Vieques, Puerto Rico Day 3 Visited 12/4 3.5 Forks

Belly Buttons  Calle Flamboyán, Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765   3.5 Forks

I'm usually not a big breakfast person but when I'm vacation (especially a beach or active vacation) I usually indulge in breakfast since I know I'll be doing lots of activities later.  We kind of did the reverse this time where, we drove down to the black sand beaches first to check them out and then went for breakfast in town.  While the breakfast at the W actually looked pretty good and surprisingly affordable for hotel food, we wanted to stay local and stopped by Belly Buttons on the way back to the hotel.  

It's located in Esparanza towards the end of the street.  Similar to a lot of the other casual bars in the area, it's got a open outdoorsy feel to it and is super casual with a bunch of beach chotskies surrounding the walls and ceiling.  Luckily, they seemed like one of the few places actually serving breakfast food, which was great.  We got there around 11AM, right when they were switching over to lunch but the waitress said that we could still order breakfast sandwiches if we wanted to.   We split a Greek salad ($10.95) to start, we each got a breakfast sandwich ($4.95 or $6.50 if you want bacon or sausage) and Deanna and I split an order for fries ($3)  because that's all I seem to crave them I'm on vacation.  The Greek salad was a bit of a bummer - it was not really real traditional Greek salad with big ripe juicy red tomatoes and large chunks of feta, this was more of a garden salad with some crumbled feta and olives thrown in there.  It's fine, I mean we are in Puerto Rico and not the Mediterranean, so I can't really expect it to be perfect.  The waitress had raved about the local baked fresh bread on the breakfast sandwiches and yes, it was soft and delicious but not sure if it's something I would rave about.  It was, however, a very solid and satisfying breakfast sandwich - the egg was nicely fried (not over cooked) and there was a layer of gooey cheddar cheese and for me a thick salty sausage patty.  The fries were also salty, crispy and delicious but totally unnecessary.  

Overall, this is a good local island beach hang if you want to grab some affordable casual food away from the hotel.  The menu is standard fare with basic sandwiches and burgers, but it's what you would expect of a place called Belly Buttons that's on a tiny Caribbean island.  Total bill:  $50 for 3 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Tin Box   Carretera 201 S/N, Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765

Although the Caribbean is known of fresh seafood, I usually don't associate it with oysters, raw bar or sushi.  The seafood is usually more grilled or fried fish and shrimp.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find a place that had a different spin on seafood than the rest of the island.  The Tin Box is also located in a random part of town, where 2 of the big main roads intersect in the middle of the island, so it's not in either of the 2 big towns.  When we arrived, the place was strangely full of older fratty men - almost like they were all on a boating outing and just came back to shore.  It felt like I was at a Jimmy Buffet concerts for some reason.  None the less, it's a nice places to check out and I'm sure it's even nicer during the day when you can see the treehouse-like structure. 

The menu is an interesting mix of raw bar, BBQ, ribs, po boys,  sushi, and other entrees.  Totally random. After eating a lot of grilled fish and french fries, I was craving sushi, so I was able to get my fix in here.  They have a fairly extensive sushi menu of a bunch of different kinds of rolls.  I narrowed it down to the lobster roll ($12) and the snapper with seared tuna roll ($13).  Deanna got the marinated tofu skewers ($16) and Allison got a side of cornbread and roasted potato ($3 each). Obviously this isn't going to be some traditional authentic Japanese style sushi and if you go into it with that level expectation, you'll be fine.  The lobster roll didn't really taste a lot like crab, it seemed more heavy on the kani crab meat instead and it also had bits of arugula in it, which was a first for me.  I'm not a huge fan of leafy greens in my sushi but it also didn't bother me that much either.  It was wrapped in soy paper which was a nice touch and covered with spicy mayo.  It wasn't bad and with 8 pieces, it was pretty filling.  The other roll had snapper on the inside and topped with seared tuna - this roll was a bit too heavy on the rice for me.   I did try a bite of the tofu skewers and they were actually really good!  If you are a vegetarian, I would say this is probably one of the better veggie friendly dishes you'll get on the entire island. 

