Cancun Memories

Five years ago today, it was also Super Bowl Sunday but instead of being at home, we were in Cancun, Mexico. We've finished posting about this trip other than our final recap, so this seemed like a good time to relive our time there and wrap things up.

We only spent about five days in Cancun (including travel days), so we stayed at an all-inclusive resort (Dreams Cancun) and just tried to relax as much as possible. We left the days unstructured, wandered about when we felt like it, and didn't schedule anything except one dinner. We were hoping for delicious dining experiences, but ended up eating most meals at the buffet the first couple of days because it wouldn't stop raining. We didn't go to the buffet for dinner but our first two dinners weren't very exciting either. The pouring rain put a little bit of a damper on things in general since we couldn't really lay out on the beach or float around in the pool all day, but it was still nice to be away from home and resting. We appreciated all of it, especially the dolphins that liked to splash around in the rain outside our window.

Related posts: lunch day 1, Oceana dinner, post-dinner trip to Oxxo, lunch day 2, Himitsu dinner, lunch day 3

While the buffet was mostly just an okay experience, the one meal we really loved there was breakfast. Breakfast on vacation for us is usually yogurt or cereal bars unless breakfast is included in the hotel rate, so being at an all-inclusive already meant a more exciting breakfast. We didn't expect such a great breakfast buffet at Dreams, but since we focused almost exclusively on the Mexican breakfast section, we were rewarded with delicious chilaquiles and sopes and beans and guacamole and all sorts of savory dishes. There was also a fabulous juice bar and good yogurt flavors we don't get at home (still). We looked forward to breakfast every morning, and filled up every day on tons of chilaquiles especially.

Related posts: day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5

A turning point in the trip, at least as far as the weather, was the Super Bowl. The party was originally supposed to be held on the beach, which sounded really fun, but the weather was so unstable that they moved the party into the hotel ballroom. Not the same, but the Giants won, so I didn't care. It was fun watching the game with all the other guests, and we had cake and chicken fingers and lots of other snacks (many of which came from the buffet). Maybe it was sacrificing the beach party, but the weather started clearing up the next morning.

Related post: Super Bowl party

Better weather meant we could skip the buffet for lunch for the first time and finally try out the Seaside Grill. We were disappointed that it was our last lunch at the resort, because the food there was delicious - tacos, salads, seafood, and more. If the weather had been good and we had tried this place earlier, we probably would have come back every day. The nicer weather also meant we could walk up and down the white sand beach and finally soak up the sun. We were grateful that at least we got that one perfect sunny afternoon.

Related post: Seaside Grill lunch

Our last trip dinner was at Paloma Bonita, the "nicer" special restaurant slightly off premises which was the only reservation we made the entire trip (and only because that was the only way we could get in to try it as part of the all-inclusive). It was worth it for good cochinita pibil and tacos and more. If we stayed at Dreams Cancun again, we would probably try to come here for dinner more than once as it was levels above the other two resort restaurants we tried for dinner. After dinner, it was time to pack up, and then have one more breakfast the next day before flying home.

Related posts: Paloma Bonita dinner, last breakfast at Dreams, CPK at the Cancun Airport

Our escape to Cancun was exactly what we needed to get away from all the stress of work and living in the city. Even with all the rain and the not-always-great food, it was a really nice vacation and a welcome getaway. We haven't been back to Cancun (or to Mexico at all) since our trip five years ago, and we really do hope we'll be able to return someday. For now, we just have our happy memories.

La Ensalada Original

We had an afternoon flight from Cancun back to New York, so we got to the airport around lunchtime. We weren't especially hungry after such a big breakfast, but we were pretty sure there wouldn't be much to eat on the flight other than some snacks and we weren't due to return home until after 7 pm. We decided to get a snack, just something light, so that we wouldn't be starving when we got home.

