Sushi in Suriname

There are five places in Suriname, as far as I know, where you can get sushi.

Spice Quest has a Japanese (sit on the floor) dining area where you can have sushi.  The problem with the sushi here was: 1. you had to make a reservation at least one day in advance so that the chef could make sure he had the ingredients to make sushi, 2. there was no set menu so you were getting whatever the chef was able to find, 3. you had to have at least 4 people in your group to be able to go (but I did see couples there at times so this may not be enforced), and it was an entire meal -- $30 for miso soup, seaweed salad, sashimi, sushi, tempura and a dessert.  Not a bad deal at all and the food was always yummy.

Sushi Ya is the first sushi restaurant to open in Suriname.  When it first opened, I believe I went and had sushi at least once a week for the first six months.  The sushi was good, the miso soup was good, the seaweed salad was good, the sashimi was good.... everything was good.  As with most restaurants in Suriname though, the quality of the food has not remained the same.  For the past few months, the food has been so so.... the tuna tasted fishy (never a good sign), the edamame was old (it looked dried out and wrinkled), the usually delicious baby back ribs had a completely different flavor and one of our party ended up with diarrhea....
I'm not sure if this was a one-off incident -- perhaps the chef was sick at home or the usual shipments didn't come in or something along those lines.  Generally speaking, the food here is good.  The salmon sashimi is delicious -- pure, non fishy, firm and fresh tasting.  The bbq salmon hand roll is my favorite -- satisfying ration of rice to fish to seaweed.  The soft shell crab roll is also very good, as are many of the unagi rolls.  Even the non-sushi dishes are good, the teriyaki chicken and the baby back ribs are excellent.  The miso soup is good -- the Thai coconut soup is not (don't bother with it).  The tempura is relatively good, and the desserts are tasty (although a bit too expensive).
So, I'm hoping that Sushi Ya will pull through and keep it together.

Unsei Yaki started as primarily a teppanyaki restaurant but they have now expanded with a dedicated sushi eating area.  The sushi eating area is cute -- you get slippers and sit on the floor.  There is one table which has open space under the table for your legs so you don't need to fold up on the floor.  I found the whole sushi eating area uncomfortable -- the slippers are cloth and immediate questions of "what if the person wearing these before me had some sort of food fungus" came up.  The table with the space underneath is soooo wobbly that you should not at any point actually lean on the table (this made sitting down and getting up a bit harder), and finally sometimes you don't want to sit on the floor -- if this is the case there are some tables on the other side of the building where you can sit.
Unsei Yaki has a larger collection of sushi options than Sushi Ya.  The menus are strange laminated cards that are stuck together -- you fold them open like a fan and then have to turn them over to check out front and back.  A lot of the sushi rolls have cooked food in them, a lot with cream cheese and/or mayo and some more unusual rolls.  The sushi is okay, the dragon roll is good and I like the inclusion of mango in many of the rolls.  There is no miso soup and frequently no edamame.  Overall the sushi is reasonably okay to good.

The Ramada Inn Princess Hotel (across from Tangelo next to Torarica) also has a teppanyaki/ sushi restaurant.  I've only gone once and I was disappointed.  The variety of sushi offered was very limited and the sushi was okay.  I don't even remembered what I ordered -- which shows how mundane it was.  I do remember that the sushi pieces were so huge that I had a hard time eating the pieces in one bite.  As you know, you can't eat sushi in two bites -- the whole thing falls apart - which it did.
There weren't many other choices on the menu either -- the focus of this restaurant appears to primarily be their teppanyaki.  I didn't try any of the other food so I'm not sure whether having a limited menu means that the items available are excellent (as it sometimes does when once focuses on fewer items done well instead of a lot of options all so so).

So -- this was  brief recap of sushi in Suriname.  Sushi Ya, Unsei Yaki and Ogi (the restaurant at the Ramada Inn) all have FB pages where you can check out the menus.

