Finally Finding the Real

By John Currence | March 3, 2009 | Food

The combination of cab drivers’ kickbacks and my wife’s sometimes grossly misconceived naïveté (and fascination with “lighting”) frequently conspires to drop me on the doorsteps of some of the worst restaurants. I don’t know what it is. I try to make it perfectly clear everywhere I go. I get in a cab or begin a conversation with a bartender: “I do this for a living.” “Seriously, I want somewhere Americans would never think to go.” “I’m not screwing around. I don’t want to go to Hard Rock.” “I don’t care if all the local specialty involves boiled lung; send me someplace local.”  I have decided that I must just have the universal mug of a chump because, more often than not, I find myself at Joe’s Crab Shack or, worse, a local version of Joe’s Crab Shack…because American crap versions of our favorite foods must be better than third-world crap versions of third-world favorites.

It was during a recent trip to Playa del Carmen in Mexico that I found the local. After a fried cheese and banana cat-vomit thingy we had tried our first night (if you see tri-fusion Mexicanized kushiage on a menu, run—fast), my wife and I vowed that the rest of the trip would be spent without exception looking for great local food. And for once I managed to hit tortilla-laced and guacamole-slathered pay dirt thanks to a tequila-savvy bartender at a joint on 5th Avenue.

The place you want to go in Playa is Doña Mary. You will need one person who speaks decent restaurant Spanish (or who has an agile pointy finger) to help with menu selection and about the equivalent of what a hot dog costs at the ballpark to eat and drink yourself into a coma at Doña Mary. There are about seven things on the menu, and I can tell you from experience: all outstanding.

There is no sign on the restaurant (corner of 30th Avenue and 28th Street), so it can be a little tricky to find, and it’s in a part of town that sees few, if any, turistas. The people could not have been more friendly or welcoming, and the place has the feel of a family reunion where everyone actually seems to like one another. D.M. is as authentic as it gets and provides an interesting glimpse of where Americanized Mexican food originates. I recommend the salbutes and panuchos. The tamale is the best I have ever had—and to look at me now, I might have eaten three the size of Volkswagens.

So, there it is. If you suffer the same “wifely” or cabby afflictions, the secret of Playa is now out of the bag.