Eat & Run with Frank & Meg

Meg:

To me, beaches are occasional luxuries. To Frank, they’re a part of life. Growing up in a beach town, he always spent his summers lounging seaside.

Frank:

If I’m away from the ocean too long I go crazy. That combined with the hustle and bustle of city life, Meg and I were in need of some relaxation in the sun.

I found a great deal on a vacation package to Freeport on Grand Bahama Island. It included our flight from NYC, four nights at the Flamingo Bay Hotel and for two people it was under $1000. These deals can always be found around October but they don’t come without a gamble as it is hurricane season and thunder storms are a bit more probable.

After a short stop in Miami, we arrived in Freeport around 9:30pm. The taxi from the airport to the hotel cost around $16 and they are not metered, so always agree on a price before getting in. Once at our hotel we noticed that it looked closed. The parking lot attendant told us we were to check in at their sister hotel across from Flamingo Bay on the ocean side of the street.

Upon checking in, they informed us that due to the slow season we were to be staying right there at the much nicer Taino Beach Resort. At the Flamingo Bay Hotel we would have had access to all of the resorts facilities, including the restaurant, pool, and beach, but now we had a great room close to everything and steps away from the ocean.

Meg:

We were across the Bell Channel Waterway from the hustle and bustle of the main strip at Port Lucaya, which ended up being an ideal location. We wasted no time in hopping on a water taxi (which costs $5 for a round trip fare) and exploring the square, which was sprinkled with shops and restaurants. As we picked our way around the various restaurants, we noticed a recurrent theme on all of the menus – conch. Conch fritters, cracked conch, conch burgers. We knew we had to try it.

Our first true Bahamian food experience was the conch fritters. They are deep fried balls of dough, flecked with pieces of conch, about the size and shape of a ping pong ball. Everywhere on the island we had them they were served with a mysterious orange sauce.

Frank:

Me being a sauce and condiment connoisseur I had to ask what was in this sauce. Now everyone on the island makes it, and it varies from place to place, but it is basically a mixture of the most used condiments. ketchup, mayo, mustard, and hot sauce.

Meg:

During our first two days there, we ate our way through the gamut of traditional Bahamian food – conch fritters, fried conch strips, fried grouper “fingers”, fish sandwiches, conch sandwiches, all with a side of seasoned french fries. At the end of the second day, I turned to Frank and remarked, “I could really go for a carrot.” The closest we’d come to a fresh piece of fruit of vegetable in our two days there had been garnishes in our drinks (or a mealy tomato on a sandwich). I hastened to order a salad and quickly discovered the reason for this strange absence – the produce was awful! It had obviously been frozen and thawed, giving the whole salad a vague, indistinct “lettuce” taste. I wouldn’t mention it if it was an isolated experience, but it seemed to be par for the course. Everywhere I ordered a salad, I was presented with a bland bagged, frozen-and-thawed disappointment. Do not go to Freeport with high hopes for produce.

Another thing to note as a sidebar is this: After a day of running around the island, we realized that the taxi expenses were really starting to add up. Gas isn’t cheap on the island, and if you don’t have a car, you could be fooled into thinking they’re your only transportation option. Especially if you listen to the pushy dispatchers at taxi stands. We found that there is a very reliable public bus transportation system that spans the island. We were able to get into town for about a dollar, and we got across the island for about $12 roundtrip (the taxi quoted us $45 one way) The buses are clearly marked, and the locals are usually more than happy to help you with directions.

Frank:

Not only that but the buses wont stick strictly to the bus route. Of course they will pick up from all the bus stops but if you tell him where you are going they will usually take you for an extra buck or two.

By the way, Bohemian and American money are used interchangeably on the island as they are worth about the same.

Meg:

On the plane, we had encountered a gentlemen from Boston who owned a house on the island. We asked him his thoughts about the best food on Freeport and he didn’t hesitate to suggest a place call “Joe’s Conch Shack”, located on the beach near the Sheraton hotel. He told us we had to try to conch salad.

After two days of being subjected to nothing but a dieter’s nightmare of fried food and empty calories, we finally found Joe’s Conch Shack. At this point, I was expecting “conch salad” to be fried conch with copious amounts of mayonnaise, served with a side of the mystery orange sauce. When the “Conch Man” started to prepare it, I was shocked when I saw – - was that a vegetable?! It certainly was! He was dicing up fresh tomatoes and peppers, adding some diced fresh (not fried!), raw conch and splashing the whole thing with fresh squeezed lime and orange juice. When he handed it over the counter, we dug in like we hadn’t seen food in days. It did not disappoint. It was fresh and light; sweet and salty. It was the best meal we had the whole time we were on the island. I would happily wade through an ocean of conch fritters to get to that conch salad.

Frank:

Don’t get me wrong, conch fritters and cracked conch are awesome. The conch meat is everything a clam wished it was and anything fried is gonna be good. But when everything is fried, at every meal you start to feel pretty heavy and you don’t particularly feel like playing around the surf and sand.

Meg:

As Frank mentioned, the weather in the Bahamas in October can be unpredictable at best. We ended up getting mostly cloudy skies and scattered showers for most of the time we were there. We made the best of it, though, playing in the hotel pool (they had a water slide) and swimming in the ocean in spite of the overcast sky. Our positive attitudes were rewarded on our last day with clear skies and abundant sunshine, which we enjoyed up until the moment we boarded our plane home.