Last night, my boyfriend and I had dinner at La Creperia, a small restaurant in downtown Cancun. I have been there several times and have always loved the food. Last night was no exception.

I hadn’t been to the restaurant in quite a while and was pleased to see they had added more tables and that they now have ice cream cones as a dessert option! Yummy! They also added a smoking section, which I could do without, but I know many people will be happy to learn about that new addition.

I love the crepes and decided to stick with an old favorite, The Bechamel. It is filled with big chunks of chicken breast and mushrooms and topped with Bechamel sauce and tomato sauce. The crepes are quite filling, but they also come with a nice sized garden salad. I don’t recall the exact price of my crepe/salad combination, but it was around 80 or 90 pesos. The presentation of the food is magnificent! You feel like you are dining in a gourmet restaurant…..without a hefty bill at the end!

My boyfriend ordered Filet Mignon. It was a small steak…approximately 6 or 8 ounces…and was served on top of mashed potatoes. The filet was delicious and under 150 pesos!

After we basically licked our plates clean, we decided to get cups of mango sorbet to enjoy on our walk home. Again…delicious!

Our entire meal, including 2 soft drinks , the sorbet, and 20% tip came to about $32 USD. We had a fabulous time and will be going back to La Creperia again very soon! I hear they have great breakfasts too, but have only been there for lunch and dinner. If you like Cream of Mushroom Soup, the Pitufa (cream of mushroom soup served in a bread bowl) is worth the trip!

I think this restaurant is one of Cancun’s hidden treasures and suggest that more tourists venture downtown to try it out! It is located on Avenida Coba in a bright yellow building. It is fairly close to Walmart and I believe the R-2 bus will take you right past the restaurant.

Last week, I decided to try a new Italian restaurant that a friend had been raving about. It is called La Veranda and it is located on Avenida Tulum (next to the Office Depot at the intersection of Av. Tulum and Coba), in downtown Cancun.

I’ve tried a few Italian restaurants here and, while they’ve been ok, they just haven’t been anything amazing. Thankfully, La Veranda has changed that.

My friend and I were greeted by the hostess on the open-air entry-way and directed to our table, where the head waiter greeted us and presented us with the wine list/cocktail menu. The restaurant is rather small so reservations are recommended. I prefer to be more “spur of the moment” and decided to be a rebel and NOT make a reservation. Since we dined fairly early, we had no trouble getting a table. I am sure that, once the place becomes more popular, I will have to be more structured and actually make a reservation.

The restaurant space used to be occupied by an open-air buffet restaurant. Now, it is enclosed and the decor is simple, but elegant. Soft lighting makes it very relaxing (and it is the type of lighting that makes everyone look lovely!). The ceiling fans and air conditioning will make it quite comfortable during the hot Summer months. I constantly make mental notes of which restaurants have air conditioning so I can frequent those places when the heat and humidity make outdoor dining unbearable.

My girlfriends and I have recently taken a liking to apple martinis. Our mouths started watering like Pavlov’s dogs when we spotted Apple Martinis on the menu. Needless to say, we each ordered one. I consider myself to be an authority on martinis and, I have to say, this was the best martini I’ve had in a VERY long time! It had fresh lime juice (including the pulp!) and tasted more like a Lemon Drop martini than an Apple martini. Since Lemon Drops are my martini of choice, I had no complaints! The martini was $55 pesos.

My friend and I decided to share a Chicken Caesar Salad. The salad was topped with several large slices of breaded chicken and had a couple of thin, crispy breadsticks on the side. The large salad was the perfect size for sharing!

I ordered Lasagna as my entree and my friend ordered Chicken Parmesan with fresh vegetables and a side of gnocchi. My lasagna was delicious! It was large enough for 2 meals. In fact, I took it home and had the rest of it for lunch the next day. My friend liked her meal, as well. Each entree was around $120 pesos, although I don’t recall the exact prices.

I decided to take my chances and try dessert, even though I’ve been incredibly disappointed with the majority of the desserts I’ve tried in Mexico. They all look fabulous, but usually end up tasting like wax. I ordered cheesecake. It was very creamy and sweet and delicious! I wished I hadn’t eaten so much lasagna because I wasn’t able to finish the cheesecake.

The presentation of all of the food and beverages was excellent and the glasswear and the dishes were very pretty, as well. Valet parking is available.

My complaints about La Veranda are really not major complaints. The first is that I believe the service is a bit too proper. They are trying to give fine dining service and it is really not required. The atmosphere, the decor, the food, and the wonderful staff make you feel more ‘at home’ than in a fine dining establishment. Also, the tables are not set up in such a way to allow the servers to serve from the right and pick up your dirty dishes from the left. My friend and I had to bend forward each time the server brought a new course. Like I said, complaining that the service is too proper is really not a complaint, but it actually detracted from our dining experience so I felt it worth mentioning. The only other thing that bothered me was cigarette smoke. The place is so new and smells very fresh and clean. When one person lights up a cigarette, you can really smell it. I’m allergic to practically everything on the planet and cigarette smoke is one of the things that really bothers me. Other people may not have noticed this at all.

That being said, I really enjoyed my dinner at La Veranda and am planning to have my birthday dinner there later this week.

Earlier this week, I went to dinner with 2 of my girlfriends. We decided to try D’Stefano’s, an Italian restaurant on Nader Avenue in downtown Cancun. I had heard good things about the restaurant and insisted we have dinner there.

