Best Green Remodeling Project: Remodeling to better promote a business can go hand in hand with caring for the environment. Oscar’s restaurant (223-0789) has demonstrated this with its recent remodel by including the surrounding gardens that are, in essence, public spaces.

Where is the Best Dining View in Puerto Vallarta?: When it comes to glorious Puerto Vallarta sunsets and spectacular dining views, we all have our own favorites.

Best Non-Profit Idea: Cookbook: While attending Los Amigos de La Peñita’s annual Fundraising Fiesta in La Peñita de Jaltemba this past February, we couldn’t help but notice their recently published community cookbook

Best New Food Event: Wine and Chocolate Tasting at the Botanical Gardens: Charming Xocodiva chocolatiers Charlotte Semple and Carole Fast joined forces with wine connoisseur Nina Goodhope to create a unique, original event.

Best Time to Catch Up With Friends: Restaurant Week: Not only is Restaurant Week a great way to experience new restaurants and revisit some of your favorites, this festival has become a popular group activity.

Cravings: Churros & Hot Chocolate: There’s nothing like the smell of deep-fried churros with cinnamon in the evening air.

Best New Trend For Food Enthusiasts: Micro Cooking Schools: Vallarta is known around the globe for fine cuisine, world-class restaurants and festivals such as the annual Vallarta Lifestyles’ Restaurant Week in May and Gourmet Festival in November.

Molecular Gastronomy: Culinary Art Meets Science: Having dinner at a gourmet restaurant, seduced by the flavors and aromas of the spectacular dishes before you, it’s easy to forget that cooking is, fundamentally, the result of a series of chemical and physical processes.

Discover Ceviche: Step into just about any restaurant in Puerto Vallarta or any oceanfront destination in Mexico, for that matter, and chances are you will find this delicious citrus-marinated seafood salad on the menu. Commonly served as an appetizer, ceviche is prepared by combining chunks of raw fish, sliced or chopped onion, chopped tomatoes and cilantro with limejuice. The limejuice gives the mixture a fresh, zesty taste, but more importantly, it “cooks” the fish without heat, making ceviche a healthy treat, low in saturated fat and rich in protein. Marinating time varies from a few minutes to overnight, according to taste and the type of fish used.

Pescado Sarandeado:
A few minutes before the fish is finished cooking over the wood fire, the cook adds the final touch: a secret red sauce that gives the fish its special flavor. This traditional dish, which originated in the fishing region of Isla de Mexcaltitan, Nayarit, is usually prepared with pargo (sea bream), a fish that does not readily dry out when exposed to heat because of the fat content of its skin.

Cravings: Sopes & Huaraches: As clay is transformed into amazing artifacts in the hands of a ceramist, the dough used to make corn tortillas, known as masa, can also result in these delicious traditional treats commonly found in mercados and other casual eateries throughout Mexico. Sopes are shaped essentially the same as a tortilla, but the dough is thicker and commonly features a border to keep their toppings from spilling, created by delicately pinching the dough with your fingertips (hence “pellizcadas,” another common name for sopes, which literally means “pinched”).

La Petit: Farewell to a Decade: “What satisfaction it gives me that La Petit is going out in a blaze of glory!” exclaimed chef Nacho Cadena, owner of the French restaurant that has been such an important part of local gastronomy for the past decade. This chef of French origin had always dreamed of having a restaurant like this, full of antiques, the perfect space to exhibit treasures such as his grandparents’ dishes and to hold cultural events.

Homemade Ice Cream: While most of us have been succumbing to this sublime favorite for eons, producing ice cream at home or in small quantities has been a labor-intensive task until recently. Smaller, electric ice cream makers that rely on small canisters that can be placed in the freezer ahead of time to facilitate production have taken the place of old-fashioned hand-cranked machines that required ice chunks and salt for cooling.

Cravings: Chayote: Chayote, a staple of the traditional Mexican diet, is a member of the squash family. It has a thin, coarsely wrinkled skin fused to white flesh, with a texture that could be described as a cross between a cucumber and a potato. It can be eaten raw in salads or used in a variety of traditional recipes, including soups and stews.

Molcajete Musings: It sounded so easy! “Just soak the molcajete in water for 24 hours, scrub it clean, grind some rice until it doesn’t turn gray, and you’ll be ready to make the most delicious salsa in all of Mexico!” Traditional molcajetes (mortars) are threelegged bowls carved out of lava rock (black basalt) that are used with a tejolote (pestle) for grinding dry ingredients to make traditional Mexican salsas.