Happy eating...  :)

Nickerie

Well the Snoodies have been off the air for quite some time now -- blame my fellow Snoodies, one left for Tanzania and the other fell in love and started a night MBA program.  So they basically both disappeared.

I took a trip to Nickerie recently and decided to talk about my trip a little and figured that this is the forum to do it on....

First off, Nickerie is about a 4 hour drive from Paramaribo -- be careful in both Saramacca and Coronie as the police like to lie in wait with speed guns and hand out tickets.  You can make the trip closer to 3 hours if you speed, have no other traffic and notice no cops along the way.

About the only entertainment about in Nieuw Nickerie is going to the market or going swimming at the public pool.  Of course, you can always take a trip to the salt water flats and see the birds.  :)  In NN though.....

Where to stay in Nieuw Nickerie -- there are a variety of apartments and hotels in NN.  So far, I've tried three.  In order of preference (worst to best):

3. Hotel Concorde -- this hotel is two blocks west of the Residence Inn/ big market square.
Cons first: there appear to be three types of rooms -- on the ground floor there are small rooms with windows that look out on the hallway -- so you keep your curtains closed.  The rooms are kind of cave like.  Local television only.  Upstairs on the left -- there are nicer looking bigger rooms with balconies -- they actually look very nice.  Upstairs on the right are standard looking smaller rooms -- about the size of the downstairs rooms but with the ability to open the curtains and get some sunlight in the room.  At night though, the walls and ceiling come alive -- as things walk through the walls on in the ceiling all night long.
Breakfast is sad -- you tell the lady what you want, for example, bread, cheese, tea and that's exactly what you get, one soft (hot dog style) bun with a slice of cheese and a cup of tea.  No buffet -- no changing your mind, going for seconds, etc.  There is usually a cold option (cheese) and a hot option (like shredded chicken).

Pros: the prizes are reasonable about 80 srd per room.  The location is good -- walk to 'downtown' and the market.  Beds are reasonable, there is hot water, the air-conditioner works well and the restaurant has decent Indonesian food.

2. Regency Hotel Nickerie -- this hotel should really be tied with the Concorde in preference.  The hotel is located close to the hospital -- so not within easy walking distance of the market but still definitely within walking distance.
Cons: this hotel is not for light sleepers -- there is a bar next door which has karaoke on some nights and a DJ on other nights.  Between the music, the noisy air-conditioner and the automatic air freshener that automatically puffs all night long .... sleep is not easy to come by.  Another factor that kills it are the sheets -- they are cheap and rough causing the skin on your legs to become irritated after a while.
Pros: breakfast is a nice buffet upstairs on a great balcony with lots of wind.  There is bread, plenty of fixin's for your bread, as well as, fruit, yogurt, and cereal.  There is also a restaurant on this same balcony and the bar next door also serves food.  In the back is a casino.  Hot and cold water, cold air-conditioners, okay mattresses and good pillows.  The best feature was the free wi-fi.

1. The best spot to stay in Nickerie is in the apartment above the Self Reliance office.  A great big house with several bed and bathrooms, a huge living room, kitchen and nice balcony.  Also very reasonable prized.  Good quality beds and furniture.  You make reservations through the Self Reliance office.

As for food in Nickerie -- we didn't really get too adventurous.  Like I mentioned before the Concorde has a relatively good Indonesian restaurant.  Another local hangout which is okay is a place called Nancyland -- it's around the corner from the Self Reliance apartment and offers free wi-fi.  It's a burger, fries, BBQ place with ice cream sodas.  :)

We also tried the local sit down Chinese restaurant called (I believe) Kow Loon -- or something like it.  The waitress had no recommendations because "she doesn't eat there but always brings her food from home".... not really very encouraging.  The food as .... okay.... typical not really good Surinamese Chinese food.