There weren't a ton of options at the airport terminal, just Grab and Go, Bubba Gump, Johnny Rockets, and California Pizza Kitchen (which is no longer listed on the airport restaurant list). The option that seemed the best to us at the time was CPK since we could get The Original BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad. We skipped the tortilla strips that came with the salad, but just ate the salad itself which was pretty light and healthy.

The salad had chopped lettuce, black beans, sweet corn, jicama, cilantro, basil, jack cheese, green onions, tomatoes, and chopped BBQ chicken breast. It came with sides of BBQ sauce and a ranch dressing, which we only used lightly as the chicken and cheese had a lot of their own flavor. For an airport meal, it wasn't bad and it was a lot healthier than the usual fare because of all the fresh vegetables. Not a bad choice for the last thing we would eat on our Cancun vacation.

Adiós World Cafe

When we woke up on our last morning at Dreams Cancun, it was a perfect day. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the weather was gorgeous. It seemed like all the rain and showers of our first few days were truly gone, just in time for us to leave. While that was disappointing for us, at least we did get to enjoy the sun and the warmth for a little bit in our escape from the New York winter.

Our last meal at Dreams was breakfast, which had really become our favorite meal of the day. I don't ever usually look forward to breakfast, it's more just a necessity, but here that was totally different. Since it was our last time through the buffet, we piled our plates high with all the things we knew we wouldn't be able to easily get for breakfast at home. We also got glasses of our favorite juice from the juice bar - beetroot and orange - and the yogurt we knew we would never find at home - apple yogurt (and to date, we still have never seen plain apple yogurt in the States).

On A's plate, he piled chilaquiles, pollo guisado (chicken stew), a chorizo sope, and refried beans. It was like a breakfast greatest hits, especially those delicious chilaquiles, which came in salsa verde this time unlike the other days.

On my plate, I got an extra large serving of chilaquiles topped with tons of pico de gallo, as well as pollo guisado, refried beans, guacamole, and a chorizo sope. We clearly liked a lot of the same stuff at breakfast and wanted to fill up as much as we could before we had to leave for the airport.

It's a little hard to see the chorizo sope in all the other pictures, so here's a better look. It was so good, just not as good as our favorite chilaquiles.

After breakfast, we took one last walk around the resort, soaking up the sun, gazing at the white sand and turquoise water, and saying farewell to the dolphins. It was sadly time to return home and get back to real life.

Paloma Bonita

For our final dinner in Cancun (4 years ago today), we were finally able to try Paloma Bonita, the Mexican restaurant associated with our resort. Paloma Bonita was a little different from all the other restaurants included at the all-inclusive Dreams resort since it was open to the public and required advanced reservations the day of your visit. Since it was located right next to the resort, it seemed like they set up a special arrangement to reserve a few spots every night to give resort guests a special prix fixe menu. We definitely wanted to try this out since we were trying to hit up every restaurant venue during our stay, but also, it was the only Mexican restaurant included at the resort. How could we go to Mexico and not go to the one Mexican restaurant that was there?

From the special menu that the restaurant gave to resort guests back when we went, we ordered one shared starter for the table, one salad each, and one entree each. We don't remember if we were limited to that number of dishes (plus drinks) or if we were trying to be good and not eat everything on the menu. For our shared starter/snack, we opted for the tacos al pastor servidos con cilantro, cebolla y piña (marinated pork tacos served with cilantro, onion and pineapple). From what we remember, these were really good tacos. The pork had good flavor, and the onion, cilantro, and pineapple accompaniments were fresh and bright. Two meals in a row with great tacos and we were feeling pretty happy.

One of the salads that we got was the torre de nopal y queso añejo preparada con nopales, tomate, y queso añejo, aderezada con vinagreta de cilantro (cactus and aged cheese tower prepared with cactus, tomato, and aged cheese (which they called old cheese in the English translation on the menu) with a cilantro vinaigrette). 4 years later, we sadly don't remember too much about this other than it being light and clean, but it was probably the best plated dish all night. It was also a preparation of nopales that we had never had before, since we usually get them in tacos, so it was nice to try something different.

