Bonaire (9) Fun Eats

Bonaire does not have many local restaurants. The one we went twice is IRIE Jamaican Cuisine. To get there, you have to turn here and there and pass a hospital, a cemetery, a little alley, and some muddy road with a giant hole :). Here, the food sounds boring on the menu but tastes exceptional :D. For example, the menu probably just says jerk pork, but wow, the portion is huge and the sauced pork is so juicy and tender. I saw many frequent returners sitting around and chatting with the boss. One of them writing a note on the napkin like an old friend to the boss cooking in the kitchen. Something touches me there, I felt whether we were in a movie?! This place is totally a family style kitchen. The husband cooks and the wife takes care of the tables. You will need to remember to bring cash and also don’t mind waiting.

Near the beaches, we have food trucks and fresh coconuts (5 dollars each? Can’t remember well :)). Bonaire does not have many big beaches. One of the popular ones is called “Te Amo Beach”. It is near the airport, city center and cruise terminals. So many people hang out here. It is good for swimming but we did not see many fish here. The famous food truck is called “Kite City”. It offers sandwiches, tacos, burgers with local fish and seafood. The waiting was super long like passing half an hour :).

Fisherman’s market is another place where you can buy local fish and daily catch. The food portion is huge and the price is reasonable. The cooking has a variety of styles, from fish soup to sushi to salad to sandwich. This place opens early like 10:00am, and they have some simple bar tables inside, a good place for brunch, cheap and fresh.

On the island, the groceries are super expensive. For example, you may think the dragon fruits are tropic fruit, and we were at the tropical so the price should be low?! No, it costs 18.99 or 15.99 dollars per pound 🙂 This grocery store has many interesting flavors of goodies, e.g., there is an entire wall dedicated to different flavors of oat milks. Here, some food has direct labels, and says something like “healthy” “not good”. I dropped some packages due to discovering this label. In the rest of grocery shopping, we were just busy with discussing why this one is labeled as “not good” while the other one as “healthy” :D. There are a total of 1-2 good super markets on the island, and even that the food variety is very limited.

Bonaire has many fine-dining restaurants. But during holiday seasons, they are all typically full. You have to book 5-7 days ahead for sure. One of the fancy dining places is called “Restaurant Flora”, pretty food and drinks, pretty dining environment, and pretty views. You can see sailboats and airplanes across the horizon around the sunset. You can see the Bonaire city Kralendijk’s skylights, while enjoying your 10-11 courses of a long dinner, from day time to sunset till moon rise.

Cuba Companage is located near city center with good live music, and your dining faces some cruise terminals, a good place to watch people. However, this place has many flies on the patio 🙂 hungry for our foods. So we felt too testy to stay long 🙂

Jungle is the only place that has a seating for us during Christmas eve. So we felt appreciative. It’s great to have many people around at such a festivity. The Christmas dinner here typically was set courses and took super long between each course. We had a high table to do some people watching.

Pier Dos does not have the best food, but definitely worth an evening for its gorgeous dining environment. It was such a lovely day without many clouds. Sunset starts slow but ends very fast. We even did an experiment to show that the earth is round 🙂 We squatted down first; at the moment that we saw the sun was disappearing, we immediately stood up. Guess what? we saw the sun again like a magic! That’s one of the best sunset I ever watched. On my phone, I have recorded the moment when the sun disappears—-the nature is simply just amazing. It’s a privilege that we can be out there discovering the moments that touch our hearts and minds.