What countries have the cheapest seafood eateries?

[dimsumfan]

So... my travel plans for next month need to be changed. I'm looking for an interesting place to travel in the world that has inexpensive but delicious seafood eateries.

Ideally, I'd love this place to also have great street food and food markets, and to be a central place from which to do day trips. Can't be too expensive, as I'm trying to keep my lodging costs down. The trip will be just under two weeks.

Kind of an open-ended question, but looking forward to any and all replies. Thanks!

[Carolyn Tillie]

I've been to Panama a number of times in the past few months -- whole fried Corvino tends to run about $4.00 and six large prawns about $6.00. Tons of great street food (breakfast typically costs me around $1.50) and some high-end restaurants that don't cost more than $20.

[Domestic Goddess]

The Philippines is a great place to visit if you are looking for seafood eateries. Right in Manila we have bamboohut restaurants lined by the sea wall where there are freshly caught seafood. Basically, they are called Turo-Turo (point-point). You point at what you want and they will cook it for you on the spot. No extra charge for the cooking. You have a dizzying choice of snappers, groupers, tuna, mahi-mahi, shrimp, crab, squid, curacha crab, crawfish, stc. A platter of shrimp will set you back about 4-5 dollars. That's about 30 pieces of shrimp. Gives you an idea how cheap it is.

If you do come to the Philippines, I will have my family show you around. My youngest sister, a foodie like myself, knows the best food places in town. Philippines also abound in cheap lodging and travel fare. You only need to look out for petty thieves and purse snatchers. But it's a shopping galore place too. A decent shirt for 2-3 bucks and jeans for 5 dollars.

[godito]

Peru is a great place to eat. Ceviches originated in Peru, as did tiraditos. Stay along the coastline and you will easily find great seafood dirt cheap. Even Lima is inexpensive compared to anywhere in America and Europe. Plus, since it's not only about the food, the country is pretty cool, with machu pichu, colonioal churches and a very visualy diverse landscape.

Edited to add: Oooo and the street food is great! Anticushos, empanadas and a lot of other goodies! Can`t go wrong!

Edited November 6, 2006 by godito (log)

[Mayhaw Man]

New Orleans is a small, bedraggled country just South of the Mississippi border of the United States. Bedraggledness (and what that scum Alan Richman says) aside, I would highly recommend it for anyone seeking inexpensive, easily available, and well prepared seafood.

[Milagai]

Where's your starting point?

I'd recommend Kerala, on India's south-west coast.

Called the spice coast, this area has been a major stop

on the spice trade route since Roman times (pepper, ginger,

cloves, cardamom are the main ones - e.g. Tellicheri peppers),

along with the famous "apes, ivory, and peacocks" mentioned

by whichever Roman writer.

And, being on the coast, Kerala seafood is totally iconic.

There are several great cookbooks you can look at to

get an idea: e.g. Maya Kaimal's book (can't remember the name

of the book) and I think Madhur Jaffrey's books have

some good sections too.

Kerala is also one of the most beautiful places on the planet:

lush rainforests and nature parks,

cool high-ranges tea and spice plantations,

tropical beaches and backwaters, with houseboats, etc etc.

In US $ terms it's cheap to stay and get around within Kerala,

and all your criteria are met (street food, great seafood, cooking

classes etc. etc.).

Here is a link for starters (from Google):

http://www.kerala-travel-tours.com/kerala_...tural-tour.html

Links on the left of that page have pictures.

Kerala is also a great Ayurveda holistic health destination

(various massages and treatments etc.).

Milagai

[Sampaguita]

I can concur with the last reply about Kerala, I still dream whistfully of the last time I was there, including a few days at Kovalam, a sort of downmarket but inexpensive beach resort between Trivanduram and Cochin, but fabulous seafood and cheap, resturant called Shiva's Moon, a prototype Slow Food place as it tooks hours to preapre the food, but it was well worth the wait, and yes I had a massage with ginger-leaf oil too, fantastic.

[Sea Urchin Ragout]

Kuala Lumpur or Singapore for me

So... my travel plans for next month need to be changed. I'm looking for an interesting place to travel in the world that has inexpensive but delicious seafood eateries.

Ideally, I'd love this place to also have great street food and food markets, and to be a central place from which to do day trips. Can't be too expensive, as I'm trying to keep my lodging costs down. The trip will be just under two weeks.

Kind of an open-ended question, but looking forward to any and all replies. Thanks!

←

[Good Plain Cook]

Oh, Morocco!

Great street food, check; great food markets, ditto. Very inexpensive and reasonable places to stay (clean and quiet youth hostels, even) if you check around with locals and guidebooks.

A red snapper in Essaouira, on the coast near Marrakech, was the single best meal of my life (and not impossibly the cheapest) -- the meal I'll remember when I'm dying. There are ranks of fishermen who drag their boats onto the beach and set up big drums full of superhot coals; you tell them which fish you want and hand them a few pennies. They grab the fish out of the bottom of the boat, gut it (or not), scale it (or not) and toss it still wriggling straight onto the coals till its skin is charred and flesh is just barely cooked. Then they hand it to you with nothing more than lemon and rock salt and you eat it, standing, flinging pieces of sooty skin onto the sand and happily licking the salty lemony juices off your forearms.

A few hundred yards back from the beach are many variously upscaled versions of this.

[jpyvr]

If South America tempts you, I'd recommend Puerto Montt, Chile., especially the fishing-port neighbourhood of Angelmo. Small, unpretentious restaurants serving up local seafood at ridiculously low prices.

Special recommendations include "erizos" which are sea urchins. They are absolutely delicious, and best served in a dish called "tortilla de erizos". There's also a native Chilean clam called "cholgas" which are a bright red, chewy but tasty. "Centollas" are the local spider crab.

And while you're in Puerto Montt, do not miss the opportunity to traverse the Andes to Bariloche, Argentina. Two days of cross ice-blue lakes surrounded by Fuji-like volcanos, with convenient bus links between the lakes, and a night in a comfortable but simple lodge in a National Park.

[stephenc]

I'd originally recommend Thailand, but it seems the Thai Baht has undergone a significant valuation against the dollar this year.

Currently, I'd recommend Indonesia, because the Indonesian rupiah is basically a garbage currency. At current exchange rates, you can order a whole snapper at a restaurant for about RP 12000, which is approximately $1.50 US. A whole grouper is a bit cheaper at about RP 8000, or a dollar.

Edited December 27, 2006 by stephenc (log)

[LarsTheo]

I agree that New Orleans is a good country to visit for seafood. You can get somewhat similar food in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which is the best place for jumbo Gulf shrimp. There is plenty of other seafood as well, and the cooking traditions are similar to NO. Vera Cruz also has a large Mardi Gras celebration, streetcars, and coffee similar to NO.

I visited a small village, Puerto Arista, Chiapas in 1979 with some friends from Mexico City, and my friend José helped some of the fisherman, and they gave him a huge fish, which we took to someone house to be cooked. The woman who lived there had a table and chairs in her yard, and so it was a makeshift restaurant, but she cooked the fish for us for a minimal price. I can't remember what the other restaurants were like - the Mescal was very cheap, although it tasted like gasoline. The hotel at that time cost $1.60 a night but was a bit primitive. It probably costs five times that much now, however.

[k43]

If you want relaxation rather than excitement, they practically give away seafood in the Canadian Maritimes, even in the summer. We stopped in a town on the Bay of Fundy to watch the gigantic tides roll in (very unexciting) and had lobsters for $5.00 Canadian per pound. Then we went inland to Moose Lake, saw our moose and breathed fresh air until New York City was just a memory.