The other salad was the cebiche verde - cebiche de filete de mero preparado con pepino, pimiento verde, cilantro, albahaca, y hierbabuena, marinado con jugo de limon y aceite de olivo (green cebiche - grouper fillet prepared with cucumber, green pepper, cilantro, basil and mint, marinated with lemon juice and olive oil). First, this was topped with avocado and avocado wasn't mentioned anywhere in the menu description, so that was a nice surprise. That aside, we don't remember much about the specifics of the flavor of the cebiche (this is why we should write posts before the 4 year mark!) but we do remember that the grouper was significantly better than the grouper we had at the Japanese restaurant a couple of days earlier. What we do remember is that it had a nice, bright acidity, but that is true of any good cebiche.

For my entree, I went with the suprema de pollo Oaxaca, rellena de queso Oaxaca y rajas con salsa poblana (chicken breast Oaxaca style stuffed with Oaxaca cheese and slices of poblano pepper). I imagine that this was probably good, but if you thought we didn't remember much about our appetizers, I remember even less about this entree. I had to look through all the entrees on the menu to even remember what I ordered (since I didn't caption this day in our photo album very well). This is probably less about the quality of the dish, as I'm sure it was fine (or else I would have remembered more), and more about (1) the passage of time and (2) the fact that A's choice outshined mine so much that it is pretty much one of the only things either of us distinctly remembers about the entire meal this many years later.

A got the lasaña de cochinita pibil preparada con tortilla de maiz amarillo y gratinada con queso Oaxaca (cochinita pibil prepared with yellow corn tortilla and topped with Oaxacan cheese). A was really smart with what he ordered. We were in the Yucatan, and he got the one distinctly Yucatecan dish on the menu, so it's no surprise that this was delicious and the most memorable thing we ate. Cochinita pibil is a traditional dish in the Yucatan that consists of slow roasted pork with seasonings of achiote and other local spices. The Paloma Bonita version came with a bunch of layered tortillas topped with the pork and cheese. The flavor of the pork was so rich and so good, and we really wanted more of this.

Between Paloma Bonita and Seaside Grill, the best food we ate at Dreams Cancun (outside of the Mexican buffet at breakfast) definitely came on our last full day in Cancun. Even if we don't remember all the specifics about dinner, we remember our general feeling as we walked out of Paloma Bonita, that we had just had a really good meal, a memory that has lingered to this day. While we were happy to have such tasty food at all on the trip, we were sad that we only discovered the "good stuff" on our last day when we'd have no chances to get them again before we left. At least we would be ending our stay on a very tasty note.

Seaside Grill

It was our last day in Cancun but there were a lot of firsts. It was the first time we left the resort to go shopping at the nearby malls (not that exciting). It was the first time that we took a long walk along the beach by other hotels and resorts, letting our feet sink into the soft white sand and allowing the warm waves of the Caribbean to wash over us. And it was the first time, finally, that it didn't rain at lunch, which meant it was the first time we were able to go to the resort's open-air Seaside Grill, situated on the beach, for lunch. We were so excited. The view was incredible and sitting outside to eat within steps of the sea was exactly what we had been hoping for the entire trip.

Dreaming of this view during this awful winter

The meal started off well when they dropped off some chips and salsa. Both were fine, but not remarkable enough to remember any details about them 3 years later.

We decided to order 2 appetizers and 2 main courses. The first appetizer was the ensalada de mariscos, aderezada con lima, aceite de oliva, y aguacate (seafood salad with avocado, seasoned with lime juice, olive oil). What arrived seemed a bit like a seafood ceviche, although we were not expecting the mussels to come in shells. From what we remember, this was tasty and way better than any of the lunch items we'd been eating at the buffet.