We quickly found the restaurant (located near the Immigration office) and were not at all impressed. It is simply a small house with a “yard” filled with pebbles. Outside, there are about 10 plastic tables and chairs with umbrellas. I am not sure if seating is available inside. We were the only people in the restaurant. That should’ve been our first clue that we were not in for an enjoyable evening. There was no music playing until a couple of minutes after we were seated. The menus are only in Italian and Spanish. This wasn’t a problem for me and my friends, but I would imagine it could be a big problem for many tourists.

We ordered our drinks and, when the drinks were delivered, we ordered our entrees. I decided to have Lasagna. It was only OK. Nothing spectacular, by any means. One of my friends ordered Spaghetti Carbonara. Again, nothing spectacular. She also ordered a salad of mozzarella cheese and tomatoes (I forget the name of this salad, but it is a common dish in Italian restaurants) and the tomatoes weren’t fully ripe. My other friend got some concoction of salmon and pasta with a cream sauce. It smelled really “fishy” to me so I didn’t try it, but she enjoyed it.

The portions were large, but we each only ate about 1/4 of our meals. We got them boxed up, but soon realized we wouldn’t eat the leftovers. If it wasn’t good enough to eat the first time around, why bother eating it later?!

We paid our bill and high-tailed it over to Club Sandwich Cafe for coffee and dessert. I had the delicious Apple Strudel, one of the girls had the equally magnificent Carrot Cake, and my other friend had decaf coffee. You may not think that was much of a treat for her…plain ol’ decaf…but it was. You see, decaf coffee is hard to come by. Sure, restaurants might SAY they serve it, but it’s not really decaf if it keeps you awake all night, is it??

So, to sum it up, we were very disappointed in D’Stefano’s, but I can’t find enough good things to say about Club Sandwich Cafe.

I have lived in Cancun for 2 1/2 years, but I’ve never been to many of the more popular restaurants. Yesterday, one of my friends and I decided we would try La Habichuela. Neither of us had ever been there, but have heard many wonderful comments about the place. Since it’s a whopping 2 blocks from my house, I really haven’t had an excuse NOT to go before now, but I just kept putting it off. Well, NO MORE!

We walked in and they asked our name and which hotel referred us. Um, we live here and nobody referred us… Apparently, they track that sort of thing. Anyway, since we both love eating outside, we requested a table in the garden. We were seated right away. The garden area is rather large and filled with trees and flowers and the lighting was very soft and soothing. It was VERY windy yesterday, but in the garden, we had only enough of a breeze to keep us from being hot.

The waiter brought over menus and took our drink order. He asked if we wanted water. When we said we did, he asked if we wanted a bottle of water or a glass of water. Most places just automatically bring a bottle so I found that to be a nice touch. (Tourists are probably cringing now, but yes, I do drink the water occasionally!)

My friend and I are not big fans of seafood, which the La Habichuela menu has an abundance of, so we both chose steaks. We had thought of getting a Mexican dish, but we eat in little Mexican restaurants all the time and decided we should have something different. We ordered a Caesar salad for 2. It is made table-side and it was absolutely delicious! After the salads, we were served sorbet. I’m not sure if it was mint sorbet or if it was another flavor that had a lot of mint added. Regardless, it was quite refreshing…not to mention a lovely treat! I’m used to eating in taquerias and have forgotten how nice it is to really DINE.

For our entrees, we both had filet mignon with Morel sauce. (I am guessing the filets were around 8 ounces.) My steak arrived without the mushroom sauce. It looked so wonderful that I had to have a bite before the waiter returned with my sauce. It was so juicy and flavorful that no sauce was needed, but since I love mushrooms, I poured the sauce over my steak. The meat was so tender that it practically melted in my mouth.

The baked potato was the only thing we found to complain about. It wasn’t full of all the things that make baked potatoes yummy….no mound of butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon bits, and chives pouring out of this one. It was sad looking. I loaded mine up with the garlic butter we had for our bread and I was as happy as I could be. Not really anything to complain about, as you can tell.

Neither of us had room for dessert, but I noticed the dessert menu was a bit boring. I’m not much of a chocolate eater so nothing appealed to me other than the sorbet.

We paid our check and followed the trail of breadcrumbs back to the main entrance. (We were very disoriented when leaving and couldn’t find our way out of the restaurant! No, we only had Diet Coke and water with dinner so no excuse for it other than a ‘blonde moment’!)

I wanted to get dessert to take home and enjoy later so we walked 3 blocks over to Club Sandwich Cafe and I got carrot cake. YUMMMMMM!!!! I’m totally addicted to that place already and feel compelled to go several times a week.

Finally, after several hours of dining and relaxing, I made my way home. It was a great evening and I highly recommend La Habichuela! The garden is very a romantic setting. It would be a great place for a special occasion, or for proposing marriage, but it was also fine for someone (like my friend and i) just looking for a nice change of pace. We both wore jeans and nice tops, but I saw people dressed in khakis with Hawaiian shirts, and some other people that were a bit more dressed up. Another thing I’d like to point out is that we never felt rushed, even though the restaurant closed before we left.

Prices for our meal:
Filet with Morel Sauce
(served with baked potato and steamed veggies)…..$212.00 pesos (around $20usd)
Caesar Salad for 2…..$158.00 pesos (around $15usd)
Soft Drinks…..$29 pesos (nearly $3usd for a can of Diet Coke!!!!)