What are your favorites to do, see, eat/drink or experience in PV? Welcome off the beaten path ideas.

Suze must be taking a siesta.

Favorites TO DO:
Have breakfast out,
then walk all over the Old Town and El Centro and poke around in local shops and neighborhoods for a couple hours
Get some beer and sit by the hotel pool and work on my tan while reading the local papers, or
Hang out on Playa Los Muertos under a palapa and have mango margaritas
Go to Rizo's supermercado supplies for a picnic lunch or dinner
Visit the church with the crown on the top and don't forget to make a small donation
Stroll the Malecon in the evenings and see the festivities
Watch sunset each evening from a rooftop, patio, pier, or beach somewhere
Take the local bus around and explore outlying areas, towns, beaches both north and south
Visit the cemetary which is most definitely off the beaten tourist path
If you don't get seasick take a panga out to Yelapa

Favorites EAT/DRINK:

Joe Jack's Fish Shack on B. Badillo 212 w/ upstairs patio and downstairs bar. Excellent grilled dorado, fish tacos, ceviche, even the chicken was great. Pineapple or ginger were mojito specials. Lunch and dinner.

Mama Delores, on Olas Altas between R. Gomez and Pulpito is giving long time "best breakfast in town" spots a run for their money. Crepes, eggs benedict, all the standards. Very well priced. Good coffee too. Street side and indoor seating.

La Piazetta at the corner of Gomez and Olas Altas for pizza, pasta, great chicken dishes.

Dee's Coffee on R. Gomez between Olas Altas and Amapas. Sandwiches and homemade desserts. Free internet with purchase.

Picnic at Pulpito No 154. Good location for a stop on the way home from Playa Los Muertos. Burgers, sandwiches, nice veranda seating. Summer hours just 11-6.

Fredy's El Tucan at the Posada Roger hotel on B. Badillo. Eating on the patio there is lovely. . All breakfasts, omlettes, Mexican style preparations, smoothies, etc. are delicious.

Highly recommend The River Cafe, Isla Rio Cuale, for the vocalist and guitar player in the lounge in the evenings.

Rotisserie chickens you can buy various places around town, comes with tortilla, red sauce, maybe a potato, for about $6 enough for 2 people.

The Red Cabbage for dinner. While known and popular with tourists is it geographically off the beaten path out towards Remance.

www.allvallarta.com
www.vallarta-info.com

... are the two best websites for gathering information about Puerto Vallarta imo.

Actually, I can add something. I've read (not visited) about the PV zoo where they recently had new jaguar, bengal tiger and lion cub babies. I think it would be worth checking out.
http://www.banderasnews.com/0704/nb-vallartazoo.htm

Suze and jbass to the rescue - good stuff! Mango margaritas, who would have known?

degas, don't worry I only have those for breakfast!

Another good resource to get a feel for PV is at tripadvisor.com. Go to the FORUMS section (not the hotel reviews, etc.). Very active group of posters there.

Puerto Vallarta is known for our Food, Culture, Sports fishing of course, and Art. We have famous artist donating pieces for our famous Malicon in the heart of el Centro! Most people ignore or don't know of the Marina Vallarta area with some of the best Restaurants in all of Puerto Vallarta. Yet people many times, even when staying in the Marina, don't know of it's existance. Tours here in Puerto Vallart can be great. Some are better than others, but if you're coming to PV, who do you trust with all the timeshare guys barking at people like dogs. If anyone here (in internet land) has any questions, feel free to contact me! I won't sell you a time share and if by some chance you care to go fishing, then I'd appreciate your business. If you don't want to fish, no worries. Check out my web site at:www.mbsportsfishing.com or goto www.vallartatribune.com to read my weekly fishing articles, PV events (many free), Shopping, entertainment, tours... A great place to explore Puerto Vallarta from your computer.... Stan

MB, nice screen-name for sure! Looks like a great place and nice job for you.

a whole lot of trips later, i have not activitites, toured or time-shared. just my personal preference, but I don't think that is what the 'true' Vallarta is all about.

suze, like you, I'm not a big fan of group tours or formal organized ventures and pretty much arrange my own fun/adventure.

Another vote for Red Cabbage! Thanks to suze's rec we had a delicious dinner there. The chicken mole was very good.

I second Freddy's Toucan. We ate at Freddy's Toucan 5 times for their breakfast. You can get breakfast until 2:30 or 3. After that they stop serving food but the bar is open until 4. We had egg white vege omlettes ("garden omlette&quot cooked with Pam--45 pesos. The meals with coffee or bottled water for two was never more than 120 pesos. We never ate in the garden as the other dining area has strong and MOST welcomed A/C. These people have your order ready in 5 minutes-every time-no lie . Amazing!

