Great breakfasts! They’ll even throw in a free glass of orange juice with this coupon.
Located at the corner of Zapata and Hidalgo Streets. Tel. +52 114-34290 mama@mamascabosanlucas.com
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Manuel’s Tamales
The LA Times had this to say about Manual’s Tamales. We’ll have to try this out on our next trip!
It’s not uncommon to pay a lot for mediocre food in Cabo, so try to get a couple of unbiased recommendations. If people are only drinking and not dining, take that as a clue — many seemingly popular places are long on party atmosphere but short on food. Prices decrease the farther you walk inland. The absolute local favorite is Manuel’s Tamales, a street stand selling traditional treats of cornmeal stuffed with meat or cheese, then steamed in a cornhusk. Look for him on weekend nights on the corner of Lázaro Cárdenas and Zaragoza.
Manuel’s Tamales is a great spot for those who appreciate authentic flavors over flashy scenes. While Cabo San Lucas is known for its lively party atmosphere, especially at the beach clubs and bars near the marina, not every place with a crowd is worth the hype when it comes to food. Manuel’s is the opposite—there’s no loud music or fancy decor, just fantastic food. As the party crowd heads to the bars, Manuel’s stand becomes a haven for those in search of a quick and delicious late-night bite after a long day of enjoying the sun and surf. It’s not uncommon to find locals and in-the-know visitors grabbing a tamale or two before heading out for the evening festivities, using great costumes like venetian carnival masks and more.
It’s one of those places where the focus is on quality and local flavor rather than the flashy tourist traps. Plus, the experience of grabbing a tamale on a Cabo street corner while mingling with the locals really adds to the authenticity! Definitely one for the list on your next trip.
Nick-San Sushi – Thumbs Up! ♥♥♥♥♥
You probably won’t find a sushi joint as good as this anywhere — Tokyo included!! However, you’ll pay top dollar at Nick-San. Arts-and-Sushi is a great sushi restaurant as well, with much lower prices, but in Cabo, Nick-San is the absolute best.
Plaza de la Danza, Blvd. Marina. Ph:143-4484, 143-2491 Open Daily 11:30am-10:30pm.
Note, 6/1/2012: Received this from one of our repeat guests: “We have to disagree with Nik San. We had a bad experience there with horrible service. Submitted the complaint through their website, and we never heard anything back. We are loyal to Arts & Sushi. Love their food and great service!”
So, “your mileage may vary” at Nick-San?
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Cabo San Lucas/San Jose del Cabo
Okay, let’s get this confusion un-confused right away.
If you’ve never been to Cabo San Lucas, it’s important for you to know that there are two different towns with the name CABO in them: Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo. Don’t get them confused!
Cabo San Lucas is at the tip of Baja and is the “CABO” you want. The airport is located at San Jose del Cabo (SJD), which is a town located about 25 miles east of Cabo San Lucas. SJD has resorts, but not as upscale as Cabo San Lucas; also, the weather’s more humid around SJD. We’d like to say that SJD has some pretty cool ambience downtown – art galleries and restaurants – but Cabo San Lucas is where most people go when they think “CABO.”
In between Cabo San Lucas and SJD is the “tourist corridor” and many resorts are located along this stretch (Hilton, Westin, One-and-Only Palmila), but they are not in “CABO” and require an expensive taxi drive to get to CABO. If you’re staying on “the corridor,” you might get tired of having to drive 20 minutes to get to town…
Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach
We have friends who own a timeshare at this resort and we just happened to be in Cabo together during a recent trip. We got a chance to check out their condo.
PB Sunset Beach is a very nice resort. Clean and apparently well-run by a hospitality operator that has many other Mexican resorts. Their condo was a two bedroom penthouse with a great view.
PB Sunset Beach is on the Pacific Ocean (not downtown Cabo) and is built into the side of a hill. A network of roads with a private transportation system of customized ATVs moves guests around the resort. The roads at PB Sunset Beach make Lombard Street seem like a Nebraska highway… The drivers are great and it seems like they delight in entertaining the guests on the ride (some are apprenticing for ride operators at Six Flags I think…).