The rest of our stay we spend primarily on the terrace by the Residence Inn hotel.  This is quite an experience.  The terrace seems to be permanently understaffed.  There is only one employee who mans the bar and the terrace.  Things are veeeerrrrryyyyyyyy sllllloooooowwwwwww......  and a little off as well.  The first time there we were not offered a menu -- we kept having to pull information out such as -- soooo do you have hamburgers?  Oh yes,....  oookkkaaayyy and what else....  Well what would you like.....  JUST GIVE US A DAMN MENU already.

After some frustrating moments (the bitterballen were all gone) we settled on an order of french fries and a cheeseburger.  The french fries were at least hot.  The cheeseburger.... the cheese was on the bread and so not melted at all.  The burger was very very solid -- probably put on the cook top straight out of the freezer.  Odd...

The things were ordered and tasted during our visits:
- pindasoep (peanut soup): basically your basic Maggie bouillon soep with spoon of peanut butter dissolved in it.  The chicken in the soup had this tasteless, dry, pre-cooked and then added at the last moment flavor.
- french fries: the first day they were your normal order of french fries (ketchup/mayo) with a slice of cucumber, tomato and lettuce on the side.  The second day, they apparently ran out of lettuce and added a spoonful of bitter melon on the side..... uuuggghhh

- sweet and sour fish: delicious fresh fried crunchy fish with a tomato/ Chinese pickled vegetable sauce.  Came with rice and long beans.
- vegetarian special: supposed to be a stir fried mix of local vegetables served with either rice or french fries (everything is served with either rice or french fries).  This was interesting -- the vegetables were potatoes - sliced thinly, frozen veggie mix peas, carrots and corn, some pieces of cabbage and maybe two pieces of something green like bok choy .....  very very interesting.....

So .... not the best food place so far but still plenty to explore.  The trip will try the Royal Inn since they supposedly have their own pool.  :)

Lee's Korean Restaurant

Lee’s Korean Restaurant

Man, the Snootie Foodies have been slacking off lately – two weeks with no reviews…. bad Snoodies, bad….!!!  J

We have actually been eating as usual, but also been extremely busy and so haven’t had time to write the usual reviews. 

Two weeks ago the Snoodies decided they were in the mood for sushi, since sushi in Paramaribo is somewhat difficult to come by we ended up at Lee’s Korean Restaurant.  Now most people go to Lee’s and order the same sort of food you would at a Chinese restaurant – fried rice, sweet and sour chicken/shrimp etc.  So we decided to go all out Korean (except for the sushi of course).  J

So the meal started after changing tables a few times – certain aircos were on and certain were not – so it took a moment to find the spot where it was cool, but not freezing. 

We, Snoodies can be demanding at times. 

We were in luck – there was Kim chi that night – so the Snoodie order was two sushi rolls (you have the choice of salmon, shrimp or crab), kimchi chigae and an order of bulgogi (delicious Korean bbq beef).

First came the order of sushi – nothing special, but still tasty and satisfying this Snoodie’s sushi cravings.  We ordered salmon and shrimp sushi, which came with soy sauce and the strangest wasabi.  The wasabi was dark dark green and not spicy at all – it was strange.  The sushi was fine, it did have cream cheese in it, which put off one of the Snoodies (the expert Snoodie you could say), but all in all it was tasty and perfectly fine. 

Next we were served a small dish of pickled radishes – something two of the Snoodies dived right in, while the third maintained her distance (that would be me).  According to my fellow Snoodies, it was yummy. 

The kimchi chigae was served next – a delicious soup with kim chi, pork, onions and tofu (there might have been more ingredients – but these come to mind right now).  It was delicious – a nice soft flavor that went great with rice.  We put rice in the soup bowl and ladled the chigae right on top – YUM.

We also received our order of bulgogi – which according to this Snoodie is the pinnacle of Korean food.  J  The beef was delicious, tender, lots of sesame seeds, and great with the rice.  It also went well with the chigae – yum yum yum.  All in all a very belly-satisfying night. 

Score:

Ambiance – 3 (the a/cs were really annoying – and the fake wall decorations don’t add much ambiance). 

