Tuesday, July 21, 2009

more clarification on CALETON Grill at CapCana in Punta Cana(DR)

I found my notes when I went to start packing to head home...they were in my pant's pocket from dinner the other night. I wanted to explain that CAPCANA is this monster complex at the extreme south end of the Punta Cana coastline...which takes about an hour plus to traverse from extreme south to north. We are now about midway up in Bavaro (at Paradisus Palma Real). Anyway, if you happen to be in Punta Cana(15 mins from Caleton) itself or maybe the Bavaro area (about 30mins) you might consider the Caleton Grill.

As I said, the manager was most courteous, he also explained new varied menus were coming...next week. I can only hope they improe the overall situation to make it more attractive.

The Grill is the nicest spot in the central complex and really quite elegant, and as I said, the service in the establishments here is generally QUITE good and very friendly.

At Caleton, I forgot to mention the excellent choice of 5 warm breads: onion, black, French and breadsticks...and a pepper (well, we were told that) that was raisin rolls. The bread came with butter, but at the Palapa at lunch it was served with oil/salt/pepper and parmesan which Sam adored and we preferred as well.

The amuse was the weirdest of all...a piece of square cheese sitting with a grape on top and a toothpick on it on a bed of fruit jelly. AMUSE-ing indeed.

All the presentations were quite beautiful, often with fried plaintain towers and such.

I completely omitted our wine choices as well. The white was a Don PEDRO SOUTOMAIOR Albarino from Spain. I did note the wine list spelled Rothschild as "Tohtschild!"

I think I said Samuel had chicken and I was off on that--he had a superb GRILLED RED SNAPPER, which is indeed the best local fish we have had regularly.

Again, Will's SKIRT STEAK CREOLE STYLE was a dream, althought the Chimichurri Sauce was more onion than we like (it IS better at Guantanamera in NYC!). It came with yummy mashed Sweet Potatoes. Mine again was the CHULETAS di CERDO, (over)grilled pork chop with BBQ SALSA which was quite fruity but saved the meat and a divine VEGETABLE TOWER of zucchini, mushroom, eggplant and more.