Our overall views about PB Sunset Beach — clean, beautiful resort with great views. The sunsets are fantastic. However, the ocean is unswimmable and, with PB facing the ocean, there is almost always the ocean “breeze” to contend with — enough that the pools at PB have tall glass surrounds to block the wind. PB Sunset Beach is a bit isolated from downtown Cabo (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), but a run to town can take 30 minutes or so on PB’s shuttle bus, which drops you at PB’s Medano Beach resorts (not downtown).
http://www.pueblobonitosunsetbeach.com/
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Margaritas! A great recipe…
Always a favorite (passed on by a musical friend):
Crushed ice
3 wedges lime
2 ounces gold tequila (Cuervo 1800)
1/2 ounce tequila (Cuervo white)
1 1/4 ounces Rose’s lime juice
1/2 ounce triple sec (Bols)
1 splash orange Curaçao (Bols)
Put all ingredients except the 3 lime wedges into a shaker. Squeeze 2 of the lime wedges into the shaker. SHAKE WELL! Rim outside of glass only with lime. Salt only the outside of the glass. Add fresh crushed ice to glass. Strain mixture over ice. Squeeze remaining lime wedge in glass.
Tipping
Tipping in Mexico is greatly appreciated by the workers.
Prior to leaving for Cabo, make sure to get a handful of 1’s and 5’s; for us, tipping very much improves our stay in Cabo — and at the same time plays a BIG part in spreading goodwill and of improving the lives of the workers that work hard in making our stay enjoyable.
BELL STAFF AND TRANSPORATION: We typically tip $1/bag
RESTAURANTS: 10-20% of the bill
GROCERY SHOPPING: If you shop at the local markets, the kids and people bagging your groceries aren’t paid and depend on tips.
MAID: We usually tip our maid the first cleaning of our stay. US$10-20 is always VERY appreciated by our maid and we end up tipping just about every other cleaning day.
POOL: If you want that particular chair saved for you…
CABS: Cab drivers do not expect tips in Mexico. Shuttle drivers who do a good job can be tipped (some of them even provide free cervezas for the road…).
Skydiving
There’s no way I’d jump out of a perfectly good airplane, but friends of Patti’s recently did just that during a girl’s trip to Cabo. I guess they’d hit the tequila pretty hard the night before and decided they needed some adrenaline…
Carol and Mary booked with SkyDive El Sol (skydiveelsol.com), which I think translates to English as “you must be loco to skydive…” and they were soon jumping out of that perfectly good airplane and landing on Medano Beach. They booked tandem jumps, which means you’re securely harnessed to a veteran skydive instructor.
Carol and Mary said that the company was great, they even picked up and dropped off at the resort. It’s run by a bunch of Americans with LOTS of experience.
Tabasco’s
On Medano Beach in front of Club Cascadas (just south of the soccer fields), Tabasco’s offers great breakfasts. If you’re expecting something fancy like The Office, you’ve come to the WRONG place. Pretty simple, toes-in-the-sand-Corona-in-the-hand-no-hassle beach shack kind of place.
Beach shack — no phone, no reservations! ($)
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Whale Watching
Whale Watching — if you’re lucky enough to visit Baja in February or March, be sure to check out a whale watching trip to one of the calving lagoons north of Cabo (okay, waaayyy north). We visited Laguna San Ignacio and actually were petting the gray whales when they came up to our skiff. It’s a life-changing experience when you hit it right.
We really can’t recommend one company over another, as our whale watching trip actually started in Loreto, where we rented a car from Budget (uh, BIG mistake) and drove to Laguna San Ignacio where we tagged up with one of the whale watching outfits in San Ignaco. This was a three day trip! Baja is huge… I wouldn’t recommend doing it this way.
If we do it again, we’d fly to one of the lagoons, do the the whale watching/petting, then fly back to Cabo. The lagoons are very, very remote and pretty much lacking in even the basics, which is okay if you want to get away from it all and camp.
We hear there is whale watching directly in Cabo, but we haven’t done it from Cabo. We’d sure appreciate hearing from someone who has though (leave a comment below!). Is it whale watching or whale petting?
Anyway, do some research online to find a while watching company — and let us know how your trip went!!