked plátano, it will oxidise and blacken quite quickly. Don’t be alarmed. Depending on what you’re cooking, chop the plantain into short rounds, diagonal slices, or long strips. There you have it! We’ve learned the basics of plátano preparation, and we’re ready to take on a real-life recipe. Good work! Stay tuned for plátano ideas from us, or check out Aunt Clara’s amazing traditional dishes at Dominican Cooking.
Power to the Plantain!
Before you come to adventure in Cabarete, you should probably know a bit about plátanos. Plantains are hugely popular in the Dominican Republic: they are a staple ingredient in many traditional dishes. Let me introduce you to the humble plátano in its many forms. Read on to learn where it’s grown, and what exactly gives it its magical powers. 50 Shades of Plátano Like potatoes, you will come across plátanos in many different forms: mashed, fried, boiled, baked, barbequed, rolled, caramelised, draped over sushi rolls, even made into blocks and baskets. It’s a pretty versatile ingredient. Here’s a quick list to get you clued up on the lingo: Plátanos or maduros fritos = fried plantain chips Mangú = mashed plantain Mofongo = mashed plantain with pork crackling Tostones = twice-fried plantain chips Pastelón = plantain layered with ground beef, tomato sauce and cheese, a plátano lasagne Platanos al caldero = plantain caramelised in cinnamon, brown sugar and rum. Yes. Aguají = garlicky plantain broth Piononos = plantain rolls with ham and cheese Pasteles en hoja = plantain and beef pockets, wrapped in plantain leaves like a tamal Mala rabia = guava and plantains in syrup (dessert) To learn more about these dishes and how to make them at home, check out this great Dominican Cooking blog. Around the World in 80 Plátanos Plátanos are popular for good reason. Plátano trees grow all year round in tropical climates across the world. They’re reliable, healthy and never out of season! Plantain trees grow in at least 120 countries. They’re a key global food source. It’s estimated that the humble plátano provides a quarter of the energy needs of over 70 million people. Major players in the plátano game are Cameroon, Uganda, Colombia, Ghana, Nigeria and the Philippines. Plantains are also grown widely in Peru, Myanmar, India, Egypt, all over tropical America, and in Indonesia and islands in the Pacific. Power up the Plátano! Successful Dominican athletes have credited the plucky plantain in their sporting achievements. They have nicknamed it their ‘Plátano Power’ because of the supernatural abilities you get from the starchy fruit. Let’s break down what exactly gives plátanos their magic powers. It may seem odd for a fruit to be a nutritional staple, but plátanos are dense with good nutrients. They do bulk out a meal with some solid carbohydrates. But that’s not all they’re capable of. Plantains are high in fibre and have a lower GI value than potatoes. This means your body will break down the food more slowly, and you are less likely to get energy spikes and crashes. Fibre will help keep your digestive system happy, and keep everything nice and regular. Plátanos supply about the same number of calories as potatoes, but they pack a bigger vitamin and mineral punch. They are rich in vitamins A, C, and B-6, and contain magnesium and potassium. Vitamin A helps keep eyes, teeth, bones, and skin in tip-top condition. Vitamin C is needed for all-over growth and repair, managing cholesterol and getting rid of toxins. And vitamin B-6 keeps the brain, muscles and nervous system healthy. Your body needs magnesium to absorb calcium and maintain strong bones. It also helps fight migraines, heart disease, diabetes, and anxiety. Phew. Potassium is super important, too. It helps stabilize blood pressure, reducing the risk of dangerous conditions like hypertension and heart disease. It plays a big role in muscle growth, bone health, and maintaining brain functions like memory. Potassium helps regulate your blood sugar levels and boosts your metabolism. All good things. On top of all this, plantains are low in toxins, so you can keep putting off that vegetable juice detox with a clear conscience. Did you know? Only 15% of the plátanos grown in the world are traded, the rest are eaten domestically. The plátano tree matures around 18 months after planting, and can produce fruit for up to thirty years. As well as giving us our favourite plátanos, the tree’s big leaves provide shade for crops around it like coffee, cassava, and other fruits. A generous plant, indeed! Go, try it! Now it’s up to you to go and get to know the plátano even better. Ask for a plátano dish in any comedor in Cabarete, have a look on how they grow during our Taino farm tour, or sample the traditional recipes in other Dominican regions. So, go forth! Eat plátanos and be merry!
