Advertisement
Published: January 1st 2010
Edit Blog Post
It is 6:30 AM. The aroma of vanilla and cinnamon from baking pastry wafts through the early morning, off-shore breeze as it reaches toward the shore of the bay. The aromas linger with the salt mist that rises from the breaking waves on the golden sand shore.
Flapping banners of surfing schools and clubs mix with the rustle of palm fronds. Pre-dawn coolness quickly dissipates before the rising sun. Two men set up lounge chairs and shade umbrellas as a runner passes, waves and calls out, “Hola!”
At the east end of the bay, fishermen slide their dinghies into the water and head out to the reef. These are the only motorized craft allowed in the waters in the fifteen miles that stretch along this part of the Dominican Republic’s north shore. They will have returned by noon to deliver fish, lobster and a Caribbean king crab to several of the 20 restaurants that line the beach.
This is Cabarete.
That pastry aroma comes from Panaderia Dick, a pastry shop, side walk cafe and all-day expresso and breakfast joint on the main drag of this small, sea-side, tourist town.
I have been coming here two or
three times a year for nine years. The pastry shop was inevitably one of my stops to buy fruit pastry, or chocolate or plain croissant. Those, plus the Napoleons, the éclairs, the custard and fruit tarts, cream cakes and odd pastries, gave me the impression it was French. It even had some unusual pastries that I had never seen in France.
Only recently I discovered the reason I had not seen some of the pastries in France. It is not a French bakery. It is German.
A friendly, courteous and helpful staff works behind the counter. Most know a smattering of English. I do not even know that much of Spanish.
My standard procedure for ordering is pointing at something. They point at the wrong thing and ask, “Eso?” I grunt “No,” and again point at what I want.
But today was different. When I was trying to find out when a certain pastry I wanted would come out of the kitchen, the young man behind the counter shrugged and pointed to a young woman at the cash register, as if to say, “She knows.” She, it turned out, spoke English. Fairly well. She said what
Cabarete -- Panaderia Dick
Panaderia Dick -- Where the French, Germans, Italians, Austrians, Russsiians, Romanians, Canadians, Americans, et al, meet for coffee, patries and all-day breakfast. The "Ricks Cafe" of Cabarete. I wanted would be out momentarily.
In the brief wait, a conversation ensued in which she told me she learned English in school in the DR, not the States, and that the pastry shop is owned by a German, that she is the baker’s niece and most of the staff are either his children or relatives. This goes a long way toward explaining why they are all so helpful and the place operates so smoothly.
She then pointed to a woman coming through kitchen door and said she was the baker’s wife. I said hello and shook her hand, complimenting her on her marvelous bakery. I then purchased the pastry I was waiting for and walked out.
International Clientele Cabarete is a magnate for a very international clientele — French, German, Italian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Spanish, English, Russian, American, Canadian and more.
Every morning, members of these groups alight at Panaderia Dick’s indoor and outdoor, sidewalk tables for coffee, pastries and breakfast. (Breakfast, by the way, is made with real eggs, not that junk that comes out of a container. It simply is not done in the Dominican Republic. They have more respect for people than that.)
They sit at tables of four and six. And eight people, at tables intended for six. Occasionally, the Germans sit with the French, or the French with the Russians and the Bulgarians, or maybe the Americans. They huddle, hunched over a table peering into each other’s faces speaking in hushed tones. They suspiciously eye those who pass too close and who seem too curious.
I ask myself, “Why are they being so defensive? Are they discussing something clandestine? Why are the French and the Russians at one table when they usually do not talk to each other at all? And the French with the English. Now that is odd. What is going on?” I wonder as my mind fantasizes about these strange relationships.
But no Chinese.
Is someone here speaking in their behalf? Are the conversations related to the North Korean situation? Are the Chinese getting fed up with North Korea’s antics and planning to nuke it, thus turning South Korea into an island? Or does it only seem like a scene at Rick’s bar in Humphrey Bogart’s Casablanca?
Come see for yourself . . .
At the west end of the main street in the seaside, resort town of Cabarete, on the naturally lush north shore of the Dominican Republic ---- Panaderia Dick.
Ask anyone for directions. Everyone knows where it is.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.157s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0393s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jennifer
non-member comment
super start!
So how often will there be entries and what exactly do I bookmark? Cheers, JK