Craft Market Cafe – Grand Cayman from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 78 | Post-meal (1 hour): 128 | Insulin: 4 Units

Grand Cayman is a beautiful place. The water has that perfect Caribbean blue/green color to it. However, before I went to sink my feet into the sand and go for a swim I need to fill my stomach with some local food.

I do need to apologies; I know it has been a while since my last post. It’s been busy on the ship. When I finally got off the ship I found a bunch of restaurants like Margaretville, which are fun but not what I was looking for. I wanted something more local and after walking around the town for a little while I think I stumbled upon just the place. The Craft Market Café is pure local. There is no inside only an outside and there were many locals eating on the benches. Even the local food was running around the floor. You’ll see what I mean when you watch the video. When I sat down I finally got to enjoy my early lunch with some of the guests from the ship before I headed to the beach.

Casa Tua – Aruba from Anthony Anello on Vimeo.

Diabetic Blood Sugar Count
Pre-meal: 119 | Post-meal (1 hour): 95 | Insulin: 5 Units

My first time getting off the ship since I arrived was Aruba. We were there from the afternoon to late night so it gave me some time to go to the beach and get some dinner.

The beach was nice and the water was warm. The beach we stayed at for the day was behind Hotel Riu and the Westin. I did a little tanning with some friends before headed back to the ship to get ready for dinner. We ended up going to an Italian/Spanish Restaurant called Casa Tua. Casa Tua has 3 different restaurants, Pizzeria, Barcelona, and Mediterranean. We went to the Pizzeria. It was good, as you will see in the video. We had a table for 12 and we were celebrating a birthday, however the birthday boy left before he got his special flaming birthday dessert. We took care of that for him.

As you all know I am always looking for a good meal. Well I hit one in Puerto Rico back in April. The restaurant Toro Salao is delicious with outside seating and when in Puerto Rico, you want to be outside and enjoy the warm air. Our ship does not leave until 11pm on the days we port in Puerto Rico so it is one of the only times I can get off the ship and have dinner.

We over ordered as usual but what stood out in the meal the most was the desert. Before we get into desert we also had some great food. Mussels with chopped tomato’s and olive oil, Hummus chorizo Bruchetta (another major highlight), and assorted meats on a stick. All very good… but the desert. OMG! Yes I am making an IM reference here! We had a cheesecake with an Oreo crusted bottom and a crème brule top. IT WAS AWESOME. I am putting this in my top 10 deserts of all time. They better never take that off the menu because the next time I am in Puerto Rico I am definitely going back.

Back in early march I was in the Caribbean and each week we would port in Puerto Rico. While working, a local Puerto Rican women was in one of my classes and on the cruise I picked her brain about all the restaurants she recommends being that she was a local. One of the places she mentioned is Mojitos in old San Juan. Friends from the ship recommend a place called Café Puerto Rico. I have been to Café Puerto Rico and it’s great. The 2 restaurants are very similar so I have to see which is the better, of course. Both places I ordered a conch mofongo and chorizo in wine sauce.

And the winner is…..Café Puerto Rico had the better Mofongo and really good wine but Mojitios had great chorizo in wine sauce. Next time I’ll just have to have an app at Mojitos and dinner at Café Puerto Rico.

Living on a ship for months at a time can sometimes cause you to miss certain cuisines. One that I miss a lot is sushi. While in the Caribbean I would go to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands once a week, and decided to spend a couple of bucks and go to a place I heard of called Beni Iguana’s.

A typical sushi experiences for me usually has me over ordering and getting a ridiculous amount of rolls. On this particular day I was dining with my friend Kelsey. At first I was going to order 5 different ”Big Rolls” but decided to cut it down a bit since there was only 2 of us and there was a section down at the bottom of the menu that said SPECIALS; that word sucks me in every time. So here was the order of the day:

Edamame – a Sushi staple
World famous mussels – in the “SPECIALS” section
Kahuna Roll – Smoked Eel, shrimp, & Avocado
Ecstacy Roll – (the name speaks volumes!) Crab, cream cheese, smoked eel, & Shrimp
St. Thomas Roll – in the “SPECIALS” section, Fried Shrimp Tempura inside, Smoked eel & crunchies outside
Topped off with a hot sake

Thanks to Beni, we had a great meal, especially with the World Famous Mussels. I love these things so much I bought a bottle of the special dressing to send home to my parents and Jay for some forking tastings. That picture says it all: 6 New Zealand Mussels (Giant size) steamed on the half shell with citrus sesame dressing, roasted sesame seeds and scallions. In one word, KILLER.

If you would like to see other pic of the sushi I had, check them out here.