Sounds like something that wouldn’t taste too good doesn’t it? Well, this vegetable is much like a pumpkin but has a few differences. First as you can see, it has skin just like a watermelon, but it isn’t. This is actually how we stumbled upon this vegetable. As I was looking for a new fruit to try, I saw this, mistook it for a fruit and bought the whole thing. So as I got home and opened it up expecting it to be a fruit, I noticed it looked a lot like a pumpkin, with the seeds and everything. So we went around and asked different people how do you prepare this? Just like a pumpkin. So we have about 5 pounds of this fruit vegetable thing and have no idea what we can do with it. So we decided to cook it like a pumpkin and its good for a pumpkin pie type of dessert. Here in the DR you can generally get an auyama for a few hundred pesos. Not to bad for a pumpkin! (more…)

Las Terrenas Beach

Las Terrenas is a smaller beach side town on the Samana peninsula, North East of the City of Samana. Las Terranas is to date the nicest of the beach towns we have visited. We found the beach to be clean, not highly packed with people and with far less vendors hassling you while you are trying to enjoy the beach. I’ll go into greater detail in my article on the Las Terrenas Beach. Another thing you will probably need to know is how to get there our Las Terrenas Taxi page should help.

One of the major benefits of this town is the way that the beach is situated in relation to the town itself. As you drive into town you find the road for the most part winding down the side of the beach, with the motels on one side and the beach on the other. This goes for a long stretch of beach probably about 2 miles or so. What makes this nice is that each Motel has its own “private” section across the street where they have tables and chairs and during the peak seasons private bars at the beach. This spreads the people out over the beach instead of having just a few accesses to the beach. It also means for the majority of the Hotels going to the beach is just a matter of exiting your room and heading across the street. (more…)

If you going learn how to cook Dominican style, arepitas are a recipe you can’t go without. They are usually not eaten as commonly as rice and beans, but they are definitely essential to the Dominican diet.

You will be hard pressed to find someone that doesn’t like these little deep fried yucca balls. And as long as you are pay attention they are pretty hard to mess up.

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Buying food in the Dominican Republic. If you have come from the US or Europe, buying food in the Dominican Republic can be quite different from what you are used to. Some even classify buying food here as a skill. Something that takes learning and there are plenty of theories to how it is best done.

If you have never visited the Dominican Republic, you are probably thinking, “How do you figure? What’s so hard about going to the supermarket, finding what you want and buying it?”

If you are in a larger town, it may be that simple, but if you are in a smaller town; there might not even be any supermarkets. In which case you will be buying things at a lot of colmados or in the market place. (a colmado is a little corner market that many times is no bigger that 10’ by 10’)

What You Are Dealing With

Colmados and venders in the marketplace are normally owned by and single person or family and the vast majority of their products are highly negotiable. This means two things. The first one is good news; you can pretty much always get the price down a little lower. And Two, not so good; they are going to try and the most they can out of you. (more…)

White rice is often eaten with habichuelas and if you have ever visited the country you know if you are cooking for Dominicans, knowing how to make habichuelas and rice is a necessity.

White rice is one of the simplest things to cook from scratch, or so it seems. You would think it would be easy to cook, after all it only has three basic ingredients: rice, water and salt. But if you have cooked rice the past you know it can be testy and if not cooked just right it can turn out either crunchy or sticky.

Rest assured there is any easy way of cooking white rice that can get you that perfect fluffy rice every time. (more…)

If you are planning to stay in the DR for more than a few months, you will likely need to look into some sort of driver license. While public cars, Guaguas, Taxis, and Motor Conchos work, it’s nice to be able to drive yourself at time. There are a several ways you can do this.

• One is to get residency and apply for a Dominican license.
• Two, is to leave the country every three months in order to get your passport restamped (your foreign license is then good again for three months)
• Three, get an international License.

Which option to choose will likely depend on your long term plans. If you don’t plan on staying more than 6 months or so, it might be easier to just plan a small vacation where you leave the country for a few days. When you get back you will get your passport stamped again and your license will once again be good for another 3 months.

If you are planning to stay over a year, then you likely want to get residency and eventually get a Dominican drivers license. Even then you might need to either get your passport restamped or get an International License to keep you going during the long wait you are going to have to get the residency complete.

For me the easiest option has been getting an International Drivers Document.

1. First question is does the Dominican Republic honor an International License? (more…)

source: KRISPY KREME DOUGHNUTS INC

Reigning King of Doughnuts – Krispy Kreme is expanding their empire by adding the Dominican Republic to their recent conquests. Let the masses rejoice! (let me know if I’m a little “Over the Top” on this intro).

What can I say? Of all the donut chains nobody compares to Krispy Kreme’s in my opinion. I was hooked the first time I walked into the store and was offered a sample, right out of the oven and barely cooled. It was their Original Glazed Donut, normally a little plain by my standards ( I favor the custard filled), but this “plain” donut was about the best I have ever tasted.

I now have another reason to visit the Dominican Republic capital of Santo Domingo. Krispy Kreme is opening their first of 14 stores in the DR on Winston Churchill Avenue in Santo Domingo. Over the next 5 years they are expecting to open 14 more of the franchise stores throughout the DR. No doubt these will be in the mostly tourist areas giving people a little taste of home while on vacation at one of our beaches.

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September 2 will mark the grand opening of a new luxury resort on the North Shore of the DR.  Nikki Beach Cabarate is having grand opening events scheduled from  Thursday Sept 2 through Sunday Sept 6.

Nikki Beach is a high end beach club that started in 1996 and has received such recognition as one of the top beach clubs in the world with recognition from  ”The Travel Channel’s” “World’s Most Sexiest Beach” list where they reached #1. The resort chain is expected to open 10 new locations starting in 2012.

Currently there are 11 cities in 9 countries with Nikki Beach resorts:

• Miami Beach, Florida, USA
• St.Tropez, France
• Cannes, France
• St. Barth, French West Indies
• Marbella, Spain
• Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
• New York, USA
• Marrakech, Morocco
• Koh Samui, Thailand
• Cabarete, Dominican Republic  (new)
• Playa Blanca, Panama

The Nikki Beach Cabarate opening is being sponsored by the huge Amber Dune Resort and Spa which is set to open in 2012.   (more…)