English words we get from Taino
Who are the Taino? Before the arrival of the European colonists in the 15th century, the Taino people lived in the Caribbean. They formed the main indigenous populations of the islands which are now called Cuba, Jamaica, Hispanola Trinidad, and Puerto Rico. On Hispaniola, which is now split into the Dominican Republic and Haiti, there were 5 separate Taino chiefdoms. Taino social structures were complex. Their spiritual practice was based on zemis, which were spirits or ancestors of natural things and people. They were very skilled at fishing, farming and navigating. Taino were also highly creative, and had a rich culture of music, poetry and dance. Today, although the Arawakan language Taino is mostly extinct, there are still people who identify as Taino in the DR. Recently, they discovered that a high percentage of people living in Puerto Rico and the DR today have a tri-racial ancestry of Taino, Spanish and African heritage. Taino words in your everyday Sadly, the language of the Taino people was never written down so we don’t know that much detail about the grammatical structures and vocabulary. However, some Taino words survived to influence language and made their way into modern English, Spanish and French. The Caribbean is a cornucopia of fruit and vegetable varieties. It is therefore fitting that we received the words cassava, guava, maize, and potato from the Taino language. Word histories are often uncertain, but there are those who think the words banana, coconut, cocoa, tomato and yam also have roots in Taino. It makes sense that we get the words caiman, cay, mangrove, tobacco and canoe from the indigenous Caribbean peoples. But, more unexpectedly, they also gave us indigo, mahogany and savannah. Savannah came through the Spanish ‘sabana’ but was a Taino word ‘zabana’ for sheet. A savannah nowadays is a large plain grassland. You may well associate savannahs with Africa, given that nearly half of this massive continent is covered in the sparse grasslands. There are significant savannahs in South America, India and Australia, too. Hammocks were used by the Taino people to keep off the ground and out of reach of insects. Their word ‘hamaca’, meaning fish net, came into Spanish and then English. The Spanish colonists adapted the Taino hammock idea so they could sway in their ships, and not fall out of bed! We get the word hurricane from the Taino ‘hurakan’, or ‘god of the storm’. The word Caribbean itself actually comes from the Caribe people, a word thought to mean person or human in Taino. The interchangeable sounds of ‘r’, ‘l’ and ‘n’ in Taino dialects was confusing for the Spanish colonists. Our word ‘cannibal’ actually comes from a mishearing of the word ‘Caribe’, the tribe that ate human flesh. The Spanish heard ‘Caniba’ and so began calling the flesh-eating practice ‘cannibalism’ after the tribe. Taino language after Columbus The research into Taino culture is very limited. Historians estimate that the Taino language became extinct only about 100 years after the European colonisers arrived. Trade relations between the Spanish, led by Colombus, and the Taino appear to have begun in a friendly way. But, sadly, as the story so often goes, the colonists became violent and controlling. The Spanish sailors did not bring any women with them. They raped Taino women and disrupted the indigeonus gene pool with European heritage. They also brought diseases which nearly wiped out the Taino people. It is but a small crumb that some of the Taino language is preserved in European languages. The history of the Dominican Republic heavily involves the violence of colonialism, which continues to affect the culture today. Today, we are grateful for the beauty of the Caribbean, but we must remember our enjoyment has come at great cost to the indigenous populations.
Cabarete Coffee
Guests often ask us for recommendations for a good Dominican Organic Coffee. For us, we send people to the Cabarete Coffee Company. They are one of the only organic menu places in the Dominican Republic. Even though there is only a few organic items on the menu, it’s a good start. If you want to phone in your order for delivery, the phone number for Cab Coffee is 809-571-0919 The portions can be small, but the coffee is amazing, which is what we come for. Expect to pay double what you would normally pay for a coffee if you go for one of the premier coffees, but if you’re on vacation, who’s counting the coins? Another big plus for Cabarete Coffee company is that they deliver and they are open early in the morning. Their place is also a cool place to hang out and surf the web, as they have an air conditioned interior. If you want to get to Cabarete Coffee Company from eXtreme Cabarete, you have 2 options for walking. It’s about 1/2 a mile away from Kite Beach, along either the beach or the road. The road can be quite busy, so we often recommend to guests to take the beach route. If you walk along the road, it’s hard to miss, as there is a nice big road sign. Beware the oncoming traffic if you choose this route. If you ware walking along the beach, then it’s a big tricky to recognize the entrance to Cabarete Coffee, as the the path is kind of hidden. It’s located at the entrance of Nanny Estate, just past Punta Goleta for those who know Puta Beach and Kite Beach. For those that are new to the area, you walk along the beach past the point (which is where Ocean Point one is), and you come to Puta Beach. Walk along Puta Beach (which is definced by the big while development, called Punta Goleta). Just Past Punta Goleta you will see a cement structure that looks like it was once a beach front shop, but is now covered in sand. Beside that is a rock path that leads up to the back side of Nanny Estates. Once you walk kup that rock path, you will notice a road lined with Royal Palms – at the end of that road is Cab Coffee. Here are some photos to make it easier for you. And here is the path you walk down once you climb up the rocks from the road