Week 19: Fernando's

For Week 19, we bring you Vacation Edition #2 – Fernando’s! One of our ports of call on our cruise was Costa Maya in Mexico. The port of Costa Maya is about a 5 minute cab ride from a small beach town called Majahual. This small town consists of two main streets. The majority of tourists hang out on the beach and the restaurants and shops along the first street. Just behind, on the second street, is a treasure of a restaurant we discovered by researching the port of call on Cruise Critics. The morning of our visit, we took a tour of a Mayan ruin a ways out from the town. On our way back, we chose to be dropped off in Majahual rather than at the port. It was time for lunch, and it was time for Fernando’s!

Fernando’s is open air, sand floor, pure awesomeness.

We began with a complimentary tequila and grapefruit soda mix. Again, I am no tequila fan, but this was a very mild, slightly sweet (and salty!) aperetif. Fernando makes his own tequila on-site.

The tequila barrel:

You are also served a variety of sauces with a side of tortilla chips. The sauces are all made in-house. All of them were delicious and you could pick and mix spices according to your taste and level of spiciness desired.

I also ordered a bowl of guacamole. I *could* be exaggerating some here, but it was the best guacamole I’ve ever had.

Matt also tried the house salsa. It was not your typical wet salsa, but a fresh mix of diced tomatoes and onions with herbs and spices.

We ordered our meals, freshly prepared, beyond fabulous. I had a crab meat with garlic sauce, accompanied by rice, tortillas, and fresh vegetables. Topped with guacamole and Fernando’s verde sauce, every bite was heaven. M. had tacos de pollo, and he relished every bite as well. As soon as the plates were presented to us, we ate quickly because of the flies. I am not complaining about the flies. We were eating in what was an outside setting and just like you’d experience at your everyday outdoor barbecue, the flies were ready to land on our wonderful meals. I didn’t even take time to snap a photo before we ate, but this is what we had left over:

After our meals, Fernando brought out tequila & anise shooter digestifs. I am not big on the flavor of anise (licorice), but I found the mix to be refreshing. The menu prices are in Mexican pesos, which on the day we visited exchanged at 10.35 to the USD. Our total for the entire feast came to be only $18 USD. Wow!

Sadly, Fernando’s is not a restaurant we can visit anytime we please. But you can be sure anytime we cruise the Western Caribbean again, we will make it a point to book an itinerary with Costa Maya included so we can return to this fabulous place.

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