Today we have booked a food tour that will take us all around to various Puerto Vallarta neighborhoods. We’ve booked it separately, but a group of Cruise Critic folks also have it reserved, and there is some confusion as to whether they think we are “in their group” or not. We’re not – so we are heading off the ship on our own to meet our guide and driver. The pier area is a little confusing, even though we’ve been here as recently as last year! There are 3 different entrances and you can definitely get turned around trying to get our and find the right area.

We somehow walk out with an NCL tour and are in the tour loading zone, so we hang out there for a while, talking to one of the guards who is working to keep traffic flowing through the pick up area. He’s not seen our guide, so we keep waiting. After a bit, I wander to the other entrances, but see no one. Then I try to go back through the group entrance, but get yelled at by a guard, so I have to go all the way around through the shopping mall you get funneled through to exit. Still no guide.

There was some initial confusion with timing, because our arrival and departure has changed, so it could just be mixed signals, and with no sign of the other Cruise Critic (CC) folks, we finally call the tour operator who tells us our guide is right outside the port. We take him literally and just start walking down the sidewalk toward the exit – and success! There is Bernardo, our tour guide, holding up a sign! Phew! He calls the driver and the van eventually pulls up into the loading zone where we hop on….and wait….and wait…. (PS – while we wait though, Paul, the tour coordinator, called us back to confirm we found Bernardo – great customer service!) And still we wait. Finally one lady shows up. But she booked separately too, although she was with the CC group. After about 10 more minutes, the rest of the group comes straggling out. Turns out the single lady was supposed to meet the CC group on the ship and come out together, so they were waiting for her. Not an auspicious way to start our day….but there you have it!

So, now, finally ready – off we go. This tour is specifically designed to take us out of the main tourist area of PV and into more local areas where we can taste traditional cuisine. And to that end, our first stop is the Pitillal area, which is further inland, almost directly east of the port, and way, way north of the Malecon area of town. This area used to be a stand alone village years ago, but now has been incorporated into the sprawl that is Puerto Vallarta. Here we hop out of the van for a quick walk through town (well, quick is relative with a few of this crew) starting at the strategically located Pitillal sign, which is right across from the main Church of San Miguel Arcangel.

After visiting the inside of the church, and viewing the huge, 26 foot tall, Jesus statue that was carved out of one single piece of wood, we stroll through the traditional Mexican neighborhood to our first stop – the Birrieria Robles a block away. Birria is a traditional Jalisco spicy stew made from either goat or beef, and this place is one of the original birrierias in the region. The setting is really atmospheric, half open air, half covered dining room with a small open kitchen and workers making tortillas by hand. Yum! We congregate at the back of the restaurant, get an explanation of the food and processes from Bernardo, then set about ordering a goat taco and a beef taco to share. The tacos come equipped with a host of condiments, including the spicy red broth that goes into the traditional stew. It is really quite good – but I’m sort of glad we only have a taste! The tacos are excellent, the goat was far better than the beef, while the hand made tortillas really made the meal. A beer later (along with one to go!) and we’re on our way out the door to our next restaurant stop, Cenaduria Tia Anita.

On the way through the streets, we pass a dress maker with mannequins outfitted in the gorgeous dresses girls wear for their quinceanara celebration. You can just see young girls all decked out and twirling through their parties in these beautiful gowns. Then a little ways further we stop in at the Sombrereria Los Herrara, a custom made hat shop. Now, this place is fascinating – the owner, a friend of Bernardo, explains how they make the hats, and shows us the machine used for the brim and the top part of the hat. Pretty incredible. One of the guys in the group actually finds a hat he likes (he collects them, his wife tells us as she rolls her eyes) and buys it, for a very reasonable sum! Great slice of life pit stops.

Arriving at the Cenaduria, we find it is actually a house where the garden and a huge covered porch-like area (almost like an open air patio built under the house really) has been converted into a restaurant and outdoor eating area. The gates to the garden are closed, because, Bernardo tells us, the restaurant is normally only open on weekends. Started 52 years ago, Tia Anita is famous for their tamales, so popular in fact that lines start to form at the gates well in advance of the opening and they are usually sold out within a few hours, particularly around holidays. The lady who started the restaurant, Tia Anita, died 2 years ago, but her daughters and granddaughters are carrying on the tradition. We get a quick tour around the cooking area (not exactly a formal kitchen!), watching the women soak the corn husks that will eventually hold the tamales for cooking in big plastic buckets, passing huge vats of sauces simmering over gas burners and a monstrous bowl of tamale paste waiting to be formed and stuffed into the corn husks. Obviously a well run organization here, and quite the production – you can tell the volume simply by the number of corn husks, but also by the stacks and stacks of plastic chairs waiting to be dispersed for the weekend onslaught.

