Lobster ​Food

Sunday, December 24

Christoph and I spent a few days on the small Caribbean island of “Caye Caulker” in eastern Belize in December 2023. Although the island was only 8 km long and 2 km wide, there were surprisingly many small restaurants and Street food stalls right on the beach. Our absolute highlight: freshly caught lobster grilled on the beach!

Caye Caulker is about a 2-hour boat ride from mainland Belize and is a tiny but beautiful Caribbean island that has so far been spared from mass and luxury tourism. A main road runs through the island, but it is made of sand and, because cars are prohibited on the island, there are only golf carts and bicycles around. There is a section right on the beach where there are a few family run food truck businesses that sell freshly grilled seafood and other Caribbean specialties such as jerk chicken and large fresh lobsters that were particularly impressive.

We liked the food trucks straight away because they were not big, professional restaurants, but rather families who cooked and sold fresh food on the beach. The menus at these street food stalls were also quite small and there were usually three or four different dishes to choose from. We were very excited to finally try the Caribbean cuisine, which, judging by the smell, was very different from the cuisine of the neighboring countries Guatemala and Mexico that we had visited previously. We ended up ordering one order of jerk chicken (chicken with a Caribbean sweet and spicy spice mix) with coconut rice as a side and, since it was Christmas Eve, a whole grilled lobster with butter sauce and rice. A few minutes later, our orders were brought out to our simple wooden table from which you had a beautiful view of the sea. The food trucks on the beach were all quite rustic, so the dishes were not served on real plates, but in plastic containers with plastic forks. This type of presentation was a very funny contrast for us, especially given that one of the dishes was a fancy whole lobster.

The chicken was the tastiest chicken dish we’ve ever had thanks to its intense and unique marinade, and the coconut rice was the perfect side. The lobster was huge, perfectly grilled, and tasted truly amazing. Lobster is also one of the more expensive dishes in Belize, and if you order it in one of the islands restaurants/food trucks it costs between 25 and 35 euros depending on the size of the lobster. Considering the freshness and amount of lobster meat, this was still a great price, and probably the cheapest and best lobster we'll ever eat.

We really enjoyed the calm and quiet of Caye Caulker, the stunning turquoise Caribbean Sea and the amazing Caribbean food. And that’s the story of how we spent our Christmas Eve 2023 on a small Caribbean island, eating grilled lobster with plastic forks for Christmas dinner and couldn’t be happier about our life decisions!