Aruba offers an array of restaurants to choose from. If you’re going on vacation anywhere, it’s always important to set a budget aside for food. However, if you’re like me, you’re eager to seek out affordable cuisine that highlights the region’s specialties. Upon my arrival to the island, I was alarmed to see that many of the
restaurants serve entrees on average between $22 – $35 a plate, not including appetizers, drinks, or dessert! I offer to you a few places that you must consider on your trip to Aruba that won’t hurt your wallet too much.
In downtown Oranjestad, consider Mambo Jambo Latin Bar & Cantina, were we found Fish ‘n Chips for $9.95, and a delicious Seafood Chowder for $6 a bowl! As a tropical island, Aruba has the advantage of serving fresh and delicious seafood on all their plates, and this is no exception! Your fish fillet in the Fish’n Chips platter is not a simple fillet of frozen catfish that has been coated with a thick batter and fried. Instead, it features a hefty fillet of grouper fish, lightly coated so that the tasty and fleshy grouper melts in your mouth, delighting your tastebuds at every bite! The chowder is not stocked with potatoes to fill up your stomach, but instead, fills every spoonful with fresh seafood from the pristine ocean that you see across the street from your seat on the balcony. Mambo Jambo also features live band and music at night to entertain all the guests, and if you’re looking for a place to party, this is the place to go! The average cost for a dish here ranges from about $9 for Burgers, Sandwiches, and Burritos, to about $20 for high-end seafood.
If you enjoy walking, you certainly must walk all over downtown Oranjestad, from the main street to the inner sections, where you’ll find many small shops that sell local delights. Aruba’s language, papiamiento, is born out of a mixture of English, Dutch, Spanish, and even some French, and likewise, their food is a mixture of all these things – you’ll find food seasoned in Caribbean spices, filled with Gouda cheese, pizza and french fries are a favorite here, and lots of pastries. You may run across local bakeries that sell Pan Dushi, a type of cinnamon raisin bread which, when fresh, can make you salivate! Pastechis are meat filled dough dumplings that have been fried until the outside is crispy and hot. Alternatively, there are these delightful “broodjes” (breads) that are also found in many places – puff pastry wrapped around an elongated meatball that cost no more than about $2 each, wonderful as a snack to munch on while you stroll the vendors and markets outside. Funchi is also found almost everywhere. Funchi is something like polenta, only it is based on cornmeal, and very delicious. Some shops will have fried funchi, in which they become very aromatic, especially when topped with some grated Gouda. If you enjoy your Gouda, I recommend you buy some before you leave, and take it home in your luggage – it costs less there than here in the United States! Something else that you might want to take home is one of the local beverages, Nesbitt’s. It’s a non-carbonated drink, and the honey lemonade flavor easily became my drink of the week!
The Old Fisherman, found right across the street from the main bus terminal, is another delightful spot for seafood. The inside of the restaurant honors fishermen with objects and decor all reminiscent of the sea. We ordered the Seafood Rice Mix ($18), and the Red Snapper Catch-of-the-day ($19). Both dishes came with a potato salad, fresh green salad, rice, and a fried plantain. Complimentary fresh fried funchi was brought around to all the tables as soon as they were prepared in the kitchen.
Le Petit Cafe is found downtown at the Royal Palace shopping center, and in other locations on the island, and this is a dining experience worth trying. Albeit not as costly as the usual restaurants on Aruba, it can still cost about $20-$25 a plate for dinner. What makes Le Petit Cafe special is that it is a stone-grill restaurant, which means that your food comes out placed on top of a very hot stone. As you eat, you press your meats into the stone so that it can cook and even sear your meats deliciously, and later, you can sear your fresh vegetables onto the hot meat sauces that are cooking on your hot stone grill. The interactive dining alone is innovative and a great experience: you wear bibs, as the searing and smoke of the steak, shrimp, fish, or other foods diffuse their flavor throughout your table, and you leave still smelling of the wonderful aroma of dinner!
A little more costly, though a tasty restaurant in downtown Oranjestad that even the locals recommend, is the famed Driftwood. The owner himself catches fish in the day, and serves them at his restaurant that very evening! You can be guaranteed that your Catch-of-the-Day is indeed the freshest you can imagine!
For a light lunch, head upstairs into the Marina Mall, and you’ll find Sir James House of Coffee, a place we wished we would have found earlier. Sir James offers wonderful Chicken Salad Sandwiches, and even more wonderful Ham and Cheese Sandwiches. Though it sounds like the usual staple food, the sandwiches are welcome treats when you’re saving your wallet for a more costly dinner, as sandwiches here range from $3 – $5 each, which allows you to complete your lunch with one of their many choices of tea, coffees, or even a wonderful Iced Vanilla Latte, ranging from $1.75 – $4.50 a cup. The atmosphere in Sir James is as regal as its name, and as relaxing as a coffeehouse should be, away from the hustling downtown activities going on downstairs.
On the Northwest Coast of Aruba, along the high-rise hotels, you’ll find a myriad of restaurants to try from. One of the most costliest is Texas de Brazil Churrascaria, which serves a buffet dinner of Brazilian Barbecue meats sliced to order at your table. It can cost up to $45 a person, so we did not try this place…though we happily wafted the aroma of cooking meat from the outside! Besides, you can find this restaurant in other parts of the United States as well. In that stretch of restaurants, you can find many wonderful shops to dine at. Amici Cafe has excellent, quality gelato, wonderful for a hot and humid Carribean day. You can get a very generous single scoop for $2 at this gelateria, and it offers many sandwiches and salads on its menu for under $10. Heading south from Amici (while indulging on our mango gelato!), you can opt to dine at Salt and Pepper, a restaurant and bar that offers many tapas, as well as main courses to complete your day. We indulged in the Saffron-Mango Shrimp tapa and the Shrimp Cocktail before finishing our meals with a Fish Burger and Mahi Mahi a Meneuire and Pan-fried Potatoes. A fulfilling dinner here for two cost us about $39; including drinks and tip, it can cost about $50. And because of the name of this restaurant, if you bring a unique salt and pepper set that the restaurant does not already have in its vast collection, you will be given a free bottle of wine to accompany your dinner!
If dining out is getting too harsh on your wallet, you certainly have other options. Many of the supermarkets throughout the island are Chinese-owned, and if you have a kitchen available in your hotel room, certainly consider buying some food to cook yourself. However, avoid the supermarkets in the downtown Oranjestad area – we found them to be grossly overpriced! Our favorite supermarket of the week was actually a Dutch Supermarket, on J.E. Irasquin road (Road 1A/1B, as that is called, between the low-rise hotels at Eagle Beach and downtown Oranjestad; you can take the local bus to get here easily), located along a strip of grocery stores such as Kong Hing Supermarket and the Certified Mall. This place was called SUPER FOOD! You can’t miss it! It features spacious and clean aisles filled with many Dutch foods, and a bakery that constantly baked treats – so much so that we ended up buying a new baked item to try every time we were there. The cost is more than reasonable here, and you can even find treats to bring home to the States, such as Bacon Knabbels…bacon flavored chips from the Netherlands!
Remember, just as in any trip away from home, don’t be afraid to try new things! Be willing to splurge for experiences you may not find elsewhere, but at the same time, careful spending will allow you to have more resources to enjoy the other aspects of your trip at Aruba, including sailing cruises, scuba diving, island tours by Jeep, and trips to bat-filled caves in the National Park!