Now onto the food! I will tell you that I am not really all that fond of tamales. They are always too corn-doughy, and just not appetizing. Well, at least the tamales I have tried before these. Oh my gosh, it was love at first bite. We each got one tamale – meat or vegetable – and I can’t tell you which I liked more. They were soft and perfectly seasoned, not the gummy things I had in the past. Both stuffings were fantastic and I ate far more than Ed did (and far more than I should have seeing as we still have 4 more places to visit!) – and washed it all down with our favorite Modelo Negra beer. We are liking this tour a lot!

The van is waiting for us at the back of the garden area, and we pile in for the 20 minute drive to Tortas Ahogadas Tony, a little corner restaurant (cafe?) on the backroads sort of behind the hotel zone. This is definitely some place we would never, ever come on our own – or even know about without this tour. It’s a basic little place that specializes in, well, Ahogadas, which are “drowned” sandwiches. In this case, a big chunk of almost stale french bread baguette, stuffed with pulled pork, then dunked in a hot sauce. It literally comes to the table swimming in the sauce. It also is literally gigantic! A fantastically filling meal, if this is all you are eating, but geez, there is no way to finish it after all we’ve had to eat so far. Plus, for me at least, the sauce is just too much – too much spice, too much tomato, too much of something else we can’t identify – so I content myself with picking the pork out of the mush – which actually, when all the shooting is done is excellent pulled pork. So, all’s well that ends well! .

Fortunately, after that filling half sandwich, we have about 30 minutes to our next stop, Mariscos Cisneros, in the heart of the Old Town. Bernardo regales us with history and food stories as we make the drive, up over the hilltops behind town, and down into the hustle and bustle of tourist central PV. The drive is actually quite interesting as we’ve never been back this way, and it is a very scenic detour that gets you around most of the traffic on the main road by the bay.

We arrive unscathed at Cisneros which is a cross between a tourist and local joint, serving, according to Bernardo, the best and most traditional seafood in the city. After a little confusion about where to sit (I think the owners may not have been prepared for us because we were supposed to also go somewhere for Raicilla, the local smoked tequila, but Bernardo decided we did not have enough time, so maybe we showed up too early?) we finally squeezed into a table right at the front door and dug into a Chile rellano stuffed with octopus, smoked marlin and ship served in a tortilla. Super good! And the right portion too – small! We also get to taste Raicilla here, which was surprisingly good for tequila – although I still couldn’t drink more than a sip or two. But Sunny seemed to enjoy it!

From here, we start to wind down our tour, driving a few minutes to one of our last stops, the Vallarta Chocolate factory, a store located inside some other restaurant that was smoking something that even in this state of total gluttony still smelled incredible appetizing. But, we’re here for the dessert – and it is definitely time for some sweets. First we get a chocolate lesson and get to try the different types of beans for flavor, then we get to choose one chocolate to taste. There are so many varieties to choose from, it is a very hard decision to make – but we end up with a milk chocolate with salted caramel and a dark chocolate with chili. Both so good, that we end up splurging and buying a box of assorted chocolates to take back to the ship (like we need more chocolate!).

After we all hit the bathrooms, we walk a few blocks down the teeming streets to our very last stop of the day – Lix, and artisan ice cream shop (owned by Americans, nonetheless). It is a cute little storefront shop and we all line up to choose our poison – chocolate and pistachio for me and Sunny, salted caramel and pistachio for Ed. We all sit outside on these little cube ottoman type thingys while we enjoy the sunshine, the company and our sweet tour ending treat.

Then it is back in the van, and back over the hilltop to the pier and our ship, awaiting our return. It has been a great day, and truly one of the best food tours we have been on – probably second only to the tour last year in Lima – which is saying something!

Next up – we’re onto Zihua!