Trying Dominica Food For The First Time!! This Is Not The Dominican Republic!!

Dominica. No, not that island. This Dominica is located between Guadalupe and Martinique in the Lesser Antilles and it's a destination that you must add to your travel list. The island was first settled by the Arawak in the 5th century and the Kalanago in the 15th century. It was later colonized by the French and eventually the English. The island's diverse ethnic background is largely made up of indigenous Amerindian and Afro-Caribbean people. The food is also a perfect mix of fresh seafood, wild game, and fruit. Known as the nature island of the Caribbean and the island of 365 rivers, Dominica is also known for its magnificent waterfalls and lush green mountainous rainforests. After a quick three-hour flight from Miami, we arrived in Dominica and began our trip with a street food tour on our way to Portsmouth on the western side of the island. I won't lie to you, this is the hardest country to pronounce. Here, follow me. How are you doing? Oh, I can't wait. Let's see what you got here. David, pleasure. Nice to meet you. So it's good. It's everything natural and local here. This is great. Some grilled plantains, some toasted coconuts. Toasted coconuts. Look at this. Incredible. It's all natural. It's all fresh. It's all good. And how do we eat this? So you just, um, you just eat your coconut. Just, just purely that? Okay. You just have your, um, toasted coconut. Oh, fantastic. Okay. And I also serve it in, um, the banana leaf. In a banana leaf. Plantain in a banana leaf. Wow. Any sauces or just like this? Just natural? Natural. Natural. Fantastic. So you got some beautiful avocado. Look at this. Nice and ripe already. Look at that. Oh, this one's like too much. This is like ready to eat right now. Right under the, oh yeah, right under the lime tree. Look at this beautiful lime tree on top of us. I also do roasted breadfruit. Oh guys, guys, this is the best. This is, this is natural foods that we have in Dominica. This is my favorite thing in the Caribbean right here. Roasted breadfruit and saltfish. So I had it in Guyana. I had it in Trinidad. Barbados as well. Right here we got it. Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna have some of this. Perfect. Street food in Dominica. We're gonna have it right here on the, on that. Okay, perfect. Yeah, right on the banana leaf. Oh, nice and toasty. Smoky too. Yep. Sorry. So I guess we'll try one. Warm. I've never had this before. Yeah. It's crunchy. Nice and dense. We locally call it here as copra. Copra. That's what they used to do the soap, our blue soap. We used to do it oil. We do locally coconut oil as well a lot. Even though it's been here smoking, you still have a lot of taste of coconut. Fantastic. And then next to it. I wanted to have you taste the toasted coconut as well. Oh yeah. It's your driver. Yeah. Thank you. It was amazing. Um, I want you to treat them and show them how, how you do the coconut. Did they put the jelly? Yeah. What are you gonna do right now? So we have some fresh jelly. Oh yeah. This is what you get when you come to Dominica. This is the freshest of all waters. Anything you can get is coconut water. Nectar of the gods right there. So good. Yep. What do you say? Um, it's full of, um, neutral lights. So that's what you get for electrolytes. That's what you get for energy. Yep. That's good. So I will, um, just so you can have one of our coconut water. I'm in love with this stuff, man. And this is our green banana, our culture fig. We call it a green fig. So these aren't sweet, right? No. This is a sweet one. This is the green one. Okay. So over here we have sweet ones. Over here we have green ones. Green ones. Yes. Love it. Fantastic. Have to try this. The smokiness. This is like tropical smoky. Roasted plantain. This is roasted plantain and this is our rye plantain. So this is when it's not roasted. Cultural food. This is what you eat when you get hungry. You just roast it right on the fire. Have it for lunch. Have it for dinner. And that's it. Yes. I'll try. Hold on a minute, Nikos. Hold on a minute. Take the block and bring it here. Oh, all right. Oh yeah. Oh, this is so good. It reminds me of Maduro. Sweet plantain, but it's not sweet. Yes. So it's ripe and this is how it looks when it's green. It's perfect. This is green. So this is some green plantain. So right here we have the green one. Yeah. So it's from this to this to this. I'll say, I mean, it has a little bit of sweetness. This with some cheese. So I serve this with peanut butter or Nutella chocolate. What? Yeah. Where's the peanut butter? Yeah, I have Nutella chocolate. I like this though. Natural. Jelly coconut. There you go. Yeah. That fast, huh? Who first? So here we go. Here we go. Sweet. Sweet. That's what you say. Say boh. Boh. Say my boh. My boh. My boh. Awesome. Seduce. Seduce. Right there for Bongo. Yeah. Oh yeah. Nate, you want some? That is good like mama's. That's really good. That's really good. Yeah. Say boh. Say sweet. Very refreshing. Say Saudi. Say glow coco. Glow coco. We are in the month of our independence and this is how we say it. We say this as in our