I don’t pretend to be a professional restaurant critic, but as a strict vegetarian and health nut, I am a very harsh critic of restaurants and I have very high standards. To me there are five important elements that I use to evaluate a restaurant .

* Food- How the food tastes and quality of preparation
* Aesthetics -The presentation of the food
* Service - attentiveness and attitude of waiters and staff
* Ambiance - décor and layout of the restaurant
* Value - equating the whole dining experience in terms of value for the
money

What makes things a little more complicated for yours truly is that I’m 90% vegan (a vegetarian who refrains from eating eggs and all dairy products). Also I lean toward places that use strictly organic produce, even if it costs me extra money.

While I was in La Manzanilla for 10 days, I had all my meals at four different restaurants; considering that there are approximately 8 restaurants that are geared for the “gringo business” in this small town, I sampled 50% of the available places. Keep in mind, my evaluation is strictly subjective and it may differ from your experience and other patrons of the reviewed restaurants. All I can do is be honest, right?

The four restaurants I patronized ranged from the eclectic Southeast Asian and European Cuisine of Jolanda’s, the wholesome filled crepes of El Quetzal, the carefree El Girasol Bistro and Bakery to the nouvelle Italian cuisine of Coco Loco.

To follow in a subsequent post, my reviews. Stay tuned…

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 10:00 am and is filed under Mexico, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.