But I digress. When I met up with friends at La Mar Cebicheria Peruana in San Francisco’s Embarcadero, I was determined to stick to the cebiche. La Mar is, after all, a cebiche restaurant. (It’s also an international restaurant, with outposts throughout Latin America in Lima, Mexico City, Santiago, Sao Paolo, and Panama City.)

After we were seated, our waiter brought us Yukon, plantain, and sweet potato chips and an array of dipping sauces to nibble on while we perused the menu.

My favorite was were the sweet potato chips, and all three of the sauces were full of depth and spicy.

For my entree, I chose the cebiche mixto.

The cebiche mixto came with a little bit of everything: Mahi Mahi, calamari, octopus and habanero pepper in ají amarillo leche de tigre with cilantro, red onions, Peruvian corn, and yam. Whew. The ají amarillo sauce was delicious but I was let down by the cebiche. The fish wasn’t as flavorful as I was expecting and the big chunks of yam seemed out of place. That being said, I’ve since heard rave reviews of La Mar’s other cebiches so I’ll come better informed next time.

If it’s one thing La Mar has down it’s presentation and ambiance. All of our dishes were gorgeously plated and the restaurant interior was modern and industrial without at all feeling cold. The service was friendly and unhurried during our visit, despite the restaurant being very busy.

Even though my entree wasn’t as incredible as I was hoping for it to be, I left La Mar feeling satisfied. The restaurant was fun, the menu looked exciting, and it left me wanting to go back to discover more.

I recently checked out Borobudur in the Tenderloin with a friend who also has an affinity for all things roti and sambal and rendang. The restaurant wasn’t busy, but it was late and we were served quickly.

We started with the roti prata.

Roti prata is a pan-fried, thinly layered bread, and here it was served with a curry sauce. The dough had a great consistency: flaky and chewy and was a great vehicle for sopping up the mildly spicy sauce.

For my entree, I had the bakmi goreng.

This was my first time trying this dish; I usually go with the mee goreng instead. Goreng means “fried” in Bahasa Indonesia, and bakmi is a wheat-based noodle that was first brought to Southeast Asia by Chinese merchants. Here it was served with egg, vegetables, chicken, shrimp. The noodles were a little greasy, but hey, they’re fried. The sauce was savory and brought the whole dish together.

Service is friendly at Borobudur and the restaurant is a fun, casual place for a quick meal. If you haven’t tried Indonesian food yet, this place is a fantastic primer on the country’s diverse and extremely flavorful cuisine.

Until now. I met up with a group for brunch on a late morning one weekend, and immediately we were surrounded by carts. The dim sum at Yank Sing is more Americanized than that at most other dim sum restaurants, but the quality is top notch.

We started with the gingered sea bass.

One of the fun things about dim sum with a group is that you get to try things you wouldn’t normally order. I usually go straight for the dumplings, so the fish was a refreshing departure from the usual. This was incredibly fresh fish, flaky and light.

Next we tried the spring rolls.

These were good, similar to what you might get at any other high-end dim sum restaurant. Thin and crispy on the outside, piping hot and stuffed with shredded vegetables on the inside.

Our third dish was the steamed rolls with shrimp.

This is one of my favorite dim sums and its easy to mess this one up. Sometimes the rice noodle rolls are mushy and overcooked, but not here. Drizzled with a light soy-based sauce, this was a winner.

Next we tried the stuffed mushrooms.

These were good, but not incredible. I order this often when I eat dim sum, and I like the ones with a finer minced stuffing. This had a rougher texture, but flavor-wise was still tasty.

We continued with the honey walnut prawns.

Served with a creamy glaze, this dish was a little too sweet for my taste but that’s a personal preference. Again, the quality on this dish was apparent and we ate the shrimp up in no time.

Our last savory dim sum was the nori-wrapped fried tofu.

This is my absolute favorite dim sum at Yank Sing. I love seaweed and I love fried tofu; the combination is just excellent. The only letdown was that it was a bit too salty, but otherwise perfect.

We finished our meal with an order sesame balls.

Sweet and glutinous, and stuffed with a red bean paste, I always order this at the end of my dim sum meals. It’s a heavy dish to finish with, but it’s delicious and satisfying nevertheless.

I can easily see why Yank Sing consistently draws a crowd, but it’s much more expensive than other dim sum establishments. A seventy dollar bill for two at brunch is the norm here, and it’s almost twice as what you might expect elsewhere. Still, it’s a good place for a special meal and best of all, the dishes are consistently delicious and made with care.

Afterward, Seher and I split from our group to take another stab at dining at Cruzin in Carrot Bay. By the time we arrived, it was lunchtime and thankfully they were open. Seating at Cruzin is outdoors and surrounded by lots of lush, green foliage. A baby lizard crept past our table as we perused our menu and we could see the beach from across the street as we waited for our food to arrive.

