Author: Doug (---.dsl.stlsmo.swbell.net)
Date: 06-17-05 11:07
Joel,
It's hard to keep it all straight, isn't it? I think Barbara must have chefed at Seabourne, since Bahia is a relatively new (less than 2 years?) place. And Tina's, officially named El Caobo, has changed hands since the days when Tina held forth in the kitchen.
A couple of Tina stories:
The first time I went there, it was in July and scorching hot. There were several fans keeping the air moving, thank heavens. We were waited on by a young (6 or 7?), very handsome, Culebrense, who I think must have been Tina's son or grandson. I have forgotten his name, mostly because we dubbed him Harry Belafonte Jr., due to his being muy guapo. We could only barely see Tina through the shutter door into the kitchen. She was a large woman, and may have been lame, since she appeared to be cooking from a chair. Those two were the only people there and since Harry, Jr., was only 6 or 7, we had to get our own beers from the cooler behind the bar. I ordered beans and rice and they were awesome with Tina's homemade hot sauce, served from 2-liter Pepsi bottles.
A few years later, on my first trip with my wife, we came over President's Day week, and the island was packed. We tried 3 different times to have dinner at Tina's, only to find that she had run out of food. On the 3rd try, we decided to stay in the bar for a few Presidentes. The bartender would pull one out of the cooler, and tap his church-key on the bottle and listen to the tone, to make sure the beers weren't frozen inside. They all had ice jackets outside. Lord, what's better in the tropics than a beer at 32.01 degrees?
I'm planning to check out the new ownership this New Years. Hope they kept Tina's recipes.
Doug
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