Category Archives: Travel

A day spent at Sojo Spa Club

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A friend of mine told me she wanted to go to Sojo Spa Club on her day off and asked if I wanted to come. I had heard of this specific spa in Edgewater, but I didn’t have anyone who would be interested in going there with me, so I never thought too much about it until this friend brought it up. I’m always up for a spa visit, so I told her that I’d come.

So we went after I made an online booking for us. When we arrived, I was surprised to see there was already a line of people waiting to get checked in. While I recognize this is a Korean-owned spa, I was not quite prepared for how strict it would be. The website said they do not allow any food or beverages inside. So when we entered, we had to go through a security check, which included not just the obvious weapons search, but they also took out any snacks or food that anyone had and separated them by guest name for pickup after the end of the spa visit. They made my friend take her son’s protein bar and put it in a ziplock back with her name on it. They even made me empty out the water from my reusable water bottle! I found this a little ridiculous — were we going through the airport?!

We arrived in the morning, so it was nice and quiet in most of the spa pools we visited. My friend said she asked ChatGPT for a recommendation on the order in which we should visit the different spa sections, and it told her that we should go to the infinity pool first on the top floor to enjoy the view before the crowds descended. This recommendation was 100 percent spot on, as when we first got into the pool overlooking Manhattan, it was just us and two other people there. By the time we left, there were at least eight others. One annoying thing about the infinity pool: no signs say this, but you’re not allowed to swim in it. It’s for soaking only. My friend tried to swim on her back on the pool, and within three second, an employee came out of nowhere to tell her she wasn’t allowed to swim laps. This sounded pretty insane for the only pool of its size in the entire spa.

In the locker rooms understandably, they do not allow mobile phone usage. But they ask you to download a map of the spa onto your phone to navigate it. I whipped out my phone to see where we should go next, and once again within seconds, yet another employee came out to remind me that cell phone use was not allowed in the locker room.

Once we ate lunch, my friend went to get a Korean scrub while I enjoyed the hydro-jet pool and read on my Kindle on the endless lounge chairs. It felt really nice and relaxing to be able to read a book in the middle of the day. But I will say that the entire area was getting quite crowded. The pools all had lots of people in them, and almost every lounge chair around me was either claimed or occupied. Morning is definitely the best time to be here.

I will say that I’ve never seen this many employees in any spa before in the U.S. This was pretty intense to me, and really annoying that it felt like everything was being policed so heavily. But I will say that the spa was a good experience overall with lots of different relaxation areas that were well put together. I really enjoyed the outdoor thermal pools and the wet sauna. The hydro-jet soaking pool was also very fun and intense — very good to get out those kinks in your back, and not for the faint of heart!

I’m not in a rush to come back here, but it’s nice to know that a massive spa complex like this exists not too far from Manhattan. Edgewater is just across the Hudson River, but it felt like a world away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

The changing neighborhoods of New York City

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Today we spent the day exploring Bushwick. Bushwick is a much different neighborhood than it was back in 2008 when I first moved here. Back then, I still remember visiting two apartments with my friend/soon-to-be roommate in the area, and I wasn’t particularly enthused about the neighborhood. There didn’t seem to be that many local businesses other than drugstores, bodegas, and laundromats nearby. There were a lot of people all over the sidewalks and streets with seemingly nowhere to go, just loitering about doing nothing. I didn’t really understand it, but I knew it wasn’t a place I wanted to live then. The rent was cheap (for that time), but the cheap rent wasn’t enough to get me to seriously consider living there. Plus, neither of the apartments we saw were that notable; we would have been massively settling if we chose to move forward with them.

Well, since then, that roommate ended up living in Bushwick for about nine years after we moved out of our Elmhurst apartment. The area’s gotten more expensive and well… gentrified. Around 2016, I heard that a friend’s girlfriend who was living in Bushwick had to move out of her apartment because her rent was going up… 100 percent. More diverse eateries are opening up there, whether it’s Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Mexican, or Honduran. And a number of fun breweries, cafes, and bars have opened up, as well. Bushwick is a fun place to hang out in and explore now. It’s “cool” to say that you live there today.

