Belize Eats – 4

We were in Belize for a week, and we had to eat during the week. As always, we enjoyed all of our culinary finds. We did not have a single bad meal at all. We enjoyed so much good food and a wide variety of foods too. Everything we ate was so fabulous.

One such culinary treasure was the Garifuna Restaurant. Garifuna specializes in traditional West Caribbean/African food. The Garifuna are the Afro-Caribbean people who originated with the arrival of West African slaves who washed ashore on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent around 1635 while likely on their way to New World mines and plantations.  Garifuna communities along the Caribbean Sea live mostly in coastal towns and villages in the Central American countries of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The West African transplants were either ship-wrecked or escaped from the Caribbean islands of Barbados, St. Lucia and Grenada, depending on the source.  They intermarried with local populations of Arawaks and Carib Indians (Caribs), immigrants from South America, to become known as Garifunas or Black Caribs.

Originally we stopped for lunch, but decided it was more of a dinner place for us, so we went back again later that evening. So glad we did too. As with all the other places we visited, it was full of personality and charm with lots of delicious food.

This is the little hut we dined in. I call it the turtle hut. We dined on both seafood and ceviche, just like the sign says to do.

We went back later in the evening with a much bigger appetite so we could fully appreciate the meal. Once again though, we chose to share a meal and we still walked out very full and very satisfied. We made a meal of ceviche and hudut, a traditional seafood and conch stew.

Our waiter was very attentive, polite and friendly. He took very good care of us. He was dressed in traditional Garifuna attire.

The hudut came with cassava bread, mashed plantains and coconut rice.

We tried ceviche at a number of different restaurants. They were all very good and all very different. I think this was one of my favorites. It was very limey and I love limes.

Be adventurous wherever you are, be it at home or on vacation. Life is short. Do it all and experience as much as you can. That’s what makes life fun and interesting.