The first dish to arrive was the lobster and beef patties.

Beef is my favorite patty filling but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the lobster one too. The thick, crispy shell was filled with generous chunks of lobster and bits of fresh peppers. The beef version was extremely rich; the cabbage and raisin coleslaw on the side helped lighten things up.

We also split a plate of curry chicken roti.

This was my first taste of Caribbean roti, and a delicious one at that. The warm curry was wrapped inside a thin layer of fresh roti bread with a crepe-like consistency. The dish came with rice and salad too, but I was too stuffed to continue.

We said goodbye Cruzin after our meal and headed next toward Smugglers Cove to join the rest of the group.

Located on the West End of Tortola, Smugglers Cove is accessible via a dirt road, but the bumpy ride was completely worth it. The cove is one of BVI’s most beautiful beaches, and it quickly became my favorite. Even though it was overcast when we visited, it was still calm and I spent a few hours in the water before calling it a day.

It was nighttime by the time our group arrived back at the villa and the weather was getting worse. By the end of the night, it was storming like I’d never seen, and the rain and heat made for the arrival of some pretty serious mosquitoes. The lighting, thunder, wind and mosquito free-for-all meant I hardly slept that night.

Seher and I said our goodbyes early the next morning and headed back to Beef Island to catch our flight back to San Francisco. But not before making a stop at the grocery in Road Town for some pepper sauce – what’s a trip to the Caribbean without pepper sauce after all?

The flight back was long, stopover-filled and exhausting, but the view leaving BVI was spectacular.

The British Virgin Islands may not have been among the places I thought I’d ever visit, but I couldn’t be happier that I did.

Unfortunately, Cruzin turned out to be closed, and so was every other restaurant in Carrot Bay. One of the more curious things about the British Virgin Islands are the odd hours at its eateries: many require you to call a day ahead of time to make a reservation to ensure they’ll be open, presumably so that the chef can prepare the ingredients ahead of time.

Luckily for us, there was one lone stand in Carrot Bay selling saltfish and bread; Seher and I ordered a plate and shared it on the beachside curb before heading back to Apple Bay.

The bread was a little stale but the saltfish was flavorful and cooked with fresh peppers. A splash of vinegary pepper sauce spiced things up even more.

Back at the vacation house, we got ready for the wedding and made our way to the wedding site, but not before stopping at another roadside stand at the bottom of the hill. Our housemates had told us about this one too, open only one day a week. The woman behind the stand had cooked everything, from the johnny cakes to the barbecued chicken to the stewed shrimp.

I got a box of stewed oxtail, stewed conch, baked macaroni and cheese, and a johnny cake. The conch was was really soft and almost gelatinous, but interesting to try nonetheless. The oxtail was incredible: super tender and coated with a rich, savory meaty sauce. That and the johnny cake together was my favorite thing to eat on this trip.

After the beautiful beach wedding ceremony, dinner was held at the Sugar Mill Hotel’s restaurant, the site of the wedding which also used to be 370-year old sugar stone mill. Reputedly one of the best restaurants in the Caribbean, I was excited to try their island fusion cuisine. For my appetizer, I chose the roast duck breast.

Served with banana chutney and cilantro, this was absolutely delicious. I don’t even like cilantro, but I loved this appetizer. The duck was lean and flavorful and the banana chutney was a surprisingly excellent accompaniment. I wouldn’t mind a jar all to myself.

For salad, I was served a Caesar-esque plate of hearts of romaine.

Topped with bacon, brioche croutons and tossed in a garlic anchovy aioli, this was good. Caesar salads can be run of the mill, but the Sugar Mill made this stand out by using high-quality ingredients.

My entree was the vanilla poached shrimp, which I ordered because I was so curious about the vanilla-seafood pairing.

The restaurant gets major bonus points for serving the shrimp with their heads on, which I love (plus, it adds flavor), but as it turns out, vanilla poached shrimp is a little too sweet for my taste. The dish was served with steamed vegetables, saffron risotto, mango chutney, in keeping with a sweet theme.

Weather in BVI can be stifling even at night, so I chose the trio of sorbet and ice cream for dessert.

I’m so glad I did. This was refreshing and the highlight was the extra-creamy pistachio ice cream that was as good as my other favorite pistachio ice cream (Haagen-Dazs in case you’re wondering).

After dinner, the wedding party headed to the Bomba Shack, a beachside bar famous for its monthly full moon parties where they give out mushroom tea. There was no full moon when we showed up though, but the shack was still lots of fun. And oh, it really is a shack.

We were exhausted by the end of the evening, so we called for a cab to take us back up the hill and called it a night. Despite the relaxed atmosphere, it felt like time travels faster in BVI – we only had one full day left on the islands.