Food presentation – 4

Flavor – 4

Customer service – 4.75 (the Indian gentleman who works there is very knowledgeable and super friendly – even with our table hopping going on). 

Overall score: 4

Final words: Always worth a visit and apparently the sweet and sour whole fish is excellent – something to try next time.  J

Squeezy Bar

Squeezy Bar (Grote Combe)

This week the Snoodies cheated a little bit – we went back to our old favorite and stand-in Squeezy Bar.  Squeezy is a hot pot style chinese restaurant.  It doesn’t look like much from the outside, located directly across the street from De Hal, next to the new chinese market.  Squeezy bar is a very small restaurant run by a nice chinese lady who is always smiling, very friendly and an all around sweetheart.  The restaurant is small, with old christmas decorations strung across the ceiling and wall, and very hot once all the fires are going.  Every table has a burner (watch for the tubes of propane snaking down the side of the tables) set in the center of the table.  On the plus side, it’s clean, the ingredients are fresh and the utensils, plates, bowls and cups come in sterilized plastic wrapping.

Some of the Snoodies were recently introduced to hot pot by some good friends.  It’s a chinese version of Swiss fondue – only instead of cheese there is bouillon (which ofcourse is also an option for Swiss fondue).  There are several hot pot restaurants in Suriname, but so far Squeezy has the best atmosphere – in no small part due to the proprietor. 

When ordering, you can choose between plain bouillon or spicy bouillon or both – in which case the pot has a divider in the middle keeping the two bouillons separate.  The spicy bouillon does not taste spicy at the start, but boy oh boy at the end of the meal it is spicy.  The great thing of the hot pot is that the bouillon takes on the flavor of all the ingredients you cook in it.  So let’s walk through the perfect hot pot meal:

·       You’ve ordered both dip sauces – the soy based sauce which has ginger and green onions for flavoring.  The second sauce is a peanut paste with some sesame flavoring.  You mix these to together for a perfect dip sauce – the ratio is one tablespoon of paste to three table spoons of soy sauce.  Mix well and enjoy.

·      You order both spicy and plain bouillon, which arrives promptly with delicious seaweed, ginger, onions, etc. floating around in the bouillon.  Then comes the rest of the meal.

·      Veggies (personal favorite is the Chinese cabbage), mushrooms (the fresh are good, be careful with some of the Chinese mushrooms especially the fungus since it seems to give off the flavor of a gas leak when cooked), radish is also very tasty.  There is a wide variety of choices. 

·      Seafood – don’t order the octopus; once cooked it quickly becomes very chewy and not good.  The squid is awesome, the shrimp are good – but be pre-warned they come head and all – the best thing to do is to remove the head, unpeel and marinate it in the dip sauce for a few minutes.  Fishcakes are good – they soak up all the flavor very well. 

·      Protein – the mutton is really really good.  The meat is thinly sliced – about the thickness of deli meat and cooks very quickly.  The mutton tastes good and gives a nice flavor to the bouillon.  The beef is not very good – a little stringy.  The chicken is okay – nothing special.

·      Also order some stretched noodles – the egg noodles are more like Ramen Noodles (not a favorite).  The stretched noodles are hand stretched and very nice.  Apparently there is some symbolism behind the noodles – the long noodles indicate long life. 

·      Also, don’t forget to order some fried dumplings.  And there is a sashimi option; a plate of thinly sliced raw fish with soy sauce and a dab of wasabi.  The fish is frozen and comes to the table frozen.  You can always take the fish and hold it in the broth for a few seconds, but raw is better. 

All in all, a very satisfying, tasty, healthy and especially YUMMY meal – all thumbs up for Squeezy.  J

Score:

Ambiance – 3 (it’s a bit shabby looking and very hot once all the fires are going)

Food presentation – 5 (everything looks, tastes and is very fresh and brought out on individual plates)

Flavor – 5

Customer service – 4.5 (half a point off for the fact that once Squeeze gets busy sometimes items of orders can be forgotten).

