New restaurants in La Paz

There has been a flurry of new restaurants recently opening for business in La Paz. We are starting to try them out and report our findings.

So far we went to:

Caprichios: Beautiful building belonging to the Aramburo clan. Nicely decorated, great ambiance. The service was lousy, some of the items were not available on the menu, food OK but nothing to write home about. Supposedly they have great pizzas, so will give it one more try. But currently not on our list of must-go-to places.

Las Tres Virgines: Even in their new location still on the top of our list. Great ambiance, also an old Aramburo house (the first residence for the governors of Baja California), the food is consistently incredible good as is the service. A bit on the pricey side, but hey, we don't go there every day. Definitely on our must-go-to place list.

Placeres Argentinos: Dennis and Susan of Two Can Play told us about this place and we went together to check it out. Located in a residential area close to the government offices on Isabela Catolica, it has great ambiance, the food is very good (try the lomo pampeano), reasonable wine prices and great service. On our will-go again list.

Il Rustico: A new Italian Trattoria style restaurant in downtown La Paz, is very nicely decorated, has great thin crust pizzas (try the Parma ham pizza, it's delicious), very reasonable wine prices and fantastic service. Again, a definite will-go again place.

As we try out more new digs, we'll report accordingly.

New Years La Paz 2008-2009

We ended the year having a last nice dinner at "Las Tres Virgenes" on December 30Th, since we are not a fan of fixed New Years Eve menus. As usual, the food and service was exceptional.

As an appetizer, we had Maria Jose's famous Caesar salad. Jesse, one of the owners, had been telling us about the new source of Arborio rice he found for his risottos. We both ordered risotto based dishes, Sue a medallion of beef and Alex shrimp. Both dishes were barbecued over mesquite coals accompanied by a Porta Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile.

The aroma coming from these meals when they were served was amazing. Just sitting at the table inhaling the smells coming off your dish was already half the meal. Incredible.

A small flan rounded up the meal with a couple of Don Pedro's to help settle it all down in its proper places. As usual, dining at the "Virgins" is an experience you'll never forget.

For New Year's eve, we decided to stay on the boat. If not only for our own personal safety, but also the boats and Gigi, our Siamese cat. We didn't want her to go crazy with all of that noise going on outside the boat. Mexicans have a tendency to shoot guns into the air around midnight and fireworks, regardless of where they land. And what goes up will eventually come down, just in the case of the bullets you don't hear or see them.


So we decided to prepare a lavish meal. Sue went digging in the freezer and came up with the perfect meal: a lobster tail and a pair of thick and juicy Angus T-bone steaks.
The lobster was diced and prepared in a butter/garlic sauce and served as an appetizer. The steaks ended up on a grill for it's proper grilling. Along with some baked potatoes with all the trimmings came a bottle of 1994 Navarro Correas Pinot Noir, a present from Roberto, an old Uruguayan friend living in Puerto Rico. We had saved the bottle for a special occasion and thought, this was a appropriate one.

The rest of the evening was spent playing cards and walking the dock before the big bang. Yes, they do know how to celebrate New Year's in Mexico, gauging from the amount of fireworks and fire crackers going off for hours.

We popped a bottle of Chilean Concha y Torro bubbly to welcome the New Year and pay tribute to Neptune (even that dude needs a little bit of the good stuff despite living in the Ocean. Gotta keep him happy).

The night was over around 12:30 AM

The days after Christmas

And the celebrations continued on..

We started Christmas morning with a loaf of sausage bread and a bottle of champagne while opening our presents. Christmas day was spent lounging around watching Christmas cartoons and relaxing. In the late afternoon we went to see Alberto and Rocio, local friends of ours here in La Paz. We brought their daughters Christmas presents and a bottle of Moet Chandon bubbly to help celebrate the Holidays. They were still recuperating from the fiesta the night before.


Boxing day, a very British tradition and still celebrated in the former British colonies (i.e. Canada). Well, Liz a.k.a.Land-Ho had a huge potluck dinner planed at her house, just around the corner from our Marina. And more turkey..... But it was delicious. It never ceases to amaze us the culinary delights one can have at cruiser potlucks. The cooking talents are just mind boggling. And so it was at Liz's place also. 22 cruisers got together and put an incredible feast together. Folks like Don and Helen of Sarah Ann, Rick and Joanne of Carma, Billie and Joe of Yellow Star, Nikki and her Brazilian/Indian girlfriend Christine of "Sailing since Tuesday", just to name a few. You get the message. Great dinner....

Christmas Eve in La Paz 2008

Christmas in La Paz - A nice balmy day to begin with. Blue skies and temps in the high 70's to low 80's. What else can one ask for?

Since Christmas Eve dinner was an affair for 8 cruisers (Jim and Heather of Meerkat, Paul and Erin of Romany Star, Bob and Janey of Amiga and Alex and Sue of Maitairoa). Meerkat graciously offered their cat to host the event. It's not that easy to have a sit down turkey dinner on a medium sized mono hull.

After measuring the different ovens and BBQ's, Alex and Sue went on the hunt for the perfect sized Virginia Smoked Turkey and Ham. Between Walmart, Sorianas, City Club, CCC and Sam's, there were enough choices. Succesfully completing their mission, they started the slow defrosting process of the 6.95 kg bird.





The festivities stated with a potluck appetizer party at Club Cruceros. When you say 3:00 PM, it's 3:00 PM and not a minute later. It's amazing what cruisers come up with for these types of events. A small section of the La Paz Symphony was planned to show up, but never materialized. Perhaps manana.










Around 4:00 PM we took off with our food cart, consisting of our contribution for the feast: the turkey, smoked ham and Sue's famous Christmas sausage bread.

Ready for battle....

We began by injecting the turkey and ham with Triple Sec, a trick we learned from Tim and Cindy on SV Masquerade a few years ago. The bird barely fit into Meerkat's oven but in it went at +/- 350F, continuosly being basted every 15 minutes with Triple Sec. After a short while you started to smell the aroma coming out of that little stove.





The ham went on the BBQ, Jim's delicious stuffing ended up in"Romany Star's" oven. Erin got a lesson on making mashed potatoes on Heather's stove. Overall work was smoothly in progess, thanks partially to Paul and Erin's great tasting mulled wine sitting on the counter, while tasting Sue's sausage bread as appetizer. Rounding up the main course were those fantastic green beans from "Romany Star"(reminds us we still need the recipe).


Once everything was done, we sat down for an incredible dinner on Meerkat's aft deck with a glowing fire place on Meerkat's giant computer screen. We had borrowed a foldable table from Carpe Diem for this event and had created a nice long dining table, where everybody could sit down at the same time.

The dinner was rounded up with desert provided by Bob and Janey of "Amiga". Home made brownies with vanilla ice cream. We were so happy to have Bob and Janey back for Christmas eve, so Janey's brownies were the icing on the cake....

Christmas dock party in Marina Don Jose

Last year we organized a Christmas dock party while in Marina Palmira. Since it was such a success, we decided to do it again this year.

It's actually quite easy. All you got to do is announce it every morning on the 8:00 AM cruisers net for about a week. Bring a appetizer finger food to share and your own drinks. The weather cooperated, a beautiful evening and about 50+ cruisers got together to celebrate the christmas season and have a good time in front of Maitairoa. Since we are on the long dock of Marina Don Jose we provided also the appropriate music through our outside speakers.

As ususal the food variety was incredible. Let cruisers loose for a party and they come up with incrfedible foods, including Sue's now semi famous Maitai Gelo shots. They are getting better and better....