[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: 9/12/2016]
A good ten days of R&R in the DR in August 2006, not least hanging out on the balcony of a recently acquired apartment, reading Deleuze & Guattari's Mille Plateaux and wishing we didn't have to rent the place out.
There was also a close encounter with pigs/pork.
I flew in late on a Sunday evening, and there was a simple decision to eat chimichurri on the Malecón. The Malecón is the name which seems to be given to the seafront in about fifty percent of Hispanic counties. Along the front in Santo Domingo, throughout the night, stalls set up serving chimi or cheap cups of rum. Chimi--nothing to do with green sauce--often enough means just a hamburger, but at these stalls it also designates a soft roll filled with pork shoulder, freshly sliced and heated and seasoned on a grill. Shredded cabbage goes in too, and all kinds of sauce, which means eating it bent forward, knees spread wide apart. Yes, it's the posture Guy Fieri goes into when confronted with a challenging sandwich, and it's worth learning.
Next morning, hanging out in the 'hood, Buenos Aires de Herrera, with home-cooked chicken, rice and beans for lunch. Dinner at Les Fondues: not a fondue, but salpicón of fresh seafood, the a filet steak with mushroom sauce. Overnight, the clouds burst, and when it rains here it really rains. The morning sheltering at the Museo del Arte Moderne, the evening at the great restaurant Vesuvio, indoors for once, devouring the sparkling mosaic of carpaccio de pulpo, the gargantuan parillada de mariscos and a quatro (not tres, quatro) leche cake. A bottle of Chablis.
Fortunately, the dawn was clear, as we had an early start driving to Santiago de los Caballeros, the DR's second city, deep in the heart of the country. We were on the autopista, which has it's own challenges what with wandering animals, squished animals, slow-moving plantain trucks, and random pedestrians, but we made good progress, and pulled off for lunch at a quite extraordinary place: the Lechoneria El Boricua. Browse the photos on Facebook. Yes, it really exists.
Basically, it's a large area of sheds and shacks and pig pens. Pigs of every size, shape and color are reared here. You can visit them. You can also see the pits where they're slaughtered, on the spot. Then, of course, every bit of them is served up, mainly slow-cooked over open fires. It's about the freshest, most porky pork you'll ever taste. Pork-lovers drive out from the city, get in line, and fill paper plates with whatever's on offer. A squeeze of lime, maybe a chunk of yucca, that's about it. Glorious food; no need to blather about honoring the whole beast. That's what they serve.
We arrived in Santiago in the afternoon and checked into a swish, modern hotel (absurdly cheap). There was an air display going on over the huge Monument of Heroes, a towering Trujillo-sponsored obelisk, and we were treated to the diverting spectacle of a parachutist crashing into the roof of a snack truck (he was unhurt). The PA commentator: "Hay una problema. Cuidado."
A quiet dinner at Pez Dorado, duck creole. Reading Montalbán, The Man in My Life.
After breakfast of braised pork, of course, at a local cafe, I led a long walk to find the city's oldest bar, Casa Bader, which boasts a dramatic and complicated beer cooling system: the ancient bar room is packed with ice boxes, and the beer is certainly cold. Then up and away into the mountains (the driver was sober), crawling up narrow, winding roads on the way to Sosúa. It's worth looking up the history of this little seafront town, near the larger and better-known Puerto Plata. It's kind of...Jewish-Dominican? All because the dictator Trujillo, in attempt to appear a benefactor, accepted a large number of Jewish refugees from Hitler, and this is where they settled. There are traces of that community still.
Otherwise, to be candid (and this was ten years ago), it's a quaint little town packed with bars and prostitutes. Huge numbers of the latter. And creepy American-European ex-pats living the life for a few pesos a week. We got a hotel with a private beach (beautiful), wandered the bars, ate grilled lobster.
One night does it for Sosúa--or I guess, ten years, depending on whether you've completely given up--so we were back in the mountains next day, stopping for longaniza at a road-side stall (one of many, many) where the long links of sausage were drying in the sun. Again, this is tasty, funky, full-flavored pork. Approaching the capital, we stopped for qipe. Late that night, we made room for a burger at the Westernized Landolfi's Urban Pub.
One reason for the trip was the anniversary of a sad family death, and everything stopped the next day for morning. The evening was bizarre: we'd been invited to a wedding, but when we arrived there was no room for us. Okay... So we went for sancocho, mofongo and stewed conch at Adrian Tropical.
A couple of new discoveries for lunch and dinner the next day, and I may as well paste my remarks from mouthfulsfood.com:
Mimosa
A clean and quiet comedor on Arzbispo Nouel in the old Colonial zone. We'd noticed them before for their excellentempanadas and qipes and freshly baked sweet things, so went back for lunch. A traditional Dominican buffet, but clearly prepared with some care: the braised goat was the equal of the best I've had in New York; fried yellow plantains; salad. A much more tranquil experience than the touristy lunch spots around C. Conde. I doubt if it serves dinner.
Cafe de Paris
Better than some of the utterly dire restaurant meals we confronted. We risked a cocktail here, (it's in the modern bar area around Avenida Abraham Lincoln) and, astonishingly, the barman could prepare a Cosmopolitan. I can tell you, this came as a considerable surprise. It was served with some panache as well (as it turned out, by a guy who had worked at a top Havana hotel); so we ordered some food. Excellent flaming chorizo, with a little honey in the sauce. Okay finger-food type pizzas. Crepes were unobjectionable, but hard to find under the copious cheese sauce.
Er, yes, this is one of the better places. Yet another example of a good eating country (more later) which is also a poor restaurant country (and for obvious economic reasons).
The night-time followed with some clubbing, and observation of some of the shortest pairs of shorts in history. I recovered at the in-laws' country ranch the next day, eating pork and chicken and drinking rum.
Last night in the city, and it could only be Vesuvio again, one of my favorite restaurants in the world: a comparative tasting of freshwater and saltwater langoustines (del rio and del mar), followed by a prune tart. And back to New York the next day, with delays.
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