Like the titanic
Cue “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion.
There is a place that I go to for a week every year with the same people, where we do the same thing every day, and eat at the same restaurants. Somehow, I never get bored of it. Punta Mita has about a dozen restaurants, and I’ve gone to most of them, but there's one that makes me filled with the uttermost joy when my mother tells me that we are going there for dinner.
The casual bistro is located on the beach where your feet touch the sand, and the most amazing tacos are cooked in a boat sunken into the sand. The fish tacos are small, consisting of a tiny flour tortilla, the most amazing mahi mahi, an amazing sauce that I cannot even describe, and cabbage. When we aren’t in Punta Mita, my family attempts to create these tacos, yet we can never get the sauce right. And so, every year, I become ecstatic when we go to Mita Mary’s with the most iconic tacos.
I’ll tell you now, the restaurant had been experimenting with some new foods over the years of me coming to Punta Mita, and it usually was in a not-so-great way. I had been there so many times (usually for lunch every day and dinner one or twice each trip) that I always expected the same meal. So, everytime they made a change, I couldn’t feel anything but upset. Last year, they got rid of many of the taco choices and became more seafood focused, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for a restaurant on the beach. We ordered a seafood platter, with lobster, shrimp, and scallops. The dish tasted amazing, and it was certainly some of the freshest seafood I’ve enjoyed. But it wasn't the casual boat bistro on the sand I wanted it to be. And to make it worse, my father stayed up all night vomiting from a bad scallop. So that definitely added to Mita Mary’s reputation of changing!
This year, coming back to my favorite place, I was still excited to return to Mita Mary's, but only once. At first, it made me sad to know that I would only visit the restaurant once this trip, but it ended up being ok. Because the Mita Mary’s boat sank like the Titanic.
When I tell you I almost cried walking down the beach to the sight of a restaurant that looked nothing like the image above, I’m not lying. Expecting the boat and a casual sandy beach dinner, I was taken by surprise. Now, it looked like a fancy restaurant that happened to be near the ocean, not a casual bistro that let you experience it. When I sat down in the most uncomfortable chair, I felt my eyes burn. The iconic restaurant I once loved was completely gone. It felt like losing a stuffed animal. Something I cherished so much, something that comforted and was a constant in my favorite place, was gone.
It was a beautiful restaurant. Decorated naturally, it blended in with the colors around it, and there was a large patio leading out onto the sand. And the food was great, it just wasn’t Mita Mary’s, but I’ll still tell you what I ate.
We started off with amazing grilled homemade bread with some unsalted butter. The bread was different, in a good way. I liked the grilled taste but the butter just didn’t add anything. If butter is going to pair with an unsalty bread, it must be salted butter. Yet, it was presented beautifully and I enjoyed the appetizer.
My favorite dish of the night and one of the most creative and exciting dishes I’ve ever had was next. I never thought anything could beat a classic cinnamon churro, but that was until I met the potato churro. Served in a humorous popcorn box, the churros were silly but insanely delicious. It was like eating a giant fry but all the better.
After our delicious snack we moved onto appetizers. I must say, I wasn’t entirely impressed. We started with a sashimi and fruit plate, which was a great combo. However, for being right next to the ocean, I expected a fresher and better taste. The fish was plain, and I prefer sashimi that has a sauce or some other flavor attached to it. Yet, the fruit was a nice touch; it was refreshing and a new way to eat raw fish.
The next appetizer I did not touch. Mainly because I was savoring room in my stomach for my entree, but also because the redness of the tuna on top of a stone confused me and my taste buds. Called Tuna on Rocks, the tuna-tartar-like dish was actually served on top of individual rocks, about six, each about the size of my palm. Staring at the dish, I was surprised by the redness of the tuna; it looked like it was dyed with red 40. That was until I found out there were beets in it. That was when I decided not to eat it. That was also when I pondered, would one who eats this take the tuna off the rock or put the rock onto their plate? The whole dish was confusing.
To end the night we were served complimentary Argentinian alfajores, each being about the size of a quarter. The dessert was simple but a nice way to end the meal. I always love when restaurants add in a complimentary snack as it makes the meal feel more personal.
What baffles me is that I enjoyed the restaurant while also deeply missing the iconic version of it. Honestly, I wished that the food was worse so that I could say that Mita Mary’s made the wrong decision. Maybe they did! Maybe not! I simply cannot compare the two because they are completely different restaurants. The only thing that they have in common is that they have the same name. Hearing “Mita Mary’s” will always register with me as a restaurant where I could let my feet hang loose in the sand while enjoying the freshest tacos, not a fancy restaurant that serves tuna with beets on rocks. Because of this, I have a feeling that the restaurant will soon change its name to fully evaporate the restaurant that it once was. They already let the boat sink, so the name might as well fall too. It makes me wonder why restaurants always get rid of what the customers love the most. Usually, it’s not changing an entire restaurant, but once in a while restaurants will switch it up a bit, like how I described in my past article “Hugo’s Frog Bar; But I Think The Frog Was Genetically Modified”. Off topic, but I seriously don’t know why I thought that was a good title. Anyways, restaurants change. But a change like this, changing the entire restaurant, that cannot be undone. Once the boat sinks, it cannot come back to the surface.