The other appetizer was the martini caribeño, cebiche de camarón, pulpo, y callo de hacha servido con salsa coctél (Caribbean martini of shrimp, octopus, and sea scallops cebiche, served with avocado and cocktail sauce). For starters, we thought this would come in a martini glass since it was called martini caribeño. Martini name aside, this was another seafood salad/ceviche similar to the first appetizer, but with more of a tangy sauce. This was also good and tasted very fresh and light.

For the main course, I ordered the dedos de pescado rebosados con salsa valentina y aderezo aurora de guarnición (orly fish finger served with traditional "spicy" Mexican sauce "Valentina" and aurora dressing). These, literally translated, were "fish fingers" and were basically pieces of fried fish. They were tasty, but I don't remember that much about the flavor or the sauces, since they were overshadowed by the other main course.

A ordered the tacos de rib-eye, acompañados con cebolla, cilantro, frijoles refritos, y guacamole (rib-eye tacos, served with onion, coriander, refried beans and guacamole). Although all the food at Seaside Grill was generally good (and better than the buffet), this was the standout dish among them all. I remember that after we tasted it, we were so upset that it was our last day and we wouldn't be able to come back for another lunch to get more tacos. This was the type of Mexican lunch we had been looking forward to for this trip and we didn't get to try it until the end! What a shame! Stupid rain.

The tacos were relatively standard - beef wrapped in flour tortillas. They weren't the best tacos we had ever had, but the whole experience - eating tacos, sitting by the beach, under the warm sun in Mexico - was exactly what we were looking for. The tacos were quite tasty, and the accompaniments of onions, refried beans, and guacamole made them even better.

The one thing all the food was lacking though was heat, so we asked for some hot sauce. This was before our trip to Catalunya later that year so I was still freezing up a lot when trying to speak Spanish (so out of practice, like double digit years out of practice). I completely blanked on the word picante and after much silence ended up asking for salsa caliente. I realized it after the server left and was completely mortified, but they ended up bringing us a bowl of hot sauce and not some type of heated sauce so I guess they understood. This hot sauce was hot. We barely used more than a dab of it each time since it was so incredibly hot. There was so much left over at the end that we felt a little bad about how much was being wasted, but it was too hot to use more than that!

After our delicious tacos and seafood, we didn't end up getting dessert. I don't remember if that was because we were full or because the dessert didn't appeal to us, but we didn't have any.

Overall, the most memorable dish for us from this meal was the tacos (and based on what I remember 3 years later, I guess the hot sauce too). If only it hadn't been raining every day at lunch, then we could have tried Seaside Grill earlier and been able to return another day to try even more stuff. But we were glad we could at least try it once!

Desayuno

Our fourth day in Cancun was our last full day there and we intended to enjoy every minute before going back to cold NYC. We woke up to blue skies and hoped that we might finally get a day without rain or storms, that we could finally have that perfect weather day. 

We started the day off at World Cafe like every other day, raiding the Mexican section of the buffet for as many tasty treats as we could get. We had really started looking forward to breakfast at the resort and ate until our bellies were full, since this was the best food we had had at the resort up to that point.

They had a lot of the same things we had seen in the past - refried beans and a couple of trays of chilaquiles - but this time they also had chorizo tostadas, so we grabbed those and topped them with some salsa and guacamole. I also got another Yoplait apple yogurt, but since that looked exactly the same as the last breakfast, no need for another photo. (Still haven't found that here in the States.) We also indulged in the juice bar.

We were so happy with our chilaquiles and tostadas and went back up for seconds. Sadly, they were running out of everything, so there weren't any more tostadas to get. Instead I made a plate out of refried beans and a ton of pico de gallo, which was completely fine with me.

Our meal wasn't that different from the offerings on previous days, but like always, we left our World Cafe breakfast very full and very satisfied. If only we could have a buffet like this every day for breakfast at home...

