Food & Drink of Antigua and Barbuda

Kitchen of Antigua

Traditionally simple, the kitchen of Antigua at the same time appeal to local products (lots of fish and tropical fruits), and now the new ready-made foods imported from North America.

The origin is irrelevant, provided the meal is consistent, with a big dish of meat or fish with rice, pasta, fungi (polenta) or plantains. Add to that a small salad (macaroni perhaps) and a nice cold Wadadli. For a quick snack, the islanders rely on readily Snackette of pizzas. It's not gourmet, but it's not very expensive.

At the other end of the spectrum (and portfolio), the gastro restaurants of major hotels, largely disconnected from local realities, offering fine cuisine, more or less morning local touches. Given the often exorbitant prices, those traveling to the economy will often do their shopping at the supermarket. We find a large, First Choice Foods, midway of the road from St John's Dickenson Bay (3 km).

Local Specialties

In appetizers, conch fritters often we meet (conch fritters) and stuffed crab (spicy). Enjoyed the morning (especially on Sundays, when the time), or main dish, saltfish buljol is a recipe for Trinidadian desalted cod stew with onions, tomatoes and peppers. Cod is also often accompanied by Duncan, of sweet potato fritters statements of nutmeg and cinnamon, boiled in banana leaves (or tin foil ...).

Popular in restaurants, fish depends on the catch of the day: perhaps the group (grouper), perhaps the red snapper (red snapper) or tuna. The shells are not as fritters, they are also very well in curry (coconut), served with a sauce you can grow wings of fire-breathing dragon ... Other classic lobster (from Barbuda), shrimp in the coconut, the pepper pot from Guyana. The latter is a kind of stew beef, pork or lamb (or chicken) bathed in a sauce Cassareep (made from cassava), chili and cinnamon. The warmth of the tropics!

It is served with the fungi, a kind of polenta that some even eat grilled sliced ​​... They are so inseparable that day gave the expression "every Fungie Have pepper pot" - in other words, each pot's lid! Given the number of goats that graze across the island, it is not surprising, either, often found on his plate a curry goat stew or a goat (stew) of his store. The more adventurous can try the bull feet soup ...

No big surprises in the dessert: ice obvious, bananas flambé with rum, tropical fruit pies like coconut pie - sometimes spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, as in Hemingway's Hide at St John's. Manquet not in season, mango pie. The islanders themselves, love the Jello.

Market, or along the road, stop to buy a small packet of sugar already peeled. What would make full chin!

Finally, here are two places we like. At the gates of St John's, Russell's Bar & Restaurant is perched prettily on the outer fortifications of Fort James, which guards the harbor entrance. Nice for a cocktail.

Chic in the genre, there is the terrace of the Admiral's Inn, Nelson Dockyards, ideal for a drink while watching the bananaquits (pretty little yellow and black birds) foraging feeders. Nearby, there is the old dock colonnade of the eighteenth century.

Beverages

The simple try out the fresh fruit juices (passion, mango, tamarind ...), the other will control one of many cocktails, more or less steeped in rum.

To cool off, two preferred options: a coconut or a Wadadli, lager aroma of corn and lemon, which is drunk all the more easily it is cold (not really great otherwise). There is also the mauby, recalling the American root beer (for those who know), from the bark of a species of wild coffee. Many people prepare at home from concentrate. But beware ... sometimes mentioned laxative rum distilled on site by brand Français Harbour is probably safer!