The trip was incredible! A wonderful relaxing getaway with some of my most favorite people in the world to enjoy happy hour at the pool bar with!
Five of us including Rory's pops, brother and sister-in-law stayed at the Riu Tropical Palace in Negril - We were hooked up with amazing ocean front rooms and kept our sliding doors open at night to sleep to the sound of ocean, had beachside couples massages, and packed the food back like we'd never be allowed to eat again!
I intended to take a lot more food photos, but here is a small sampling of some of the local flavours I tried...
A beached starfish - note: this was not consumed.
Here is a typical buffet lunch plate for me - we've got some curried goat, stewed cabbage and pumpkin, a potato croquette (deep fried mashed potato log - yes, seriously), and a couple of non-jamaican items.
Whole steamed salmon, rice and peas (Jamaicans call Kidney Beans red peas), a calamari rice combo
On the bottom left there's callaloo - A 'green leafy' common in the caribbean (amaranth leaf). Above that, some fried platains, and the potato-like traingle is dasheen (taro root). The fried nugget is a jalepeno popper, and above chicken fajitas - what?! it was mexican night at the buffet. What's not pictured here is my dessert plate - 3 more jalepeno poppers...i have very refined tastes obviously.
This was the seafood station on 'Chef's Choice' night at the buffet - mussels, scallops, calamari, lobster, in a light white wine sauce - served in the lobster tail shell - one of the few seafood highlights unfortunately!
Considering how much amazing seafood is available in Jamaica, I was really disappointed by the quality - mostly the problem was it was overcooked...a sin that I'm constantly warning people about! Although I do understand that when the lunch and dinner buffets are open for over 2 hours and the seafood sits in a hot plate for that long, it's unavoidable. Even the a la carte restaurants failed in the seafood prep though :(
In addition to what I've shown, there was lots of delicious jerk sampling - chicken, pork, sausage and I would have at least one Jamaican patty per day at lunch (beef or chicken)
Overall the food was really good, and there was an overwhelming amount of choice at the buffets. I'm always baffled when I read Trip Advisor reviews from people who say the food is terrible - there's probably over 50 things to choose from at each meal! An extensive salad bar, meats cheese and bread, pastas, fish, tons of vegetarian dishes, beautiful local fresh fruit, even typical 'american food' - burgers, fries, pizza. There are some seriously picky eaters out there!
A couple shots of the local beer - Red Stripe is well known of course. We found Kingston 'The True Rude Jamaican Brew' (i promise it's on the label) at Rick's cafe - a popular bar that overlooks some ocean cliffs, and is well known for it's gorgeous sunsets (which we witnessed).
We really did enjoy the premium liquor at this resort too - each room was equipped with a great mini bar and 24 hour room service, which worked out perfectly for the historic gold medal men's hockey win!
In true form, I bought myself a cookbook as a souvenir - I made sure to ask the local shopkeeper which one was most authentic, and she confirmed that the woman who wrote mine was Jamaica's Julia Child...phewph! Don't worry, no need to travel to Jamaica - you can get it on Amazon. Jamaican patties are FIRST on my list! Ambitious I know!
I've had enough of the blogosphere tonight! Gonna post this up. Stay tuned... in the next couple of days I've got my new box from Mama Earth Organics to post about, as well as a couple of good recipes - including, tonight's slow cooker Sloppy Joes!
Wurd to your moms foodies!
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