We originally wanted to come to Bushwick last weekend, when we were meant to see our two friends for lunch. My friend ended up not feeling well, so she had to bail on us. But when I originally suggested Bushwick, she was not happy about it and said she preferred to never go there. As a child, she lived on the border of Bushwick, and her family had gotten attacked a number of times. So the area is a trigger for her of past trauma. She said she still thought of it as a dangerous place.

I totally get that bad memories are associated with places where bad things have happened to you. But in places like Brooklyn where the “boundary lines” between neighborhoods are a bit blurry, I just thought this was a bit strange. Sometimes when you’re in these areas, it’s not clear whether you’re in Bushwick, Williamsburg or even Ridgewood, where my friend grew up. Plus, that was now over 40 years ago for her. In the 18 years since I first went to Bushwick, the area has changed dramatically. So I cannot even begin to fathom how different it is today versus 40-plus years ago.

This reminded me of my ride-share driver from Raleigh back in April. He told me there was no way that Sunnyside/Woodside would have any good bakeries that people would travel to because “the place was a dump,” and he insisted it always would be. But I insisted to him, as I did to my friend about Bushwick, that places can and do change over time. You never know what you’re missing by assuming the worst of places.

But it’s not like Sunnyside, Woodside, or Bushwick really need that ride-share driver or my friend to patronize their businesses. They seem quite trendy and popular enough on their own!

Three weeks ago, we were in Bridgetown, Barbados

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One of Chris’s favorite things to do in speech with me is to tell me that a week ago, we were doing this, or two weeks ago, we were doing that. Today, he said to Kaia and me during dinner, “Just a week ago, we were coming back from Tobago.” The Friday before that, we were in St. Lucia exploring Castries Market and buying lots of local exotic fruit (including three different types of mango!) and enjoying Pigeon Island. And the Friday before that, we had just started our summer trip in Barbados and were enjoying the fish fry scene in Bridgetown, with a super delicious and succulent grilled whole red snapper with lick-your-fingers-good Bajan seasoning. Every year I get older, time seems to move that much more quickly. All these new, fun, happy, learning, cultural, exciting moments seem to come and go just like that. And it further makes me realize how precious all our moments are together, whether that’s exploring a new place, having a meal or bite of something together, or just sitting in the same place at the same time enjoying the exact same thing. While Kaia is 4.5 years old and always wondering when the next thing is happening or, “why are we walking for so long?”, it almost feels sometimes like I am grasping at straws to make these happy moments last longer. It’s like those sentimental sayings and quotes I’ve oftentimes been served since pregnancy and first becoming a mother: sometimes, you just want this moment, this stage, to last forever. But, if it lasts forever, then you never get to enjoy the next great thing that will come!

Time is precious, life is precious, and our moments together are precious and finite. I think about all the experiences I’ve had in my life to date, whether it’s the places I’ve been privileged to go to and see, the foods I’ve eaten, the people I’ve built lasting relationships with, the marriage and life I’ve built with Chris, and having Kaia Pookie as my sweet baby, and I just feel so thankful and so lucky for this life. Life is good. And our memories are sweet.

Peanut punch in Trinidad and Tobago

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When traveling, amongst a whole host of things I love learning is finding out what different foods, drinks, and condiments people love in other cities and countries that are different from what I have been exposed to. Everyone’s “normal” around the world is very different, and it’s fascinating to learn about. Pepper sauce is huge throughout the Caribbean, with different types of peppers and seasoning combinations in every place. In Barbados, one of our Uber drivers told us they have a hot sauce so hot that they use just “one drop” of it on their food, and it’s enough for good flavor AND some heat that will set your mouth on fire. The same driver told us that they have another hot sauce that is glaringly hot that many locals don’t even touch it. Colloquially and locally, they call it… the n-word sauce (I mean, he said it; we didn’t!). While in St. Lucia, we tried a few different restaurant variations of pepper sauce that were both very different from each other, but both with very rich, distinct flavor. And at our Port of Spain, Trinidad hotel, the pepper sauce was FIERY. We asked what peppers were in it, and our server at breakfast said it had scotch bonnets (which we figured) and chocolate moruga peppers, which are one step down from one of the hottest peppers on earth — the scorpion pepper.

