Puerto Rico Day Two

I always try to start my day with a healthy breakfast because for some reason I feel like it justifies anything else I eat the rest of the day. Makes perfect sense, right? In our hotel was a little coffee shop that sold sandwiches, pastries, and such where I would get my breakfast. I started my second day in Puerto Rico with two small boxes of Raisin Bran, some milk, and a banana, but of course had to check out the pastries. I decided that I was on vacation and should eat like I was. So, in addition to my already filling breakfast, I decided to get a quesito. A quesito is a Puerto Rican pastry that is basically just sweet pastry dough with a cream cheese filling. Yeah, eat your heart out. Literally. It was amazing. It had the sweetness of a croissant combined with the richness of cream cheese. The cream cheese filling was perfect. It wasn't overflowing out of the pastry. It was simply a very thin layer that seemed to have just been lightly brushed on. It was the perfect combination of flavors. So much for my healthy breakfast....

That day, we went on an all day snorkeling trip, which was amazing. The trip included transportation, so after we had been dropped off at the hotel, I immediately panicked and searched through my bag of stuff that I had brought and realized that I had left my wristlet (a purse that hangs on your wrist) on the van that had dropped us off. And of course it contained all my cash, my credit card, and my drivers license. (By the way, I promise this is headed in a food related direction) So of course, I had to go through all the phone calls and drama of worrying if I was ever going to get it back. I was waiting on a phone call from the company to let me know if they had been able to get ahold of the driver, so we decided to go into Old San Juan and have dinner in the meantime. And what happens? I, of course, get a phone call telling me to meet outside the hotel promptly at 8:30 in order to get my wristlet back. Perfect. Except not so perfect. 8:30 PM, not AM. It was 7:00 at the time and the ride to and our hotel to Old San Juan takes about fifteen minutes. This should be interesting...

The Parrot Club. http://www.oofrestaurants.com/ The atmosphere and food were wonderful, but be sure to bring a flashlight if you ever go. Trust me, you will need one in order to read your menu. The restaurant was extremely dark. We started off with white corn fritters with a queso dip. The combination of the two literally tasted like macaroni and cheese, and not the cheap EZ Mac kind. For our entrees we got a bbq'd chicken breast with mofongo, red snapper with with crab guiso and yuca gratinada, a pumpkin flavored gnocchi with black beans, and a special chicken fried steak. The dish I ordered was the pumpkin flavored gnocchi. It was delicious, but rich. So rich, in fact, that I wasn't able to finish it. The gnocchi had perfect texture and blended well with the black beans and the crispiness of the greens. (I don't remember what kind of greens they exactly were..I know I know) The pumpkin flavor was the icing on the cake. It was subtle enough as to not be too overwhelming but finished the dish with a perfect sweetness of flavors. Everything about my dish was amazing. Until I threw it all up later that night....Nothing is better than waking up in the middle of the night with an awful stomach ache and throwing up pumpkin flavored gnocchi...The boys are convinced the reason I threw up is because of what happened in the next part of the story.

At dinner we were obviously in a hurry since I had to make it back to the hotel by 8:30 in order to get my wristlet from the driver. We were rushing our waiter through the meal, and I eventually asked if I could just get my dessert to go. He insisted that it was ready, so I patiently waited. He brought it to our table at 8:15, and I kid you not, I inhaled my dulce de leche brownie. It actually came with two brownies. I scarfed down the first one and a half brownie, grabbed the other half and ran out the door to grab a taxi. Now that's dedication. The boys think that because I finished an entire two brownies in approximately 60 seconds that this caused me to throw up later on that night. The world will never know..... Now this dulce de leche brownie was pretty darn good. The texture was not that of your typical brownie. It wasn't soft and moist and didn't crumble when held, but was almost hard, but not in an "unfresh" kind of way. That doesn't sound particularly appetizing, but it actually worked well. The brownie tasted like the shortbread cookies that Girl Scouts sell, just in a brownie version. And everyone loves a good shortbread cookie. And as a perfect ending to a perfect meal, we made it to the hotel in time, and I got my wristlet back, money and all. Now why couldn't I have just not left my wristlet on the bus. Then I would have been able to order at least one more dessert. Guess it just goes to show you can't have your cake (brownie) and eat it too.....