A Giant Party

When we scheduled our trip to Cancun, it hadn't even crossed our minds that we were going to be away the weekend of the Super Bowl. We would be missing an American holiday! Then the Giants kept winning and got into the Super Bowl, and I couldn't believe that as a lifelong Giants fan I was going to miss watching it. I hoped and hoped that Mexican TV at the resort would end up showing the game, but I didn't know if they would care about American football that much. I was thrilled when I found out that not only were they showing the game, they were having a Super Bowl party that night for all the resort's guests. It was originally supposed to be on the beach under the stars, but I don't need to waste more words on the rain to explain why it was held in the conference rooms instead.

The large conference center was decked out in football decorations and a giant American flag (which felt a little bizarre since we were in Mexico). They also set up an extensive buffet (all the food was probably from World Cafe anyway; it's not like we ate anywhere else) with lots of fried food, salads and desserts.

A special Super Bowl cake was on display (which we would later eat). I don't remember much about the cake except that it was really rich and creamy. But I didn't care at the time I ate it because I was either deliriously happy or preoccupied and stressed out (can't remember exactly when I ate it).

That will probably be my excuse for why I don't remember much about any of the food. I was barely focused on it. I remember that most of the salads were pretty good. The fried food was ... fried food. It's hard to mess up but it was standard and not that special. We do remember that they kept running out of chicken wings and eventually started walking around with platters of them because of the demand.

The desserts were just okay. Lots of cream.

The best part of the entire Super Bowl party was that the Giants won. So happy!

It wasn't where I expected to be celebrating a Giants Super Bowl win, but it was a lot of fun!

A Surprising Lunch Spot

After our delicious Mexican breakfast, we had a great morning at the Dreams Cancun. Finally there were blue skies and sunlight. We walked along the beach. We laid out in the sun. We took pictures around the resort. We played in the pool. We even went to the swim up bar and had a couple of drinks.

Then we went back to our room to take showers before lunch. Dark clouds had started rolling in towards the end of our beach walk, and soon thereafter, the pouring rain arrived.

Of course it did. The rain wasn't accompanied by the thunder and crazy winds from the day before, but it was a heavy soaking rain. So, despite a gorgeous morning which made us feel sure that we would be able to try something new for lunch, it was back to the World Cafe for another buffet lunch where we would once again eat too much food.

This time I didn't take any notes about the food, either in Cancun or with the photos I uploaded when we got back. So there will be a lot of guessing about what we ate as it wasn't all that memorable. Two years later most of this has sadly faded. At least the menu was different from the two previous days, so it wasn't boring.

For my first plate, I got a quesadilla with salsa and guacamole, some shrimp lo mein (there was an Asian station), potatoes, some roulade type of thing, and a yellow thing that looks like an omelette but I have no idea what it really was.

A also got lo mein along with two stew-type dishes: one with meat and potatoes and another pork stew with onions.

At some point I added some grilled chicken thing (this recap is going really well) and a chicken sandwich. I do remember that I had high expectations for the chicken sandwich since I kind of liked those formed chicken patties when I was a kid. Either they are worse than I remember or this one just wasn't that good.

We also got a bunch of desserts (chocolate mousse with raspberries, strawberry ice cream, some other mousse thing with strawberry and other assorted dessert things). All were fine but I think the ice cream was still our favorite.

And we got some drinks. Because... why not? It was vacation, they were free, and it just wouldn't stop raining.

Lunch was okay, but just not what we were hoping to do that day. Why did it keep raining at lunchtime to force us into the World Cafe option when we would rather try something new? Would we ever get to try the beachside cafe?

Blue Skies Breakfast

We woke up really happy on our third morning in Cancun. Why? Because finally the sky was blue. There were still clouds but this was the first time we had seen blue skies on our Cancun vacation and we were thrilled. After a night of booming thunder and nonstop downpours, the resort looked fantastic on our way to breakfast. We even got a seat near the windows so we got to gaze at the blue skies and dolphin pool for our entire meal.