One thing I noticed at multiple shops, convenience stores, and supermarkets while in Trinidad was peanut punch. It seemed to be pretty mcuh everywhere, and I even saw some people on the street drinking from containers that had “peanut punch” on the label. So one night when we went out for doubles and quick drinks to take back to the hotel, I grabbed a single-serving bottle of peanut punch just to try it. It tastes like you’d imagine: peanutty and milky, but very, very sweet — almost too sweet! The surprising thing was that there was another ingredient I wasn’t expecting: whey protein powder! It was the fourth ngredient listed on the label after peanuts, water, and sugar. Unfortunately, this is more of a “treat” drink than a body builder or workout fanatic’s drink, as the sugar content is far too high on this to be considered a regular protein drink. But I could see a variation of this (with a fraction of the sugar) being a good protein add in one’s diet. The “high protein” lifestyle is one that I’m slowly but surely adapting to in my 40s, so this is always top of mind for me now even when I’m not vocal about it.

Mangoes with black spots = sign of ripeness in other countries, but a sign of rot/”bad” in the U.S.

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One thing I noticed while eating the many varieties of mangoes we were lucky to taste across four Caribbean islands on this trip was that many of them are ripe when they have black spots. This is actually a good thing, not a bad thing: it signals to us that they are ready to eat, and we should eat them right away! This was the case for the Julie and mango longues, and especially true for the starch and dodo mangoes. We got told from multiple vendors, as well as our smoothie guy who gifted us the five cutlass mangoes in Port of Spain, that black spots were a positive thing. The funny thing is that I told Chris that this would absolutely not fly in the U.S. You could never have a display of mostly black spotted mangoes in the U.S. and actually get those to sell — no freaking way!

The strange thing, though, is that black spots with mango varieties readily available in the U.S. — so Ataulfo (champagne, our default from March to June) and Kent — actually are not good when they have black spots. For these two mango varieties that come from Mexico, black spots are a sign that they have really gone bad or are about to go bad. I know this after peeling and cutting hundreds and hundreds of mangoes over the years. Sometimes we don’t monitor the mangoes closely enough, and the black spots appear. And once the spots appear, this is truly a sign of rot. Those parts don’t taste good, or they actually smell off. Some of them become mush in the parts where the black spots are.

The American public is quite superficial when it comes to produce. Everyone wants picture-perfect fruit and vegetables, oftentimes at the expense of taste, flavor, and even nutrition. It’s partly why mainstream supermarket tomatoes look super red and plump but often taste like nothing or are mealy in texture inside. So I doubt that even if Trinidad and Tobago could export mango longue or starch mangoes to the U.S. that they would do well from a sales perspective outside of ethnic markets in neighborhoods with a large Caribbean population. That is sad, a real loss for someone like me who wants every single mango variety possible at the tips of her fingers!

Eating out while in the Caribbean – so many fresh vegetables!

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While we stayed at four different hotels across four different island countries in the Caribbean, and two of the hotels were all-inclusive, I felt like from a vegetable-eating standpoint that this was likely the best trip we’ve had to date for vegetable access. Since we were out and about in Barbados and Grenada where we stayed at all-inclusive properties, we still managed to have some meals out while on the go. In the all-inclusive buffets, it was easy to get vegetables. At the restaurants om property, getting vegetables was straightforward. And with most dining options we had, vegetables were quite ubiquitous. This is always what I’ve enjoyed about dining out while outside of the U.S.: it never feels like vegetables are add-on sides that are terrible value. I guess there are some exceptions to this (while in Taiwan, I do not recall eating many vegetables to be honest; street food in Taiwan is not very vegetable forward!). Vegetables are usually included as side dishes you order. Sometimes, the vegetable options are fixed. Sometimes, the vegetable options are what you choose. And other times, the vegetables are half fixed, half chosen by you. While you may order ginger pork or grilled fish as we did during our one lunch out in Grenada, those mains came with several vegetable options, like stewed pumpkin or callaloo (like Caribbean spinach), bok choy, coleslaw, or taro/sweet potato. I really enjoyed eating all the different vegetables we had across the Caribbean and seeing different preparation methods. Before this trip, I also had no idea how popular sweet potato and pumpkin in general are across these countries. I knew callaloo, taro, and spinach were popular. Potato and coleslaw seemed like predictable dishes to have on menus. But the pumpkin being everywhere was a surprise to me, especially since I consider it a fall/autumn vegetable. So, I’ve definitely learned a lot about Caribbean food culture in the last two weeks.