dialect. Glow coco. Glow coco. I like it. Glow coco. We are in our independence month. This is where we celebrate our culture of our independence and this is our year of independence. Remind me. I think this is uh it was 78 or 79. Yeah. I forgot exactly. Oh well this thing is filling, huh? So much. Okay. Perfect. You had all? You just. I drink it all. Yeah. I think I did. So one open. Whoa. Amazing. Oh you're gonna do another one? One open. You're amazing. Thank you so much. Cane juice cocktail? Yeah. First time I'm trying a cane juice cocktail. I usually just try cane juice on the street. Sugar cane. Yeah. Yeah. Pure right? This is pure? Yeah. Don't add any more sugar to sugar cane. Guess I'll try it here. Let me get in this in the in the sun right here. That's amazing. Perfect. The lime juice. Oh the lime juice. Yeah. Lime juice over the sugar cane. That's so refreshing in this heat and it's not even that hot. Yeah. It's not that bad right? Yeah. Yeah. It's not it's not that bad. But the humidity. The humidity. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Miami. It's like it's the 80 but it feels like 100. You good Nate? Yeah I'm great. I just think he kind of looks like German Shepherd kind of stuff. Sort of. Sort of. Yeah. Good night. It's really good. Wow. Yeah. It's really really tasty. Thank you so much. Really fresh. It's so good. I don't remember eating you up here but I know you folks here. I know you on that ride. I know you. I know your is so have some more. Yeah it's not too much. Just grab a little bit right there. Oh yeah. Hot. I'm just gonna have one more piece of coconut. Hope to see you again. Amazing. Yeah it's only about 10 minutes from the airport. So good. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So plantains, toasted coconuts, banana leaves, banana leaves, sugar cane, avocado, cocoa, jelly nuts, breadfruit and puppies. Love you Dominica. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. You're welcome. All right let's do it. Is that a toasted coconut? That was good bro. In my life I've ever had a toasted coconut. It's like smoky. Yeah. Oh so delicious. All right Bongo let's rock and roll. He has a restaurant. He's just like come film. Thank you. All right let's go guys. I'm excited. Look at this view. Roadside restaurant with this view. Look at this. I haven't even arrived. 10 a.m I had breakfast in Miami. I'm having lunch here in Dominica. Incredible. Look at that. What a view. Hey guys what are we doing? What's happening? They don't really have anything that can feature like food wise. No food? You have a drink? You have a drink? All right so unfortunately right now they don't have anything cooking so we're gonna keep going and find some more food. I'm starving. Literally starving. I just had some tender coconut. I love your food. I try to call you. All right. Just making stops all along the road. This is awesome. This is not a highway. This is a very curvy road along this beautiful country. Here we go. How you doing my friend? Everything good? What do we have today? Oh I just have some turkey lunch with me. I have some rice and peas, some baked macaroni, a little provision and some turkey remain and local juices. Local juices? Yes. Passion fruit water and sorrel. The best fruit on the planet comes from this island. That's what I heard. That's what I heard. So you have passion fruit, sorrel and guava. Okay. So we'll try some fruit. I'll make some juices. Yeah. And then maybe some provision. Let me see. A little of everything. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Oh not this Saturday. This Saturday is my son's birthday. Okay. Let me see that turkey. That gravy guys. Wow. Oh I'm sorry. Two of them. Your friend eating as well? Oh I'm actually okay. I ate this morning. I'll taste. I'll have a taste. You just have a taste. That looks amazing. Wow it's gonna rain right now. Yes. Whatever you recommend. Um how you want to try the sorrel? Let's try sorrel. I like sorrel. I had uh in Guyana I had sorrel with like a cake. Keema. Oh keema. So I'm gonna try some of this delicious sorrel. So this is an incredible drink. How do I open this? Oh there we go. I've never seen it before like this. It's different. Can you open it up? Perfect. Like a little off top. Oh nice. It's sweet. It's refreshing. It feels like almost like cinnamon in here you know. There is cinnamon and nutmeg in there. Oh there is cinnamon and nutmeg. Oh okay good stuff. Oh this is so tasty. Look at that. Beautiful sorrel. So I've had sorrel in Trinidad and I had in Guyana and now in Dominica. But uh in Guyana I had it in a cake and it's like a hot cake. In Trinidad you had it in a drink. In a drink and here in a drink again. And we're gonna try this. Is it okay if I try it right here? Sure. It's okay with you? Let's try this. Sorry guys the rain's nuts. Sorry I'm gonna get right here. Oh look at this. Look at this beauty right here. So we have. Sorry there's vegetables. So most things are done. I know I know. It's a turkey right? Yes. Oh I love this gravy. Thank you. Oh so good. So you mix that with the rice right? Oh fantastic. Like not too many spices in here right? We also have