Overall score: 4.75

Final words: A favorite place where everyone should go, at least once. 

Welkom (2de keer)

Welkom (David Simonstraat)

The Snoodies went for a repeat performance at Welkom Chinese restaurant last night, and again it was delicious.  Very very nice.  We had some guest Snoodies with us as well – Tim and Sue from Tucson and they declared that the food was better than any Chinese food they’d had in the US (including P.F. Chang’s).

Last night we started with a nice bowl of Corn Soup with Chicken.  The bowl was a bit large since we had quite some food coming yet, but who cares.

We ordered the Hong Kong Tjauwmin with Seafood – it was scrumptious.  A mound of veggies and seafood in sauce arrives on top of crispy noodles – the trick is to use the forks provided and mix it all nicely together, making sure the noodles are nicely soaked with sauce, so that every bite includes a veggie, noodle and sauce.
The next was an order of Stuffed Eggplant – not sure what the stuffing consisted off…. it had a mild flavor, so probably not pork, most likely tofu.  Regardless, the eggplant had been stuffed, sliced in big pieces and quickly fried in some nice sauce – it was melt in your mouth good.  Two of the Snoodies are eggplant fans, while the third is not – but in this case, all of the Snoodies were eggplant fans.
Our next dish was Beef Hot Plate – a nice stir fry of beef, bell peppers, and onions.  The sauce is poured on the hot plate next to the table making a nice sizzling sound – the smoke was less pleasant.  On a side note, apparently several guests ordered hot plate last night, because the restaurant quickly became filled with a food scented haze…. 

The Pièce de résistance of the night though, was a whole Sweet and Sour Fried fish.  The fish had been de-scaled, cleaned, head removed, then the top portion was cut off, all the bones removed, after which the remaining meat was cut into cubes still attached to the skin on the bottom.  The meat portion was then dredged in flour and fried and covered with sweet and sour sauce (full of chunks of pineapple, onions, and peppers).  It was delicious and beautiful to see – you were able to simply take spoon and fork and break of chunks of tender tasty fried fish from the whole.

All this for a mere 35 SRDs a person (which includes a juice, bottles of water, and hot tea for everyone).

Score:
Ambiance – 3 (the acoustics while still bad were somewhat muffled by the food scented haze….  J )
Food presentation – 5 (the fish looked exquisite)
Flavor – 5
Customer service – 4


Overall score: 4.75

Final words: I think that Welkom will remain a favorite for good Chinese food.

Welkom (1ste keer)

Welkom (David Simonstraat)
The Snootie Foodies second adventure was at the Chinese restaurant named Welkom – pretty inviting right.  This restaurant is owned and operated by a Chinese chef named David – I’ve been told by several members of the Chinese Surinamese community that he is an excellent chef, who they have followed through the years from restaurant to restaurant.
The restaurant is located on the David Simonstraat almost directly across from the small wooden bridge close to the Anton Dragtenweg.  Just look for a large neon sign with the name on it.  The left entrance is for the restaurant, while the right entrance leads to the take-out section.  While standing at the take-out counter you can see straight into the kitchen where cooks are working away at various wok stations.  The meats are hung and cut in a separate room (also visible from outside).  The kitchens look very clean and almost sterile.
The restaurant itself is somewhat typical of Surinamese Chinese restaurants – high ceilings, tiles, plastic tablecloths, etc.  The only modern touch can be found in the square plates – nice.  The acoustics of the place are somewhat horrendous though, when the Snoodies went, there were three small children at a neighboring table – the echos of their screeches seemed to drill holes in everyone’s heads.  Perhaps some carpeting and/or wall hangings would be helpful to reduce the echoing effect in the restaurant.
The food, however, is excellent.  We ordered the steamed fish with ginger, pork with Chinese mushrooms, fried calamari and stir fried kaisoi with garlic.  Everything was delicious.  The fish was flaky and flavorful – the meat fell off the bones and the sauce -- it was delicious.  The pork was tender and melted in your mouth.  Veggies were fresh, still had some crunch and very tasty.  Other delicious items at Welkom are the beef with black bean sauce, the fried rice and the sweet and sour chicken (with delicious chunks of pineapple).

