I Famosi Italian Restaurant

Some friends of ours had recommended an Italian place near Plaza Las Americas way back in early February, and last weekend Jorge and I decided to try it out.

I Famosi is a small restaurant on Acanceh Street (behind Sports City, for all my Cancun friends). Their menu is pretty extensive, with lots of unique pastas and a wide variety of pizzas.

To start, they brought out a bread basket with a tomato dipping sauce. I could only have 1 bite because of the diet (had to save room for pizza), but it was delicious!

Jorge ordered an eggplant pasta and I had the Riccotini pizza, which was amazing. With my diet I’m only allowed thin-crust pizzas, and this one fit the bill.

When they brought the check out, the waiter mentioned that they weren’t charging us for Jorge’s meal since they gave him the wrong pasta, even though Jorge liked it so much he ate it anyway. I thought that was a really nice gesture.

We couldn’t finish a lot of it, and we ended up taking enough home for lunch the next day. (2 meals for the price of 1!)

Out total was around $120 pesos (my pizza, a water and Jorge’s Sprite). With Jorge’s discounted pasta added in, it would have been a little over $200 pesos. Not bad for a romantic evening!

Show Me Your … Parrot Eating a Tomato??

Today on Show Me Your… I’ll be killing two birds with one post 🙂

The Drama Mama asked to see my fave hangout in Cancun, and my bff from elementary school, Catie, asked to see my favorite food since moving to Cancun. So, today’s post will be about one of me & Jorge’s new fave restaurant in Cancun, “Va Que Va”.

Va Que Va  is a seafood restaurant located in downtown Cancun. Since it’s soooo far out of the way (on the opposite side of Cancun from the Hotel Zone) you’ll never see tourists here. It’s located in an average neighborhood, but you have to drive through quite a few sketchy neighborhoods to get there. It’s worth it though! Here’s why…

The entrance, hiding the restaurant from the street with foliage.

va que va!

4 out of 5 guys at my table drank micheladas

Jorge drank 2 of these! (gross?) Micheladas are basically beer mixed with Maggi steak sauce, worcestershire sauce, tabasco sauce, and lime juice, with salt and sometimes chili powder on the rim. Very popular in Mexico! Here at Va Que Va, they cost about $3 USD each for a liter. For $4 USD, you can get it with a skewer of shrimp in it.

I ordered a shrimp ceviche ($5 USD... that's the SMALL size!) and a frozen lime-ade.

4 of the guys split a platter for about $20 USD, which I believe included 4 kinds of shrimp and fried fish filet (you can pick and choose what you want the platter to include)

A parrot eating a tomato. Why not?

Why, hello there!

A mariachi band showed up...

...and spent the next half hour serenading the table next to ours.

We discovered this restaurant a few months ago and LOVE it. It’s always packed around lunchtime (1 – 3 pm here in Mexico). I think it’s impressive that I have seen no publicity whatsoever for this place, and yet it’s huge and fills up quickly. Just word-of-mouth, I guess.

Show Me Your Local Cuisine!

Today, I’ll continue on with Show Me Your (fill-in-the-blank).

Nikki from Que Sera Sera (as a semi-Mexican blogger, I gotta love the title!) asked to see some local cuisine. The other day I went to one of my favorite places on Avenida Tulum (the main road in downtown Cancun) for some…

FISH TACOS!

"Los de Pescado" 🙂 Aren't you happy just looking at it?

The view from my chair... this plaza has a whole bunch of small restaurants all lined up in a row. Sometimes I'll get a fish taco from Los de Pescado, plus a cheese & spinach empanada from the Argentinean locale next-door (El Emporio).

Here they are! Fish tacos. My drink is Hibiscus water, and the sauces from left to right are chipotle, tamarindo, and mayo-chipotle. As you can see, I opted for mayo-chipotle sauce with pico de gallo.

For 20 pesos (about one dollar and 50 cents), they give you one fish taco. This taco is 2 tortillas thick and includes 2 of those fried fish sticks. What I do to control my portions is divide my one taco into 2 (as seen in the picture). I separate the tortillas and put one fishstick on each. It lasts longer that way, and I feel like I’m eating more. I fill up on this pretty easily, although sometimes the craving for an empanada or 2 from next door overcomes me.

So what you see in the picture (1 taco turned into 2, plus my hibiscus water) costs about 3 US dollars total, plus tip. At the Argentinean empanada place next door, you can have 3 empanadas plus a soda for $49 pesos. Haven’t done it yet, but it’s a good deal.