We learned from our first breakfast what we liked and didn't like, and it should come as no surprise that we stuck to the two things we loved most: the juice bar and the Mexican breakfast station. They had beetroot/orange and orange/papaya juices again and we got more of those.

They had a different yogurt at this breakfast - apple yogurt! It tasted so natural, like biting into a crisp green apple. I've looked for this yogurt all over at home but it appears that we don't get this yogurt in the States. All we get are artificial apple flavors, like apple pie, apple turnover and apple cinnamon. Why can't we just have plain apple the way we have plain peach? It was quite good.

And lastly, what we filled ourselves up on (seriously, we ate way too much and were so full) - the Mexican breakfast station. They had sopes, chilaquiles, refried beans, guacamole and lots of pico de gallo. We got multiple servings of chilaquiles. They were delicious. And we stuffed ourselves with them.

This is my favorite type of breakfast. Savory foods, lots of vegetables, and tons of flavor. By this point in the trip, I began to do what I had never really done before (ever) - look forward to breakfast. Heartiest and tastiest meal of the day!

Himitsu

For our second dinner, we decided to check out the Japanese restaurant at the resort, Himitsu. We walked by it that afternoon in our resort exploring (once the rain had finally stopped), and it was only a short walk from our room.

We were originally seated at a table near the entrance to the restaurant. It was still really cold and the table seemed to be located in some sort of wind tunnel that became unbearable. Luckily there was another, more sheltered table available and they were kind enough to allow us to move and stop suffering. (To set the tone for this meal, the weather/cold/wind issue ended up being the most memorable thing about that dinner, something we can vividly recall almost two years later.)

We settled in with some drinks (hot green tea for A and iced tea for me) and started to look through the kitschy Asian menu, which had appetizers, sushi options and various main courses. We decided to order a mix of items and hoped they would be good.

The first dish to arrive was the chicken salad, which consisted of chicken breast, mixed lettuce, jicama, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts and a sweet teriyaki sauce. It was okay. All the vegetables made it pretty healthy, but it wasn't anything amazing or memorable.

We ordered a variety of sashimi and rolls. Everything came with approximately 4 pieces to an order. For the sashimi, we got tuna, mero (which they said was grouper but Wikipedia says is Patagonian toothfish) and salmon. The tuna and salmon were okay, not very special and not very flavorful. Just kind of blah. The grouper was the worst of the three, as it was kind of tough to chew. We got three rolls - the Dreams roll ("seafood served with Japanese tartar"), the spicy crab roll ("meat crab roll served with spicy mayonnaise"), and the spicy tuna roll ("yellowfin tuna marinated, spicy mayonnaise, cucumber and avocado"). None of them were very good. They didn't have much filling, two were topped with lots of spicy sauce (which wasn't that spicy), and they didn't have much flavor whatsoever. I'm not sure we ever even figured out what seafood was in the Dreams roll, and the menu wasn't much help on that front.

We weren't feeling very satisfied (with either quantity or quality) of our dinner thus far, so we ordered a couple of additional items (at least I think that's how our ordering went). One was the crab spring roll appetizer, which came with a sweet and sour sauce. I think we liked this but it was really just a spring roll. I don't remember tasting very much crab.

The other was a main course of yellowfin tuna tempura, which came over sauteed vegetables, topped with seaweed, and with a side of rice. This wasn't exactly what we were expecting. The batter on the tuna was heavy instead of the usual lightness of tempura. The seaweed salad and sauteed vegetables were fine, and the portion size of the dish was definitely filling, but it wasn't anything special either.

I don't recall at all what our favorite dish of the night was, but I'm fairly sure it wasn't the sashimi or sushi rolls. Probably one of the fried dishes. So far most of the food at the Dreams Cancun (other than breakfast) was just okay (and some of it was quite mediocre). We were fairly sure we would not be returning to Himitsu based on our schedule and the quality of the food. At least we made it out of dinner before it started to pour!