Trio is EXCELLENT for dinner! We got two appetizers, two "small" portions of homemade pasta (my husband had 5 large shrimp in his "appetizer sized" pasta--I can't imagine what the large portion would look like) 2 espresso and two large bottles of Perrier for 550 pesos. Plus they gifted me the most sublime chocolate souffle/cake with two small scoops of vanilla and pistachio ice cream. (My husband had mentioned when we arrived that we wanted a nice table as it was my birthday.) Outstanding!

La Palapa- Way over priced. Excellent service in a pretty setting. I had tortilla soup for 75 pesos. He had 4 scallops and some tiny side concoction for around 280 pesos. It honestly wasn't very good. Their cheapest bottle of wine was 350 pesos-most were in the 40 to 50 dollar range. Their cheapest bottle of champagne was 140 American dollars! (based on a 10 pesos to one US dollar)

My favorite was Planeto Vegetariana. 65 pesos all you can eat including drinks. They were written up in Bon Appetit for the best use of soy. They had a soy stew that tasted like the most tender beef you've ever had. Another day they had grilled soy mixed with grilled veges. Any meat eater would never tell the difference. They had the best guacamole of all the places where I had tried guacamole. They offer about 18 different dishes. Home made bread. Each dish was better than the next. Their juices ranged from a very healthy green juice to tamarindo to pineapple juice to coffee. All included for one low price of 65 pesos. They even bring you a desert (not so great) after you're done. No beer- no alcohol, no A/C, just fans. We ate there for lunch at least 4 times. One US born woman living in PV said that the soy is better at lunch than dinner. One block north of the church on Iturbide.

For delicious pizza and fresh tasting pasta, we dined twice at Espresso. Ignacio L. Vallarta 279. Tele. 322/222-3272 . To look at it from the outside, it appears that the name of the place is "La Strada"....but it's called Espresso. Upstairs has A/C. I asked a woman as she was exiting, "How's the food?". Turns out she's from London living in PV and she said, "I think it's the best in town." Highly recommended.

For a cheap lunch where you will find expats, I recommend Viejo Vallarta on the 3rd floor across from the Malecon. 25 peso menu! I'm talking full on plates of food like enchiladas, rice, beans, chips for $2.50 US dollars! Too much food for me. Recommended by an American living in PV. During our stay two more US people living there mentioned it. We also ate there for dinner. Very reasonable rates for lots of good food. You should have seen the size of my husbands red snapper. (That sounds naughty) regardless, good food.

I was disappointed at Barcelona Tapas. Maybe because I'm a vegetarian, there weren't enough options. My husband wasn't crazy about the hill followed by the flights of stairs that you needed to climb to get there. We were drenched by the time we got to the top. We had to return the spinach tapa as it was WAY too salty. In the 12 nights we were in PV, it was the only thing we returned to the kitchen. (Most days we ate out 3 times a day-we never cooked at home. Some days we only ate out twice a day)

I also recommend getting a massage at Ti Shan on Aquiles Serdan #272 A in between Ignacio Vallarta and Constitucion. ph# 22-299-87. For 300 pesos for an hour long therapeutic massage, we went there a few times. And enjoyed it every time. Right next to the massage place we got fresh squeezed OJ a couple of times that was really delicious.

In spite of the delicious meals, I still can't recommend going to PV in the summer. Way too humid. We will never go back in the summer months.

Great recomendations Pilates! Thanks for joining in. I love the summer in PV myself, but can see how the heat & humidity could be a deal-breaker for some people.

Thanks Suze. More food talk:

We walked to the Red Cabbage on a Sunday, but they were closed. We'd heard a few times about "El Brujo" for seafood which is only a few blocks from the Red Cabbage. After finding the R.C closed, we walked to El Brujo but saw that it was very casual with no A/C so we kept going. That's how we happened upon Espresso. I forgot to mention that Espresso/La Strada makes their pizza thin crusted in a wood burning oven. Delish! My husband asked for pasta with fresh diced tomatoes (not on the menu) They said, "No problem." It came with sweet, fresh tomatoes with garlic and basil. It was so good.

We also ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at Langostino's. We went to Cafe de Olla. Both had good food at a reasonable price. Customer service was excellent everywhere.

OOH! We had the BEST scallop appetizer at El Arrayan. This restaurant is very different. They don't have the typical food that you'll find at a Cafe de Olla (not that there's anything wrong with that). They have very original (to me) dishes that are prepared according to the season. For instance, they were offering basil mojitos because her basil plants were flourishing. Very enjoyable.

I forgot to mention that as a vegetarian, at El Arrayan, I had to stick to the appetizers. (Besides veges, I only eat shrimp, scallops and cod fish.) All of their entre's were chicken, meat or a fish I won't eat. A true vegetarian would have found just a couple of appetizers to chose from. I'm so glad that I'll eat scallops. The dish was really delicious!

Great stuff - you guys and gals are making me hungry!