Whenever we’ve come back from trips where we haven’t eaten too many vegetables, it’s like Kaia just knows that she misses her vegetables and especially her Asian greens, so she physically will stuff her mouth with the greens after I’ve plopped them onto her plate. This is a pattern she’s exhibited since she was very young. But this time after coming home from a trip, she wasn’t really vegetable deprived. I think she had a good share of vegetables across the last two weeks away. Yet still, she quickly gobbled up her roasted bell peppers and blanched bok choy at dinner.

I think the U.S. could learn a lot from other countries around the world about a lot of things. But specifically from these four Caribbean nations, the U.S. can learn to stop having menus with mains that are just a single thing (e.g. pasta, steak, a quarter of a roasted chicken) without also including vegetable sides — and have that be included in the freaking price. Stop up-charging for vegetables and just have them built into the main price!

A connecting flight went awry from MIA to JFK

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From Port of Spain, we flew to Miami for our connecting flight back to New York. In Miami, we cleared immigration, gathered our checked bags, re-submitted our checked bags, and went through security. The line was actually much quieter than we had anticipated, likely because we were there on the 4th of July. So while it was annoying to have to clear immigration and get and re-check our bags, at least we knew we wouldn’t have to do this again once we reached New York.

The connecting flight from MIA to JFK was smooth… or at least, it was smooth until we were circling New York, and then the pilot announced that due to inclement weather (WHAT WEATHER?), no planes were allowed to land at JFK, and instead of circling the airport to wait on landing clearance, they were going to fly us straight back to Miami!

When I first heard the pilot say this, my first (usual) thought was, “Is this some crazy joke?!” But of course, it wasn’t. We were seriously going to fly all the way back to Miami and wait to see when the “weather concerns” cleared up so that planes could land.

This could have ended really badly; I had worst case scenarios circling in my head about what I’d have to do for work and when. We could have never even made it to New York on Sunday or even Monday depending on the weather/airport/landing situation. But luckily for us, while we were still in the air going back to Miami, the pilot announced that we could go back and land. So the plan was to land the plane, re-fuel, inspect the plane, and then immediately fly back. The flight crew would remain in tact, as their day started with us, so there was no concern about timing out. If we chose to get off the plane, we’d have to take all our belongings and get off, and would not be allowed to re-board and take this flight back to New York.

We were schedule to land just before 1am on the 5th of July. In the end, we flew to New York, turned around to fly back to Miami. We stayed in Miami for about 30 minutes before getting back into the air and flying back to JFK (Chris noted that this in-air time already exceeded our flight from Trinidad to Miami!). We landed just after 5:30am. So yes, while we were delayed 5.5 hours, this easily could have been so, so much worse. Chris and I didn’t sleep at all; Kaia slept, but her slumber was obviously disrupted.

We got back home, unpacked, and did three loads of laundry. We tried to sleep, but Kaia made it a bit challenging (“WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING! I don’t want you to to sleep! I want you to take me out to blow bubbles!” — says the person who actually slept in flight…). I did sleep for about an hour. I took Kaia out for bubbles and playground time (it was deserted; what a quiet time to be in the city!). I made a full home-cooked meal for us — niku udon loaded with veggies and roasted broccoli with shio kombu. I also steamed banh chung from the freezer and roasted red bell peppers. I started food prep for tomorrow by soaking two types of beans, brown rice, and quinoa. Although we’ve had an amazing time being away the last two weeks, I will say that I was happy to be back in my own bed tonight, and happy to be back in my kitchen.

