Trip to Riviera Maya (Day 3)...Christmas Eve

December 24 (Saturday)

We woke up to be greeted by different local animals on Christmas Eve.

Super cute.

More relaxing time.

More ceviche.

More and more seafood.

More drinks.

More fun.

Trip to Riviera Maya (Day 2)...Mexican Italian?

December 23

We enjoyed more activities in the afternoon.

I tried archery for the first time. After so many tries, I finally hit the target!

For dinner, we tried an Italian restaurant in the hotel. There were many seafood dishes in the menu, so I was interested (it's Yucatan!).

I started with arugula salad, and lobster ravioli.

For main course, I had shrimp & scallop duo over corn risotto.

I enjoyed all the dishes and also noticed that the flavors (spice & herbs) and presentations of dishes were somewhat Mexican...which totally worked with me:-)

After dinner, we enjoyed watching fire dance show. It was quite wild.

And some night cap. The next day was going to be Christmas eve.

Trip to Riviera Maya (Day 2)...More seafood...ceviche and tacos

Good morning, Riviera Maya.

Nice sunny morning, we had breakfast in our balcony. I asked for two poached eggs, then they made them eggs benedict-style. How sweet. A basket of freshly-baked Mexican rolls and pastries were nice, too. In front of the balcony, there were many cute animals...I don't know what they are called, but they looked like something between raccoons and squirrels. Very cute.

All day, we had nice relaxing time at the pool and beach with lots of cocktails.

The hotel constantly provided us with nice food & wine. For lunch, we walked to a ceviche and taco bar right by the beach in the hotel.

We were blown away by the freshness of the cheviche dishes. They were so unpretentiously delicious. Jason had octopus ceviche, and I had white fish ceviche.

Tacos were also wonderful. I had fish tacos. Jason had the spicy pork kind. I wanted to eat more!

In the afternoon, there were sometimes chefs coming around the pool to serve us small appetizers.

Super fun time.

Trip to Riviera Maya (Day 1)...First night seafood dinner

Our Christmas vacation started 2 days ago (Thursday). It was going to be a week of relaxation and adventure in Riviera Maya in Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. We took a direct flight from LAX to Cancun...it took only 4 hours and we were in "paradise"!

Riviera Maya is about 1 hour drive south from Downtown Cancun (about 40 minutes drive from the airport). I have been to Cancun many years ago, but it was my first time to come to Riviera Maya. As soon as we checked in at the hotel and unpacked, we were ready for dinner.

For our first night dinner, we picked a seafood restaurant at the hotel. They serve local Yucatan seafood there, so we were very excited. The restaurant was in a small building apart from the hotel main buildings. We got a table on the balcony overlooking the Caribbean Ocean.

Our starters...I had trio of carpaccio which included local grouper. Jason had octopus tostada. Sooo fresh and sooo good.

2nd course...I had shrimp chilapachole, which was served with a cute dome lid and opened at the table. Chiapachole is a tomato-based spicy soup. It had no cream and the texture was quite light. With a little squeeze of lime, the soup was so soothing with many layers of flavors. The spice was mild, and there were shrimp, scallop, and mussels. It was so good that I thought I could eat it every day, with donabe rice! Jason had salad of shrimp in curry-flavored sauce. Very good, too.

My main course was grilled grouper, which was marinated in Mexican chile and other spices! I loved that it was a simple dish with very fresh flavors.

For dessert, I had key lime pie, and our waiter poured local Mayan liqueur (I forgot the name...) and lit it to serve. It became a perfect sauce for the pie.

We arrived here in the evening, so we didn't get to see the whole property or town yet, but we felt we already fell in love with this place.

"Leftover" Shots

The last few days before leaving on a vacation for a week, I was trying to finish all the perishable ingredients and leftovers in my kitchen. There was so much…


With ankimo…salad with seaweed, etc. Pumpkin, persimmon, and hijiki salad in miso-sesame sauce. Pumpkin was steamed in donabe steam-roaster, “Tochinsai” in microwave. This donabe has been great in prepping vegetables also (instead of blanching/ boiling in water). Persimmon, mushrooms, and daikon in amazu dressing.


Salmon carpaccio in shio-koji & olive oil dressing. Ankimo, steamed kabu (Japanese turnip), turnip leaves, and persimmon. (With leftover broth from simmered koya tofu dish and leftover carrot end cuts), simmered abura-age & enoki mushrooms.


Steamed broccolini in karashi-flavored broth. More persimmon and kabocha. I still have so many more persimmons to finish…!