Walking About Playa … A Picture Tour of Playa del Carmen

Today’s walk takes us south along 20th Avenue from Calle 38 to Constituyentes.

Camelot … “It is a silly place”.
A few years ago, Camelot was the only new construction around these parts, and looked terribly out of the place. With all the construction going on around it now, that will soon change.

A few months ago, Sabbia Condos finally broke ground on the empty lot bordered by 20th & 10th Avenue and Calle 38 & 34. Looks like it’ll be a pretty big development.

A much smaller construction project taking place across the street on the exterior of a pleasant neighborhood called Tohoku.

Interplaya, the local 2nd division soccer team, is putting on a soccer academy for kids aged 6-12 years.

They’re not making ‘em like this anymore.

I never get tired of the pretty flowers.

This developer thought of everything! Now you can envision what you’d look like dining in your new condo, or just standing around being an exhibitionist.

I can’t wait to try this new restaurant at the corner of Calle 34 and 25th Avenue. Called Los Aguachiles, they serve camarones, camarones, camarones … and also some tuna. Camarones are shrimp, which John doesn’t eat because they look gross.

So, we moved on to our final destination, Los Bisquets Bisquets Obregon, a family style chain restaurant similar to Denny’s or Cracker Barrel in the U.S. In the last year, we’ve also seen El Porton and VIPS come to town, 2 other air-conditioned, sanitized Mexican chain restaurants. We’ve eaten at the these restaurants (in other towns), along with Sanborn’s which hasn’t shown up in Playa yet, and we just don’t get the appeal. We find the food to be overpriced for the very average quality. Yet Mexican businessmen and women and middle class families seem to flock to these places.

But it’s been hot and humid, and we decided to enjoy the air conditioning at Bisquets and give it a try. Btw, Bisquets refers to their signature item which appears to be English muffins.

I’m not so sure about the meaning of Obregon. Either the restaurant originated in city of Obregon in the northern state of Sonora. Or perhaps, it’s named after the former Mexican president, Alvaro Obregon.

The restaurant definitely looks like Denny’s/Cracker Barrel/Bob Evans

My naranjada, or orange-ade (fresh orange juice with water), was tasty.

But we were starving! John couldn’t wait to tear into his pollo milanesa (breaded chicken), and I could already taste the melted cheese goodness on top of my 3 Colored Chicken (white cheese, green avocado & red sauce).

Hmmm … not quite what I expected. Well, the menu did not say the cheese would be melted, I just assumed.

Poor John got this.

Looked a bit different from the picture on the menu.

The waiter insisted that it was chicken. MENTIRAS!

Well, sorry to say that was probably one of the worst meals of our lives. To be fair, the quality probably matched what you would get in a super cheap loncheria around here. But for $35 pesos including drink, I don’t expect a lot. Paying $85-90 pesos per entree at Bisquets Obregon, I expected better quality food.

In the evening, we dined at La Fragata, and just had to try out their pollo milanesa (breaded chicken). It looked and tasted MUCH better than the one at Los Bisquets Bisquets Obregon! And it was definitely chicken! Fragata is a dependable favorite for us. Nothing earthshattering, just good food at reasonable prices. And they’re kitty corner (or catty corner) from Pinche Gringo’s.

Hey, how did this walk turn into a restaurant review?! Sorry about that! I promise to do more walking and less eating in my next post!