Score:
Ambiance – 2 (the acoustics were horrible – it made a handful of people sound like a stampede).
Food presentation – 4
Flavor – 5
Customer service – 3.5 (our waitress went into a spiel about her allergy to pork even showing us the bumps on her arms – not very appetizing).

Overall score: 4

Final words: This restaurant is definitely worth visiting again and again in order to sample the rest of the menu.

Alberto's

Alberto’s (Gompertstraat)

The first foray of the Snootie Foodies was a trip to Alberto’s on the Gompertstraat.  We’d heard rumors of a Mexican restaurant having opened which served tacos and nachos complete with guacamole….. woohooo….  There was some serious excitement amongst the Snoodies at the prospect of serious Mexican food.
Unfortunately…. the Snoodies were to be disappointed – but before we get into that lets set the scene.
Alberto’s is part of a small strip of shops with parking.  It looks very un-Surinamese (the designated parking and all).  The restaurant offers inside and outside seating.
A refrigerated case, inside, held coconuts already cold along with a variety of delicious looking desserts.  There is seating inside at high tables with bar stools – we sat outside as those chairs looked more comfortable.  The seating outside is on a very quaint terrace next to one of the bigger canals with extremely comfortable chairs and small round tables.  The setting is very nice, the flower pots, the tables, the view – almost European.
The menu is still very limited as only a handful of featured items are actually available.  Two of the Snoodies enjoyed ice cold coconuts, which are split open after the coconut water is all finished; while the third enjoyed a freshly mixed passion fruit/cherry juice – yum yum.
The food – we shared the appetizer platter which featured nachos with chicken and chicken wings; there was a small saucer with guacamole-like salad and some dip sauce.  The nachos had a mixture of what appeared to be frozen mixed vegetables on it, along with cheese, chicken strips and some sauce.  It was very nice – unexpected, but definitely very good.  The vegetables went nicely with everything as did the sauce.  The chicken strips (grilled chicken) were also very tasty.  The only serious minus was the fact that the nacho chips appeared to be Doritos (??!!) – interesting…..  Some fresh crisp nacho chips would have taken this dish all the way.
The chicken wings were okay – it was unclear whether the dipping sauce, which appeared to be a sort of honey mustard sauce, was meant for the chicken.  The wings had a nice bite to them.
The guacamole was a disappointment – it appeared to have been mixed with some cream-based sauce…. maybe some yoghurt; none of the Snoodies appreciated the flavor very much.  It would have been nice to have seen some fresh chopped tomatoes, cilantro, onions, and avocado with lime – simple and delicious.
For the main course the Snoodies ordered beef tacos, beef burritos and a hamburger (one of us decided to play it safe).
The tacos were so so – the biggest complaint being the stale boxed flavor of the actual tacos.  Recommendation – make fresh tacos or re-fry/re-bake the boxed tacos to give the appearance of freshness.  The burrito was a simple wrap – a fairly small portion.  The burrito came with french fries – there portion size was such that the plate was basically covered with fries with the small wrap on the side…. makes you wonder which was the side item and which was the main course.  Taste-wise, both items were fine.
The hamburger on the other hand was excellent.  At no extra charge, sautéed onions, mushrooms, cheese and bacon were added to make an excellent hamburger.
At the end of the night, the Snoodies were too full for dessert and settled for scooping out the coconuts as dessert.

Score:
Ambiance – 4 (had to subtract a points for traffic and occasional whiffs of sewage smells)
Food presentation – 4
Flavor – 3.5 (the hamburger deserves a 4.5)
Customer service – 3.75 (our waitress seemed unfamiliar with the items on the menu, but she was friendly).
Overall score: 3.8

Final words: Will definitely continue and try some of the other items on the menu once they become available.