Overall, this place is a nice change of pace from the busy commercial streets in Esparanza and Isabel. Who knew that you could actually get oysters and sushi on an island like this?  Total bill:  $68 for 3 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Vieques, Puerto Rico Day 1 and 2 Visited 12/2-12/3 3-4.5 Forks

El Blok   Hotel El Blok, Calle Flamboyan 158,  Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765  4 Forks

I had been dying to go to Vieques for a few years now after hearing how laid back and gorgeous it was.  Plus there was a new W Hotel there (which I know, kind of seems to ruin the unspoiled nature of this island but I did really enjoy it there), so I was lucky enough to get a decent IATA rate in Dec for a few days and check it out.   It's a fairly quick plane ride from NYC to San Juan (3 1/2 hours) and then it's a 20 min puddle jumper plane ride away to Vieques.   So you can leave your house and be on the beach by the afternnon which is amazing.   

Surprisingly, for a tiny island that you can drive around in less than 45 minutes there are lots of food options.  I was scared at first that I would be stuck to the confines of the hotel, but there were actually so many great places that I left with a few places still on my list to check out.  As I was doing research before the trip, one place that kept coming up as one of the newer/nicer places was the restaurant at the newly designed El Blok Hotel.  Surprisingly, they were also on OpenTable, so I booked a reservation for the 1st night we were there (although the restaurant was pretty empty, so it wasn't really needed).   Unfortunately we got to the restaurant at night, so we couldn't really see the cool design but it's definitely very modern and unique in structure.   The restaurant is run by Jose Enrique, a 2 time James Beard award winning chef, and the menu is a modern take on traditional Puerto Rican food.   Allison and I ended up splitting the ceviche and swordfish and Deanna got the soup of the day, a large salad and a side of fried eggplant nuggets.  The ceviche was tuna based and was definitely different than the traditional version - this one had coconut milk in it which made it a bit sweeter instead of tangy and sour, but I enjoyed it none the less.  The swordfish was huge and grilled very well - sometimes swordfish can be super fishy and greasy but this one was grilled to a nice tender texture.  It was served with a delicious local green salad and these addictive little fried eggplant nuggets, which was essentially the inside of the eggplant, battered and fried.  It's easy to pop 30 of them in our mouth without even realizing it.  Deanna's salad looked great and very fresh - we were surprised at how fantastic all the local greens were.  This one came with local farmer's cheese and breadcrumbs.  Her soup was a smoked onion and potato based broth which she said she also really enjoyed. 

For dessert, we had to go with the churros and you could see that they were freshly made because they were pipping hot when they arrived at the table.  They weren't covered in sugar and cinnamon like they typically are but they made up for it by giving us giant bottles of chocolate, dolce de leche and condensed milk to pour on our plates.  The churros were soft but crunchy and the perfect vehicle for my sweet sweet mixture of condensed milk and dolce de leche.  Sweet perfection. 

Overall, it was a very enjoyable and contemporary way to kick off our vacation.  I suspect that as PR moves out of rainy season, this place would be more crowded, but it was nice to be able to really relax and enjoy a fancy meal in such a low key island with no crowds.  Total bill:  $125 for 3 people with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Architectural Digest

El Resuelve  Carretera 997 Km 1, Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765     3 Forks

On our 2nd day in Vieques, we rented a Jeep (yay!) and drove down to the local beaches.  On our way there, the nice guy at the car rental place recommended that we check this place out for lunch because it's super authentic and very local.  Right up my alley.

He wasn't kidding when he said it was authentic and local.  It's right off the side of the main road and it's not flashy and has a very mom and pop feel to it.  The menu is mostly in Spanish and even though I understand bits and pieces for Spanish I had a hard time figuring out what to eat.  The nice lady behind the counter didn't speak tons of English and I didn't want to bombard her with lots of questions.  I had really wanted to get an empanada but they were super fried looking and I was headed to the beach, so I tried to be good and instead split a salad with grilled chicken and an octopus salad with Allison.   Deanna got rice and beans which came with a side of fried plantains.  This was definitely by far the cheapest place we ate all vacation and if I had the chance to go back (which I would) I would definitely order differently.

