Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

Can you recommend some good, but low-cost restaurants?

A few observations about Ziahuatanejo Mexico restaurants: You'll find at least one on every street. Waiters stand outside and try to get all passers-by to stop and eat. Their income depends on how many people they can get to come in. If you're not interested, be polite in your refusals. The farther you get from the beach the less expensive the restaurant.

Here are some of our favorites:

Las Brisas: Where else can you get the comida corrida for $17 pesos, about $2.26 US for a four course meal. Complete with hand made tortillas - hard to find even in Mexico today.

Las Brasas: Typical Mexican food, inexpensive, good.

Las Braseros: Try the "tacos al pastor" -- grilled pork with fresh pineapple -- super tasty! They also serve a delicious stir fry of pork, beef, bacon and pineapple. The food is good, although it's slightly more expensive than Las Brasas. And they serve an excellent fruit plate.

Puntarenas: The restaurant is run by three grannies. You get your own menu and write down your name and order and deliver it to the kitchen. Old granny serves everything with a huge smile, oldest granny walks with a walker and pays all of the trades people from her cigar box while watching the TV that sits on top of the refrigerator. The food is excellent, in evenings there's always a line.

Atole y Tamales "Any": Typical, slightly more expensive, very good food. They start you with salsa (hot) and pickled vegetables (hot-good). The food is very typical of the region. When you order tamales you get a choice of banana leaf or corn wrapper.

C&C Steaks: This place advertises American Black Angus steaks. The food is good and reasonable. Dick says they have the best lemonade in town. Their hamburgers are very salty and they play a lot of Elvis music. Order the "Norteno" for two and get more than two people can possibly eat. You get a superior bean soup to start and then it's rather like fajitas with steak, mushrooms, nopales, peppers, guacamole and tortillas -- excellent.

El Mango: Typical, reasonable, very good food. A favorite of the gringo crowd.

Joachin's Tobago: This restaurant is located right off the beach on the main street. Moderately priced, it is our "splurge" restaurant. Superior food and service (white linen tablecloths) we really liked this one.

Lucy's: You'll find it right off the pier. Lucy opens at 6:00 am to prepare sandwiches and beverages like Leo's mom. Lucy's is open until after lunch and has very reasonable prices. She caters mainly to the local fishermen, so the food is very traditional. Super green salsa with avocado chunks.

Daniel's: Is located right on the beach on the far side of the basketball court. They have the most reasonably priced shrimp in town; they also have the slowest service. Even for Mexico -- it's slow! The bartender was inventing tequila drinks the night we were there and dick and I were his guinea pigs -- we were expected to critique his creations-in Spanish of course -- then he gave us two for one drink coupons for our opinions. The food, once it arrives, is good.

Yes, we can!

Click the link below for some of our favorites are:

TRAVEL BOOKS!

Now you can browse through our selections and get the information you need to make your next trip a success!

How do I find a good fishing guide?

Deep-sea fishing is called "big game", while fishing close to shore is "small game" we never saw anyone going after "small game". To hire a fisherman you can go to the office on the pier and make arrangements through the co-op officials. The fisherman we hired, Leonardo Gutierrez Sanchez, speaks perfect English, and is a very personable, intelligent young man. Many of the fishermen speak little or no English. This is something to think about, as you will be at sea for about 8 hours. This is a long time to be with someone you cannot communicate with. You can also find a fisherman just by walking along the sidewalk by the beach in the late afternoon-early evening. The fishermen without charters are here with their photo albums looking for clients.