When it comes to eating out in Jacmel (and surrounding areas) there are a lot of choices, but they pretty much all serve the same thing.
There are usually only 2-3 things to choose from any one day and it could be any of the following:
Fish (with head attached)
Pork (cut into pieces and fried)
Goat (cut into pieces and fried)
Beef (also cut into pieces and fried or, at some nicer places, as a steak)
Chicken (fried-- but not like you and I are used to fried chicken)
Conch (generally grilled)
And *possibly* shrimp/lobster some places
Now, often you will get a 2-3 page menu that boasts of all sorts of exotic things like cheeseburgers, pasta, or ice cream. But most often, the best way to go is to not look at the menu and ask, "What do you have tonight?"
Last night was a perfect example. Nick and I (deciding to stray from our usual Friday night Cyvadier Plage date-- which, incidentally, is the exception to the rest of this post in that they generally have everything on the menu and it's all generally good.)
We picked a place right on the main street in a super-old historic building (read: ambiance) and we'd had good food and service there before.
We arrived at about 6:30PM.
We sat down and about 10 minutes later a menu was brought to us to peruse.
I asked the obligatory question, "What do you have tonight?"
Our server said, "Everything on the menu."
And I said, "Everything?"
And she said, "Well, we don't have shrimp. Everything other than shrimp."
Sounded good to me. I don't even like shrimp anyway. I looked through the menu (2 pages) and said, "Do you have cheeseburgers?"
"Yes," she said.
"Okay. I will have a cheeseburger," I said.
Nick said, "Do you have BBQ chicken?"
She said they did and he ordered that. Our drinks were delivered quickly WITH REAL glass glassware AND ice. Nick and I were feeling pretty victorious. That a restaurant would have what we want almost never happens.
Nick and I had brought some cards and played a few hands. About 25 minutes or so into the wait (which we always plan on being at least an hour), I said, "Hmm. I would really like some lime for my water." (I gave up Prestige for lent.)
So Nick says, "I will go get you some." Now, lime is one thing that almost EVERYWHERE has. They grow all over the place here and are available year round.
Nick walks away and comes back about 3 minutes later with no lime but a menu in his hand. (Mind you... this is at least 25 minutes after we'd ordered.) He dropped the menu down on the table and said, "Try again."
"You're kidding?" I said hopefully...
"No. In fact, we BOTH need to try again."
So, there we were... about 45 minutes into our date back to square one.
This time I ordered the steak and he ordered the fried chicken-- because they had fried chicken but not BBQ chicken??? But he had to go back up to find the waitress to tell her what we wanted. And then he made her go check. And then he verified they had propane to cook the food. (You laugh, but that has happened to us and last night even there was some dispute over whether or not there would be enough, but they assured us there would be plenty-- thankfully there was.)
And then, over an hour later-- Ta Da! We had dinner. My steak was good for the first few bites but then started tasting a bit off but I kept eating it because I figured if it was going to make me sick, I was already going to get sick, might as well get my money's worth. Nick's chicken was dry and had a jerky-like quality to it.
Nick and I were both in relatively good moods last night so we took it all in stride, at the same time coming up with all our plans about what we'd do differently if WE owned the place. (Since we obviously know it all.)
The moral of the story is that if you want to go out to eat in Jacmel, don't go out too hungry or too attached to any idea of what you think you'd might like to eat. Because it probably won't be there. Or, if it is, it might be entirely different than the last time.
Or just stick with Cyvadier Plage. The lambi thai is off the chain.