Orange-winged amazons outside our window in Port of Spain; warnings around the world from well-meaning older ladies

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Today was our last morning in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as our last day of this trip before flying home. From our hotel window, I watched as many orange-winged amazons flew in pairs around the large trees along Queen’s Park Savannah. From what I can remember, this is likely the most fascinating bird watching area of the world I’ve ever been in. I’ve already lost count of the number of different, colorful, and gorgeous bird species I’ve been lucky to see here. Even Kaia has gotten into it: she also loved watching the orange-winged amazons fly around in Port of Spain. In Grenada, she pointed out new birds she noticed. And just two days ago, she excitedly pointed out a little kiskadee, which is considered the best known bird of Trinidad.

“It’s yellow! It’s yellow!” Kaia kept shrieking delightfully.

Kaia noticed the little kiskadee because of its bright yellow breast. It had a black and white streaked face with a brown back. These birds are known to be very loud chirpers and have fearless behavior; it didn’t seem to mind us being so close. I’m not that excited to go back to New York and mostly see pigeons and seagulls again — the freaking rats and roaches of the bird world. I suppose the sparrows and the occasional American robin are fine.

We had limited time in the morning before we had to head to the airport, so we took a quick trip to Charlotte Street, the main drag of Port of Spain Chinatown, to browse and also finally buy a magnet for this segment of our trip. Saturday morning is a great time to be in Port of Spain Chinatown, as all the fruit and vegetable vendors have their little stalls set up so you can buy their fresh produce. Lots of people were walking the streets to buy food; it felt like we may have been the only tourists there. We saw piles and piles of scotch bonnets, pimento peppers, papayas, multiple mango varieties, and other fresh fruit and vegetables waiting to be purchased. I crossed a street to take a look at a bakery I noticed, and as I was leaving the bakery, an older Trini woman, likely in her late 60s, stopped me and got close to my face.

“I’m a Trini woman, born and raised here,” the older lady started with me. “And I can tell you that these streets are not safe for someone like you. Why are you here? There are other places for you to go and see!”

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been stopped by well meaning older women who tell me that I shouldn’t be in a certain area, with my phone or camera in my hand. They’ve told me that I should stay and walk close to my husband, that someone will easily hurt or rob me in a given place.

“Why am I here?” I wrinkled my brow at her. “I wanted to come see the fruit! What’s wrong with this area? I am perfectly fine!”

“You want to buy fruit? Then you should go down that street over there!” She responded, pointing out Independence Square. There were very, very few fruit vendors on that next street…

I told her I was walking across the street, and she said that she would walk with me. I had no idea what she wanted from me and why she was being so forceful. When she saw that I was meeting Chris and Pookie, she started telling Chris to not let me walk on my own, to always stay close to me, that it was dangerous to let me walk by myself along that street. Chris insisted to her that I was fine and everything was good. She finally relented and walked off.

I know all these ladies around the world mean well. But what they may not realize they could be doing is inadvertently perpetuating the potential perceived notions of their countries being dangerous places to be or visit. That’s not really a great way to market your town or country.

Day trip via ferry to Tobago; reflecting on cultural differences with respect to “dinner”

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We woke up at 4am to catch a 6:30am ferry from Trinidad to Tobago today. The ferry ride is approximately three hours, and with a scheduled 4pm ferry ride back to Trinidad, we really only had about 4.5 hours on the quiet island of Tobago before going back. Chris figured that since we were already in this part of the world that we might as well just go since we were already here. Unfortunately for Chris, no Marriott hotels are currently on Tobago, as the hotels I could see during our time there and on the map all look to be local/independent places. Despite our time being short there, it was nice to have some beach time at the beach there, with its teeny tiny waves, extremely clear, turquoise waters, and tiny little silver fish swimming around at less than waist-level deep water. We decided to base ourselves at Store Bay Beach rather than Pigeon Point Heritage Park because we wanted more local food with a local feel. Store Bay has a a cluster of tiny buildings selling full meals, juices, snacks, ice cream, and clothing, whereas Pigeon Point, which requires an entry fee, is more resort-like and manicured as such. At Store Bay, we sat down and ate a small meal of blue crab curry and dumplings with provisions and some fried shark. The blue crabs were predictably teeny tiny and very not satisfying given it was so much work to get the little meat, but it was still fun to have the experience of eating the local dish here that Tobago is known for.