The side salad was totally fine, nothing special.  The grilled chicken was marinated in peppers and onions and while tasty and moist was a bit heavy on the salty side.  I was expecting the octopus salad to be similar to what I had in Croatia where it was served cold and closer to the rare side.  But this was a very warm and very cooked through octopus salad with the same peppers and onion mix.   It was good, just not what I was expecting.  I realized I still prefer the cold version instead.  I had a few bites of Deanna's food and while it wasn't anything fancy, I could see how this was more of what I probably should have gotten.  The fried plantains were excellent and perfectly fried and served with 1,000 Island dressing which I know sounds totally weird and gross, but it strangely worked for me.

I left feeling a bit bummed that I should have stuck with my original thought of an empanada and rice and beans but in my sad and pitiful quest to try to be more healthy, I went for a mediocre salad instead.  While this place wasn't mind blowing, it is worth a stop on the way to the beach and it is a nice respite from the more touristy places in Esparanza.  Total bill:  $23 for 2 people

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Bili Restaurant  Calle Flamboyan 144, Esperanza, Vieques, Puerto Rico 00765   4.5 Forks

When you're in Vieques, the "downtown" area is known as Esparanza which is essentially a very short street with 5-6 restaurants jammed by the waterfront.  This is the busiest road on the whole island but if you actually saw what it looked like you would fall down laughing because it's barely 1/2 a street block in NYC.  In any case, you will find a nice selection of casual touristy friendly restaurants there that range for bar food to upscale.  We had been to Banana's for happy hour and as you would expect from that name, it's more of casual bar but I will say that they had a very delicious and tangy snapper ceviche ($13.50) that I would highly recommend.  Plus for HH, you can get $4 margaritas and watch the sunset or go during regular hours and get a Corona for $3.50. 

As for dinner, we opted for Bili's which is bit on the nicer side.  The waitress was super sweet and nice and walked us through the menu.  Everyone here on the island is incredibly friendly - I guess why wouldn't you be when you live on a tiny super relaxed island?!  We all split a fresh house salad to start ($10) - Deanna will want me to mention that the salad came with these adorable small serving tongs that made splitting the salad really easy.  Again, the salad was awesome and very fresh tasting. Who knew PR had such great vegetation?  Now for the best part of the meal.  Allison had ordered a side of the root vegetable mash to start.  We all took a bite and it was like my head (and heart) exploded.  It's basically mashed potato but made with yucca, cassava, yams and other root veggies. But this was made with like 20 sticks of butter and the different flavor profiles of the root veggies made it taste less starchy than a regular potato and they had a hint of sweetness to it.  We were all obsessed with this dish.  I know I use the word "addictive" a lot on this blog but I would seriously kill for this dish.  Luckily for me, my mahi mahi ($26)  came on a bed of this mash as well as some plantain mojo.  I would have been happy just eating another pound of the mash but mixing it with the nice white flakey fish was delicious too.  I loved the pop of sweetness the plantains gave to the dish as well - I cleaned up every last bite of this dish. 

I'm not sure how I left any room for dessert but I did.  We got a blueberry shortcake which was basically a strawberry shortcake but with blueberry (duh).  The shortcake was nicely done - it was dense but still flakey and paired nicely with cold ice cream.  Sadly the mash was starting to really take its toll on me and I couldn't really eat more than a few bites but I would definitely recommend it. I was really surprised at how fantastic the food was here.  Usually when I'm traveling to the Caribbean or other islands, the food isn't really all that and it's really expensive.  I've been extremely pleased with how great the food has been so far - especially on a teeny tiny island like Vieques where the total population is barely 9,000 people.  Total bill:  $150 for 3 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp