Cueva de Leon Restaurant - (Wednesday, March 3, 2010)

As we are cruisers and on a very tight budget...   we ,therefore, don't eat out much. So when Doug & Ann offered to take us all to dinner... well, we tried to think of the most expensive restaurants we could patron since WE weren't the ones paying for it and they're not full-time cruisers just yet! Ha-Ha! Jim and I put our heads together and came up several choices: Applebee's is pretty expensive here in Mexico... $15 for the lousiest hamburger ever... we did that in a pinch in La Paz just to get the 'free' internet! Yeah, bad choice. After thinking silently for about two more seconds, we both agreed that it was between two very economical restaurants in Mazatlan: Las Panama's (Mexico's chain that is comparable to Denny's... except that it REALLY is more of a high-end kind of Denny's... really... and it has an awesome bakery, too) or Cueva de Leon, a very small, intimate dining affair that is oh, muy sobroso!

So off we went, all eight of us hopped a bus and took it to the other end of town so we could dine at Cueva de Leon, an indoor/outdoor restaurant on the malecon with an ocean view. Jim & I have determined that this is our favorite local restaurant and we wanted to share the experience with our friends... despite the fact that it was not going to cost them an arm and a leg... after all, we are hard core cruisers!

Cueva de Leon has incredibly tasty cuisine and some unusual menu items, such as fish fillets topped with spicy mango sauce or chicken stuffed with cheese and black mushrooms. Of course, typical Mexican entrees are offered, too: arrachera and fajitas, for example. And the meals come with sides like rice, beans or veggies. The real kicker is that the majority of the items cost 50 pesos or $4US. If you want to go for the gusto and order more expensive meals, you can go all out for 85 pesos and get colossal coconut shrimp... and I do mean colossal for around $6.50US!!

We had a wonderful evening... the younger children had a table to themselves and the adults and Tim sat together. Mariachis graced us with their presence and since the Browns weren't going to go broke when the bill came, Doug splurged for a song... a Mexican cowboy love song and NOT "La Bamba", thank you very much! The food was exquisite and the evening memorable.

We waited for the bus to come take us back to the opposite side of town to no avail. So, the eight of us piled (and I do mean PILED) into a small pulmonia (how many gringos does it take to...) and made it home well before the pumpkin-hour.

The Browns are planning to buy Windfall from us and we are scheduled for a sea trial tomorrow afternoon. We are very excited to share her with such dear people and I am confident that they will create many memorable family experiences together to be remembered for all time... just like we have!