While on the beach, we paid a local vendor for some lounging chairs and an umbrella. The vendor was so nice that he took a quick drive back to his house and picked us some chenet fruit, also known to us as mamoncillo that we had while in Colombia and El Salvador. These were by far the sweetest of the three times we’ve enjoyed this tropical fruit; both other times, it was more sour-sweet. These were so sweet that they were like fruit candy! This time, Kaia was old enough to handle sucking around the big round gum-ball like pit (major potential choking hazard for littles!), and she got to try one. She didn’t seem to enjoy it too much, though; I think she thought it was too much sucking for very little reward… which is kind of true with this fruit, especially since you have to pick the thin skin off it before sucking the gelatinous pink flesh off the pit.

We arrived back in Port of Spain just after 7pm, and I was going through my list of restaurants on my map when I realized that pretty much none of them served dinner; every place I bookmarked was for breakfast or lunch. And then it dawned on me that Trinidad likely doesn’t really have much “going out” dinner culture, as most of the iconic Trini foods are daytime foods, like doubles, roti, bake, aloo pie, roti shop curries, macaroni pie. Doubles is usually a breakfast/early day food, but as we saw our first full day, it can also appear later at night after partying, when people set up their trucks and sell it on the street. There was one Trini fusion dinner place that Claude recommended when I was doing research, but unfortunately that place has since closed down. So we figured that in Trini culture, “sit down restaurant dinners” aren’t really a thing. It’s an interesting thing to think about when traveling — the cultural differences across the world with dining practices and times. In Trinidad, a sit-down dinner in general isn’t really part of the social rhythm. But then if you are in places like Argentina, Chile, or Spain, an 8pm dinner is considered too early, and some places may not even be open for food!

When there are restaurants open in Port of Spain, they tend to skew more “restaurant/bar” rather than traditional Trini. Or, they are not Trini restaurants. So it’s common to see French, Italian, Japanese, or Chinese restaurants open for dinner. But if a restaurant has Trini food, it’s usually just part of the menu (that is quite eclectic with other options like wings, tacos, etc.), and also has a big bar scene. So we ended up back on Ariapita Avenue and chose a casual bar-type spot called Wing It, where we had some grilled fish and jerk chicken alongside some drinks. It was quite loud and boisterous in there, with a World Cup match on the big TVs and lots of loud soca music. This was Kaia’s first “night out” on the town — at age 4.5! She seemed to love the vibe overall despite it being quite loud for her little ears.

And just like that, our Caribbean island hopping trip is coming to an end. I can’t remember ever having this much tropical fruit, crazy mango variety, sun, and beach time in a single trip before this! I could get used to this!

Trini mango varieties at a wholesale market and the most delicious “buss up shut” roti of my life in Port of Spain

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After chatting with our smoothie guy about Central Market and Chinatown as being the best places to get local fruit, we made our way to Central Market this morning. It’s a wholesale market that runs late at night, with peak times being around 11pm, then again at around 4am. These are not times I would ever be at any market, so when we went this late morning, it unfortunately was not surprising to see that a lot of vendors were sold out or already gone for the day. However, we did find vendors selling some mango varieties that we had not tried yet, and did not even know about. We sought out and got five starch mangoes for $20TTD, and we also picked up some mango vert (vert means “green” in French, but these are actually yellowish green). The teeny tiny mangoes that were next to the mango vert were “dodo” mangoes, named because of how small they are; four can comfortably sit in the palm of your hand! They are very sugary sweet mangoes that are considered “snacking mangoes” here given their size. Each mango can yield about four small bites before you hit the pit. Of all the mango varieties, this was likely the most one-dimensional tasting one — just straight forward sweet with zero complexity. I would not get those again.

