Barracuda Bar and Grill Re-Opens with a bang!

The Restaurant at Beaches and Dreams , The Famous Barracuda Bar and Grill re-opened on October 9th to a nice mixture of tourist and local residents who missed the fare for the past 3 months. The first order of business was to fire up the smoker for our house smoked items:    

Smoked chicken for our Chicken Adobo, Smoked Sausage for Pizza and Jerk smoked Pork Tenderloin, which we serve over a Cuban style Black Bean Coulis. I always throw on fresh vegetables to use as a flavor enhancer in  my daily vegetable, on pizzas or for roasted vegetable polenta.  Another great use for the smoked items is to bake with our popular Belizean Clay Pot Paella. all of our fresh seafood like snapper, shrimp, lobster and conch, smoke chicken, pork and sausage all baked over saffron rice and roasted vegetable in a clay pot for 2. 

The next order of business is to let the seafood suppliers, the local fishermen, know that i am back in business and ready to buy. during the busy times, I can easily go through 10 pounds of fresh fish filet in a night and the same amount of fresh lobsters so it takes a community of local fishermen to keep me supplied. This sea to plate relationship with my neighbors is one of the things I love most about cooking here in Belize. (Read the earlier post "The morning fisherman)
Next, I needed to get with the other suppliers, Country Meats supplies me with a nice young beef tenderloin for my Tuscan Beef Tenderloin, a filet seared and served in a pool of balsamic and garlic reduction. Pork loin makes the menu this season with medallions of pork with fig sauce. One of the local farmers now supplies me boneless Muscovy duck breast, which we prepare with a brandied apricot demi-glace. For vegetarians, we've added vegetarian wellington. A tower of fresh vegetables, a little smoked vegetables and cheese encrusted in a polenta crust and baked. We serve this in a pool of our house marinara. All in all, we've got the ball rolling to create some great dishes this season at our small 30 seat restaurant on the Caribbean Sea. Serving the freshest ingredients with an italian flair, now that's Mediteribbean.....You'd better Belize it!