This is part of a series of Facebook postings I am migrating to WordPress after I resumed posting on my proper blog, here on WordPress, in early December. I have kept the theme and the pictures, with captions and commentary from the original post.
From my Facebook post of Oct 27th, 2022
I brought my cafe americano out to the “cats terrace” just beside the dining room. Seeing a saucer in my hand, the felines in attendance at the moment rushed over with expectant looks and loud meows. This is a resort with, as best I can count, about 6 resident cats-and one likes to sun himself on my balcony. After casting me looks of utter disappointment, they settled down under my table to snooze in the shade. While I sat someone exited the dining room with a napkin of treats for them and they dashed to be first for the offering. I guess next meal will have me smuggling out food also.
I’ve been thinking about the odd situation with food at the resorts. I am now in a 4 star “at capacity” (according to the online booking site) with maybe 25% occupancy (my occupancy guess recently adjusted downward). The best thing I can say about the food is that the ice cream is creamy and delicious-a complement since creamy ice cream is not a given in Cuba. This 4 star does have a wider selection of food than the 3 star I stayed in before going to Havana (and they both had nice ice cream). Aside from the rice, pork, chicken and baked pumpkin (which is eaten here like squash) and cukes, unlike the 3 star, they also serve peas and green beans and pizza and pasta and offer a selection of beef, shrimp and fish eries to order on the grill. But oddly, the food on offer at the 3 star was much tastier and more plentiful! The 3 star served wine or beer with lunch and dinner but here there is no wine. There was one al la carte restaurant at the 3 star and here there are 3 but in neither resort are any open!
Both restaurants serve a selection of at least 4 dishes of cucumbers: sliced with and without skin, cucumber peel chopped finely and cucumber peeled and chopped with black speckles (pepper? can’t be-pepper here is powdered and grey-thank good I brought a jar of pepper in a grinder from home!)
The 3 star resort I stayed at last week – Los Delfines – was stuffed full of people, mostly Cubanos and I guess other Spanish speaking tourists from lord know where. They gobbled up their brimming plates of food (sometimes bowls when no plates were to be had), filled with rice, beans and pork with appreciation. They wiped their chins with the 4 sheets of toilet paper provided in lieu of napkins while I now have a real paper napkin and sometimes even score a cloth one. Here, at Roc Barlovento, there are still a lot of Spanish speaking tourists but more noticeable are the English, French, German and Italian contingents. The dining room always has plates (spoons are another matter) but the clientele pick hesitantly at the food on offer and wonder what the white mashed and glutanous stuff could be (it’s yucca). Roc Barlovento is a Sunwing destination and I have met Canadians here from New Brunswick and they asked me exactly that.
Peggy's Bucketlist Adventures 