And where there is a wholesale market, there must be ready made/made to order food. So we popped into the indoor area where vendors had different stalls. Most were closed, but a couple were open, including one that had a promising “fish broth” sign. Given fish is part of the market, we thought this could be really good. The older lady operating it said she’d add a fish steak to my soup, so she asked me to give her some time. When she presented the massive bowl with the fish steak on top, I couldn’t believe how massive it was. Good thing this was going to be shared among three of us! The vendor called the fish salmon, but it actually wasn’t salmon: it was a white sea trout. In Trinidad, as I later learned, people refer to sea trout as salmon, but I’m unclear why. It was very flaky, meaty, and lean. The fish broth was really rich, likely made with endless fish bones!

Our next stop was at Dobson’s Roti Shop, which is a popular institution amongst locals and tourists alike in Port of Spain. Our driver for the Caroni Bird Sanctuary told us it was her favorite roti shop. So while you may be familiar with Indian roti, Trinidadian roti is slightly different. Trini roti is also referred to as “buss up shut” roti, derived from their accent when they say “busted up shirt” (this really makes me chuckle), a paratha that is super soft, flaky, and endlessly layered. The name is perfect to describe its appearance because while cooking the roti on the tawa, it is “crushed” and beaten a few times with metal spoons/spatulas to separate its delicate layers. So in the end, it really does resemble a “busted up” shirt! This roti was originally brought to the Caribbean by East Indian indentured laborers, and is known as one of the THE foods representing the multi-ethnic culture of Trinidad and Tobago. Like in India, this roti is used as an edible utensil to sop up gravies, stews, and curries.

We got to the roti shop just ahead of prime lunch hour, so we ordered a beef curry roti with no line. The roti came hot and steaming, wrapped in foil, alongside a big styrofoam takeout container which included a huge portion of curry beef, mashed spiced savory pumpkin, chickpea curry, and a very thick mango chutney, complete with its skins and all. When I unwrapped the roti, I knew it was going to be good: it was this HUGE piece of paratha, with layers that basically draped and fell all over the place. Kaia was obsessed and kept reaching for more roti between bites of beef and channa. I’m honestly not sure what I liked more: the doubles from the previous night or this insanely delicious roti! Roti was definitely meant to be taken away or eaten on the go, as we had the only two seats at the one tiny table in the front. But we were thrilled to see they had a tiny little sink with soap for us; roti is meant to be eaten with your hands – definitely not a fork and knife situation!

After lunch, we stopped at a nearby shop for some ice cream and got soursop and peanut flavor. Peanut flavored things are huge here: you can see lots of shops selling chocolate candy bars with whole peanuts, peanut punch (peanut butter, whey protein, milk, and sugar!), and peanut desserts like this one. Of course, soursop is huge here. The soursop ice cream was very good — the cream and sugar rounded out some of the “oil spill” flavor I tend to get when I have soursop straight as a fruit, which makes me a bit wary of having it as fresh fruit. Since soursop has a high concentration of natural sugars, when the fruit becomes overripe or sits too long at room temperature, wild yeasts on the skin can break down these sugars. This process produces ethanol and other alcohol byproducts. So, in concentrated amounts, this chemical fermentation smells and tastes intensely sharp, similar to turpentine, gasoline, or nail polish remover. This is the flavor I unfortunately get frequently when trying fresh soursop fruit!

We have to wake up for a 6:30am ferry to go to Tobago on a day trip tomorrow, so our dinner tonight ended up just being a bunch of the mangoes we got at the market, along with the cutlass mangoes gifted to us. Kaia loved the mango vert and the starch. “I WANT VERT! I WANT VERT!” she kept yelling. I love seeing her get into all the Caribbean mangoes here, especially after she refused to try a single mango variety our entire time in India together just three years ago. It was a very delicious day in Port of Spain, for sure.