A funny thing happened.......

The plans were all made. A nice early flight on Delta got Anne and me in to JFK in the mid-Wednesday afternoon. We'd found a great hotel on the Lower East Side. ....super cool looking, great rate (I love you hotels.com) Dinner plans Wednesday night at the Macao with good friends Ira and Susan. Sister Jody was coming in from the 'burbs Thursday for fun and games (the Tim Burton exhibit at MOMA?), drinks at 10 Bells, dinner at Lupa (I was even leaning on Bastianich wine importer Stefano to arrange a Mario-Joe hookup). Then it was Amtrak down to Philly to meet Anne's brother Mike and his family, as well as a hard fought-for rezzo at Mark Vetri's Osteria. Particularly excited about that one. Vetri's cookbook has become one of my very favorites and this was to be dinner at the shrine itself! After two nights in Philly, Anne was to go home and I was to fly to West Palm Beach to spend a few precious days with ailing dad and step-mom Leila.
Uh, none of that happened.
I was sitting at my desk late Tuesday morning and an email popped up from Delta letting me know that they had pre-emptively cancelled our flight because of the big snowstorm bearing down on the East Coast. I was rebooked on another flight that landed at JFK at 11:30 PM. Well, that sucked. Gone was the chance to settle in at the hotel before dinner, gone was dinner. I imagined slogging to the city after midnight in the snow and cold. Well, that's OK. We still had my sister, MOMA and Mario. That's when the next email from Delta arrived. All those on that flight that arrived JFK at 11:30 raise your hand. Surprise! It may snow so we're canceling that one too.
Now, I'm getting pissed.
Since when doesn't it snow in New York in February? And there they were fucking up our min-vacation before one flake even had fallen!
I called Delta and a very nice lady named Ruby and I spoke. No, she said, they weren't prepared to just refund the whole deal and no, I told Ruby, I was no longer interested in going since half my trip was already being sacrificed to the Snow Gods. In fact, though, in the back of my mind, I was hatching a very good win-win alternative.
Yes, I was willing to postpone the opportunity to slog through 18-degree Manhattan without boots with the bad cold I had if Delta could find somewhere a little bit warmer to put us instead.
An hour of wrangling with Ruby and here we are.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Sorry Mario. Next time.
Anne was last here in 1975 and I've never been here. Terrific fun! Hotels.com again came through for us big time, finding us the Garza Blanca Preserve and Resort, about 8 kilometers south of town. Apparently that was once one of the area's swankiest places but had fallen on hard times a decade or so ago. New money and a very ambitious renovation plan has turned it into something special. Only opened again in late January, we scored a $450 room for $183 and were upgraded into a one-bedroom suite with an enormous balcony, a hammock we can't get out of and a view that goes on forever. Because the place is so new (we may be the first people to stay in this room) it gives off this vaguely eerie never-been-touched vibe, like the Bluth's model home in Arrested Development. But I'm uselessly carping.
It's an amazing property with maybe 40 rooms open and another 18 or 20 under (very loud) construction. The pool is magnificent; one of those infinity pools where, if you lay your chin on the surface of the water, it looks like you're in the middle of the ocean. It helps that, for the first two nights, we were the only people here! A few more souls appear to have checked in over the past day or so.
The restaurant Blanca Blue will probably become one of the best in Puerto Vallarta. The food is creative and well prepared and the wine list, prepared by a young lady named Rosa who announced that she is on her way out to work on the supply side, is very interesting. Rosa recommended a Merlot-based blend she called 'salty' from a micro-producer called Gabriel from Adobe Guadalupe. It was more savory than salty but I definitely see where she was coming from. It was powerful but supple with elegant, nicely ripened flavors of raspberry, blueberry and tar lifted on the back end by a lot of tannin and a squeeze of lemony acidity. Unique. And, alas, maybe one of the last I'll be able to afford this trip.....$950 pesos (roughly $95 US), much of it, I suspect, in taxes. This is not a wine lover's paradise. Food highlights included buttery prawn pancakes, killer 'chips and dip' made with snapper 'chips' and a Tuna Au Poivre that rocked.
But we're in Mexico and you're not.
And eating very well.
The first night we discovered Guacamole at a beachfront dive in El Centro. Yeah, we've all had Guacamole, but prepared table side with the young woman server reading us the history of the treat from a cheat sheet she had created, it was a lot more fun! And really, really good: the flavors fresh and vivid. Anne promised to have at least an avocado a day during our stay and I see no reason to argue. It's all that good cholesterol, you see.
Last night we ate at the very highly recommended El Arrayan, a few blocks from the beach in El Centro. This was probably the best meal all trip for me. The concept here is to show authentic regional Mexian cooking and do it well. The fried crickets from Oaxaca aside, every dish sounded great, looked great and if the sampling of what we managed is any indication, tastes great too! I was reminded again about the 'salty' wine when we a Pacifico on ice with about a quarter cup of lime juice and a healthy dollop of salt too, including on the mug's rim. Interesting. Anyway, El Arrayan is very well priced, colorful, friendly and, obviously, very popular. The local expats have named it Best Mexican Food in Vallarta five years in a row.
By the way, if you're ever in Puerto Vallarta, visit the zoo. Normally I find them sad places with bunches of unhappy animals trapped in filthy, cramped cages.
And Puerto Vallarta's is a lot like that too.
But the animals are so cool, very sociable (if you like sociable zebras) and really accessible. For $50 pesos you can buy a bag of goodies (carrots, peanuts, 'nuggets' and corn) to feed to the avaricious zebras, hilarious warthogs, world's ugliest dog (Mexican hairless....not really that ugly....there are those (Frank) that say my Mikey is uglier), giraffe (creepy tongues, I am sorry), camel, various monkeys, goats and asses. I've never had so much fun at a zoo. The only animals you can't go right up and touch are those that would just as soon kill you as be pet by you.
OK. I am for that.
But that doesn't mean that the zoo's three baby tigers aren't there to play with you, just under careful supervision!

Today, if we can stir ourselves beyond the infinity pool and Alfredo's tender breakfast ministrations at Blanc Blue, we may try the Botanical Garden.
Stay tuned!
Coming Up......Part II