the mac and cheese mixed with the gravy. Nice rich gravy. Oh yeah let's pick this up. That's the bones. And so you know it's real right? Heavy duty. Get some of that. What is this? It's a root vegetable. Hey what is this one? Let me see. That that's um taru. Dasheen. Oh it's taru. Dasheen. Dasheen yeah. And this one's plantain right? Yeah. You look like you're throwing Wow I'm hungry. So fresh. And then what you do to dip it in here. Did the rain pass? Sort of right? Get some of that meat. Thank you. I'm sorry I'm eating your way. No problem. There's nowhere else to be right now because it's raining. No problem. And this is how roadside restaurants are in I love it. Really quick. Just come. Order what's available. Take it to go. It's great. I love taru. By the plantain. And so you dip that right here. Yeah yeah of course. So you do this every day? Yes every day. Every day. Yeah. I love it. Thank you. When food is made from the heart it's delicious. I'm literally in her way here. I'll leave. I'll leave. How you doing bro? Good? This is what I wanted. A real local experience right? I mean what can I tell you with the rain is always a problem. You know always always. I think what makes your dish is that gravy. The turkey gravy. Sorry your son's in the car right? He's here. Is he good? Yeah. He's so happy. Look at him. He's so happy. Great home-cooked food. So every day what do you usually make? Oh different meals. Sometimes I have pork. I have goat. Well I usually have fish and chicken. Fish and chicken? Fish and chicken happens every day. But then it's like turkey one day. Pork. Goat. Those type of things. And Bongo's enjoying. And I destroyed my food. Stored the last half of it. The French call it hibiscus. That's why we like it so much because we know what it is. We just forgot. The problem is all over these countries different languages different names for different for the same thing you know. So something happens in India. 20 different languages. 20 different names for the same dish. The pomerac. That's another one. They call it a cashew in one place and they call all of those like pomerac another. Yeah yeah. Well my friend thank you so much. No problem. So what do we owe you? 45. 45 total. So two people ate. You didn't eat? No. Good. So two meals 45. What is the exchange rate right now? I don't even know. It's 3 to 1. 3 to 1? It's 2.75. $1 is 2.75 of their currency. Cool. Got it. Got it. Got it. Eat good food. We will. Bye. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye. Raining crazy right now. This is the island though. Lots of wet days. What's up guys? It's not me. What a foreigner. Up here? There's some old French families here bro. I don't know if they're like from the old days. Yeah. So what do we got here? We got cookies from Dominica. There you go. Drink this and you'll never be thirsty again. Never be thirsty again? No. Let's open it. I have this. I have two. All right here we go. Hey cheers guys. Cheers. Cheers. Nice. Limited independent edition. Oh I like that. Oh so there's a limited uh logo right there of this label. Incredible. Dominica's pride. So how do we say amazing over here? Is there a different word? Amazing. Give me some different words. Give me some different words. And this right here is called Rainbow Restaurant. We're actually coming here on Saturday. We're gonna go get octopus right out here and some sea urchins. Incredible spot right here alongside the road. It's a rainbow restaurant by Caribbean Flavor Cuisine and look at this. You got a little beach. You have the restaurant here. That's where we just had the beer. Love this spot. Incredible. What a beautiful day huh? Well not so beautiful but beautiful setting right? All right let's go. The Kalinago people named the island Waitukubuli. Right? And that has a meaning. The meaning of Waitukubuli is tall is her body. Right? And as you already know we have a beer named the kubuli beer. So the kubuli is actually a break off from the name Waitukubuli. I'm gonna help you remember the name. I'm gonna give you a bad joke that will help you remember the indigenous name of the island. And the bad joke goes like this. A guy walks into a bar and he sees a Kalinago man having a conversation with the bartender. Then he hears the Kalinago man says to the bartender Waitukubuli. Before the bartender could reply the guy shouts one is not enough. So why two kubuli? Okay. Right. That's bad because it actually works. I gotta ask you a question. So Christopher Columbus came here and he's the one that named the island. So if my understanding he called it Dominica. Yes. Because it was discovered on a Sunday. On a Sunday. So in Spanish it's Domingo. In Italian it's Dominica. Right. So Latin Dominica. Dominica. Sunday. Perfect. Sunday. Also Dominican Republic is named after Sunday also. Yes. Well but Dominican Republic was Santo Domingo. Right. And then they may change it. Santo Domingo is after yeah exactly. They changed it. They shared the same route. Oh it's gone. Yeah. This was flooded bro. This was like river right here on this bridge. This was a river. So yeah. So look at the driftwood. The driftwood. Yeah that was right