For @getonding RE: BELIZE

Twitter be damned there is a time and place for the verbose culinarian. And that is why I have a blog!

This is for my friends at @getondining. If you have the good fortune to travel to Belize, you will no doubt be looking for the best food around. I could direct you to a hundred small family owned places which would undoubtedly do the job for a few bucks. Belize can be a tough place to get really great food and especially service as the culinary scene is fairly young. However, there are a few places that do it well and I thought I could consolidate it for you.

Meat Pies: This delicious delicacy is an even tie between two vendors(any local can direct you) Pao and Dario. These two drive up vendors have slightly different recipes but essentially the same design. Both sell out by around 11 AM each day so come early and with an appetite. With the recent introduction of the Chicken Curry eat Pie you can hardly go wrong, but you need to try them for yourself. Trust me.

Riverside Tavern: By and far the nicest restaurant in Belize City with the most consistant food quality. Owned by the son of Barry Bowen, the Beer and Soft Drink mogul, this tavern barely qualifies as Indy in Belize terms, but in this case it is run with the same care and precision. The owner is kind, the beer is fresh and cold, the bar is fully stocked(for non beer drinkers) and the Burgers are absolutely delicious. Try the Blue Cheese burger. They tell me the fresh fish is amazing as well.

Other Belizean Dishes to try: Saturday Morning Roadside BBQ Chicken, Duckanoo(steamed cornmeal patty), Grilled corn w/chili and lime salt, Tamales, a sweet bread called"BUN", grilled rock lobster or curried lobster, etc etc etc.

Belikin: In a category of its own. This delicious beverage officially is my second favorite Beer, right behind my trusty Yeungling. Barry Bowen has lovingly crafted the fine line of choices including, Belikin Mayan Temple(Longneck or regular) Lighthouse(light), Stout, Septemberfest, and Premium. All are unique, all are German Style beers with plenty of flavor. All of them will satisfy the itch.....
Bowen and Bowen also carry Bottled Water, Fanta, Guiness, Coca Cola and a line of fruit beverages and malt beverages for any occasion. Truly the beverage purveyor of choice in Belize.

Grab a Fromers or Lonely Planet Guide, catch a flight and revel in the unique geographic and culinary destination that is the lovely Belize.....

Wherever the mood strikes....

By Eric Ackerson 9.14.09

I spent last week in a rented apartment in Belize, Central America, wherein I was blessed with A/C and cursed with a rotten chefs knife.

In order to save money on some of my travel I like to cook as many meals as I can when I am far from home. By way of a bonus, I also get to explore local ingredients and have collected some fantastic recipes. Invariably, I also get the joy of using the worlds least effective chefs knife. You know the one... purchased at the grocery store complete with serrated blade! Never sharpened to begin with and then dragged across the chain mail chopping block of the previous occupant right before being used as a screwdriver and hammer combo to fix the broken fixtures and rusty faucets.

This same knife seems to follow me around the globe in a constant game of international Hide and Seek. I invariably reach for the drawer that contains the kitchen utensils and find a smirking corroded blade peeking out at me from behind the plastic spatula. As I gently wrap my hand around the handle, withdrawing my nemesis from her new hidy hole, I feel like she mocks me. "Here I am AGAIN" "You had to know it would be me, didn't you?"

After a trip to the grocery or market, I get down to business. I prepare my mise en place, clean and dry my ingredients, place the first criminal cabbage or felonious bok choy on the guillotine and pick up the knife. Even the vegetables look scared that I will hurt them. My fingers dance knowingly away from the as yet to offend staple of the kitchen. I can almost feel the dull blade bounce off the skin of the next tomato and continue on down a quarter of the way into my fated phalanges. When will this evil mistress, subject me to the horrors of some third world chop shop for the befingered? I don't fancy a trip for stitches in any place that doesn't take Blue Cross Blue Shield.

So far I have been lucky, but who knows when I will run out of good fortune? Bangkok? Belize City? Dubai? Fate is a fickle lover.....

I can think of only one way to avoid this knife, this shadow of mine. The next time I am on the road, wherever the mood strikes, I will reach into the drawer, retrieve the device in question, look her directly in the evil eye, then withdraw the gleaming Henkel from behind my back. The one I brought from home, then laugh while my sadistic mistress falls backwards into the drawer of pain, spurned for a newer model, never to be risked again...

Simple solutions are usually the best.