Down on the Boardwalk (Penny’s Palapa)

Hola Bloggies:

It’s Monday and I’m finally back in the Rocky Mountain casa. It feels so good to be home. Aside from the ridiculously joyful reunion with Daisy, it’s just nice to be in my own space. In fact I slept like a baby.

It was the sleep of the happy.

Although, I’m completely enjoying my return to the Rocky Mountains I can’t help but reminisce about my last couple of weeks spent by the Ocean shore.

 

There’s just something about living so close to the water that is soothing to the soul.

Walks on the boardwalk, views across the great blue escape, and drinks at the yacht club. I relished in every Island moment.

Of course, I did my best to enjoy as many meals by the waterfront as possible. One of my favourite came at a wonderful Nanaimo spot, Penny’s Palapa.

Located on a floating barge in the middle of the harbour, Penny’s Palapa is a super cute and colourful restaurant. A perfect place to spend a leisurely summer lunch.

The menu was as unpretentious as the locale.

It only took one glance at the menu and I knew what I was going to choose. You see, once upon a time I visited Ensenada (Baja California, Mexico) and had fish taco perfection. Ever since I have been looking for a taco that could stand up to the Ensenada tacos of my dreams.

Since I knew this would likely be my only chance to visit this particular restaurant, I indulged in a bit of over ordering and started with a Mexican tortilla sauce.

I’m far from a Mexican tortilla soup connoisseur but one thing is for sure – this soup had flavours that reminded me of home. Given, that my mom is a fantastic cook, that is indeed a good thing.

I ate about half the soup and didn’t regret one bit of my over ordering.

I have to confess I was a bit disappointed to see the use of what looked like rather huge flour tortillas. I like to keep it genuine (i.e.: corn).

Still, the big pieces of red snapper filling more than made me forget about the tortilla. In El Salvador (where I’m from) we’re quite partial to red snapper so I was thrilled with this fish taco.

Close.

Closer.

I filled my tacos with all the greens and salsa that I could find on the plate. While this may not have been the most genuine fish taco it was nonetheless a quality dish. I was one very happy camper.

Question: Have you ever had a fish taco? Thoughts?