there. Wow. The whole bridge wide. He literally took half the road there bro. What's wrong with that guy? There's 13 volcanoes in the incredible. And right here we have the sun setting sort of right because it's mountains. So it's like going and coming. What is that? Is that a pig? Where? Oh there's one of the rats. Right there. Is it there? I don't see it. Nah. I think it's gone man. So it takes around an hour to get from the airport to Portsmouth. Portsmouth is this the biggest city but it's not the capital. What's the capital? It's not the biggest city. It's the second. Rozo. Rozo. Oh Rozo. Actually what you need to know is Portsmouth was the first capital of Dominica. Okay. It was changed by the British because the early settlers because Portsmouth has a lot of surrounding swampland. Okay. They were afraid of contacting malaria. So they moved the city to Rozo. Now Rozo the capital of Dominica is named after the Rozo reed. The Rozo reed essentially is like the wild sugarcane. Today we use Rozo reed for roofing, fencing, arts and crafts, baskets and the likes. Essentially for arts and crafts you know. So Rozo was populated with that wild sugarcane and they had to cut it down for um thing. Now the neighboring um village to um Rozo is called Canefield and like the name depicts it was a huge cane field. Today we still have the old main cultural center where that's where they used to grind the cane, the cane and stuff. They have some ruins there. Um it's a cultural center as I say. When we go up to Rozo side we're gonna stop there and see what's going on. It's the month, the cultural month, uh ministry of um culture and youth affairs. Yeah. They actually have, they have a branch in there so we can put it on the list. So this is the month to come, October. This is like the Creole food month, right? From my understanding. Yes. Um you know I'm gonna be here for five full days. We're gonna be exploring um basically the whole island. We're gonna try Manicou. We're gonna try some octopus over here. What's over here? This is like uh. Okay. That's one of the great ones. Oh this is nice. Yeah it's beautiful gardens. Yeah the Chinese have that um. Chinese? Yes. And this is you man. This is you up here. Up here? Up here that's you. Paul. How you doing man? Everything good? All right. So Paul's my super host. All right. You good man? I'm excited. So this is our spot right here right? And right here is the lighthouse. This is where I'm staying on this incredible trip. So my unit is first floor. I have an incredible view over the Caribbean. That's the Caribbean. It's west coast right? We're in the west coast. Look at this my friends. Wow. Sun is setting. Beautiful. Just a wave crashing. Go up a little more. Wow. This is just gorgeous huh? Mountains. Nice and calm. Not that many people. Not too loud. Here we go. So house rules. Shoes off. All right. And as soon as you enter here. Look at this. We have an incredible living room right? Beautiful living room. Very nice and spacious. Modern. Look at this. Marble. Got bongo over there. Chilling. We have everything here in terms of kitchen. If you want to just chill here and not go out to eat. You can bring you know everything in. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can make everything. There's two rooms right? So got the first room right here. Spacious. This is where Nate's staying. Sorry Nate. Joking. Over here we have washer dryer right here. Washer dryer. We have. Oh I love this bathroom. I didn't even see the bathroom. Oh this is nice. Oh I can't wait. Can't wait for this. And then over here we have the master right? Master bedroom. We have a closet. We have a nice queen-size bed. We have a telescope here. What is this dude? This is incredible. For the stars. And then come out over here. For the very end. Unlock this. I cannot wait to hear the waves crashing in the morning. It is great. What a view huh? So we're gonna be here for the next I think six nights right? So we got Tuesday through Sunday. Whatever that is. And yeah. This is our home. Incredible. Just love it. Beautiful. And that's sort of our day right? So we had a super short day. I arrived here at 1 30 from Miami. So 10 a.m flight. Arrived here at 1 30 in the afternoon. Got in the car and just stopped along the way on that main road right? So we have a lot of different street food vendors. You have plantains. You have coconut. They have provisions. They have turkey. Just a big mix of things on the road. You can also find some coconut vendors unfortunately for today. It was raining so we didn't see any. But then we made it all the way here. Portsmouth right? So this is where we're staying. I love it. I can't wait to explore Dominica. 93rd country. And that's it guys. I hope you enjoyed our first afternoon here in beautiful Dominica. An island in the Caribbean that is not Dominican Republic. I can't wait to show you everything about this island. I'm gonna be here till Sunday. We're gonna do a lot of different things. Waterfalls. Street food. Got bush food. I'm excited. Guys if you love the video please give me a thumbs up. Leave a comment below. 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