Best Dominican Food to try in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Colonial Zone Restaurant Guide (where to eat)

*Welcome to a tour of the Best Food in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic!*

Since we are in the Dominican Republic, we decided to try some amazing local food (and Caribbean food) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. We made our way around the Colonial Zone (Zona Colonial) of Santo Domingo to try a bunch of different dishes, including some traditional Dominican foods, desserts and some higher-end dishes.

We are in Santo Domingo, in the colonial zone. This area has some amazing restaurants, because it’s the main tourist zone of the city many of the restaurants are higher end and in the middle, but this area does tend to be more expensive. There are lots of different types of food. However, this time we will be concentrating on Dominican and Caribbean-style food.

We are starting things off at a place called Mix Empanadas. We ordered two different types of Dominican Empanadas and they are quite large. The first one is avocado and pico de gallo and the second one is filled with ham, tomatoes and queso. It is perfect. The softness of the avocado on the inside then the pico de gallo just gives it a nice flavour. Also, the crispiness outside is great. We can not imagine the size for the price, it is a really good deal. It may be the reason, it is so popular down here. The second empanadas are also good. Also, the empanadas come with some delicious sauces, a garlic sauce, a hot sauce and a medium hot one. One more thing we love about being in a tropical location is the fact that you can have fresh juice pretty much everywhere. We had delicious fresh mango juice.

Fried food at Exquisiteces Virginia

You may find that there is a lot of fried food in the Caribbean in general. We were in Puerto Rico a few years ago and we had lots of fried food there as well. For our second stop we came to a local place called Exquisiteces Virginia. We ordered two different dishes, the first one is a chicken croquette and the second one is a chicken pastelito. Usually, the croquettes are shaped like a ball, but here they were a little different. The croquette contained chicken and bechamel and other “secret” components. The gooeyness is great. It's kind of breaded and dusted a little bit. It's a very basic flavour. There's no heat but it is so smoky. It is delicious. We understood why the food is popular down here. Next, we tried the pastelito. It's very pastry-like on the outside. On the inside, it looks lovely. It is not what we expected. It's quite flavorful and salty. There may be a cheese in there as well . You would think that it is hard on the outside, but it is quite soft and flaky.

Trying Dominican Dessert

Next up, we are changing directions a little bit from a smaller deep-fried appetizer to dessert. The spot we found, Corner Cafe, is not only a gorgeous location but we noticed that they have some epic-looking desserts. We got two things, we ordered flan and Majarete. The flan is the same thing or very similar to a creme caramel. It is a custard-style dessert. After tasting the flan, we would also say it’s similar to crème brulée. It’s got a sweet custard flavour to it, then the caramel over the top. It is pretty delicious and very sweet. The second dessert is called Majarete, which is a corn pudding with some cinnamon on top. We have never tried it before so we had no idea what to expect. However, it looks delicious. The cinnamon on top gives it a nice flavour. You don’t overly taste the corn. It almost has a butterscotch flavour as well. This happens to be one of the most typical types of Dominican dessert.

Have you booked your hotel for Santo Domingo? We stayed at Casa Sánchez Hotel by The OxoHouse and we’d highly recommend it. It was affordable, comfortable and historic! Search for hotels below:

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Trying Mofongo in the Dominican Republic

We're back up on El Conde, the main pedestrian walkway. It is Saturday night and there are a lot of people out. We came to a really interesting and unique-looking restaurant called Leandro Díaz y su Casa Gastronómica Dominicana. They serve Dominican food but with a twist. First, we ordered Mofongo. We have only had this dish once before in Puerto Rico. However, it is very popular in The Dominican republic. The size of the Mofongo is huge. It has some pork belly, plantains, passion fruit sauce, and white and red sauce. The menu was in Spanish, so we had a little bit of a hard time trying to figure out what to order. Nevertheless, it is savoury and full of flavour. The pork is so delicious. It is one of our favourites. It's absolutely and absurdly delicious. It is probably the best meal of the day so far.

The next dish we ordered at our dinner in this lovely restaurant was a Dominican chicken. It is called chicken in oranges. We had no idea what it would look like. It is half a chicken and it looks like it’s baked. it is served with a small salad as well as a little casserole. It is written on the menu that the casserole is made with eggplant, banana and some cheese. First, we started with the chicken. The size was quite generous. It is cooked perfectly, the chicken just falls apart. It does have a slight orange flavour. We are very curious if they like to cook it in oranges or some orange sauce, but it's very subtle. The next thing we had was the little casserole dish. It is very thick. It is some sort of potato or yucca or sweet potato. It is warm. Also, we can taste the eggplant right away and it is super smoky. There are also bananas there.

Generally speaking, it was an awesome day of delicious Dominican food. We've been waiting to do that for a while. We highly recommend. you try out all these delicious dishes on your next visit to the Dominican Republic.

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