Walking down Lazaro Cardenas, towards Bucerias Town Square if you’re coming from the South, you might chance across a colorful sign, of a lady in a chef’s hat, holding some baking; a sign to Sweet Things gourmet bakery. If you don’t see the sign you’ll miss it. It’s right next to the Bucerias Art Walk but it has no store front; only that sign and some overhanging trees and gardens… very secretive.

The seating area is a combination of both outdoor and indoor, an undercover set of tables and an outdoor set, shade being provided by umbrellas. The outdoor area backs on to a literal private garden, where visitors to the cafe can enjoy the greenery or watch the household rooster hopping back and forth on the concrete fence. We were even lucky enough to catch a friendly lizard sunning itself on the adjacent fence top.

The only thing that makes Sweet Things un-private, (though not in a bad way) is it’s rampant popularity. Head inside on most days of the week from breakfast to lunch time and you might just be lucky to get a table.

You’ll find the place full of locals and tourists, many of which I’m sure have decided to come after uttering the words “We have a FAVOURITE little breakfast place nearby…” to their willing guests.

The reason I used all the slashes in my post title was because I really didn’t know what to call this place. It has a gourmet bakery, yes. It’s a cafe, you can buy coffe there, yes. It’s a restaurant, you can buy full meals there, yes. And all of those individual parts have equal levels of awesomeness.

What I mean is: Whether you get a home made organic brownie from the bakery, some of the delectable banana nut waffles for breakfast, or a club sandwich for lunch, Sweet Things is sure to impress. It’s the kind of place where you just know that each meal has that little touch of homemade-ness about it… that each meal got prepared with just a touch of that magical ingredient called care.

The wait staff are friendly, the prices are cheap, and after your meal you’re free to linger in the shade, and enjoy the garden ambience with a good book or a coffee. OR not to mention, if you haven’t before, you can head off to the Bucerias Art Walk next door to round off the morning in the most perfectly relaxing way.

Sweet Things is a local treasure, fullstop.

Technorati Tags: Bucerias, Bucerias Restaurants

Cutting straight to the point on this one, if you’re looking for a place for lunch or dinner in Bucerias, Adriano’s has it’s good and it’s bad.

The restaurant is certainly visually stimulating. It’s bright orange interior and plethora of decorations lining the walls, from plates to sombreros to Mexican artwork makes it an entertaining atmosphere from which to enjoy your meal, and certainly a unique experience. As you wait for your food you can observe and discuss the various pieces as well as of course the view of Bucerias beach out the window.

The restaurant has the common drink specials like 2 for 1 Margarita’s and the ever popular 5 Corona for 80 pesos, making it an easy start to the evening.

The menu at Adriano’s is common yet vast, a little more vast than a couple of the other spots on this strip (see our posts on El Brujo and Mezzogiorno from the same strip). You can choose from all the Mexican favorites, as well as steak, seafood, and a variety of appetizers.

Service wise (it’s always very subjective and must vary so greatly regardless of the place) while it wasn’t poor, we got the subtle feel that (and maybe fair enough) our waiter lost a lot of his friendliness and attentiveness toward us after we actually came inside the restaurant. But overall, it was nothing to complain about.

Having eaten at most of the restaurants on Avenida Del Pacifico, the unfortunate thing about Adriano’s is that it’s quite expensive relative to it’s neighbors, maybe the most expensive on the strip. I don’t mean expensive by western standards, just expensive for the area.

Food wise, we sampled the Filet Mignon, the Mexican Pork Cutlets, and the BBQ Ribs. The verdict was: Filet Mignon with creamy mushroom sauce was a delight; Mexican Pork Cutlets, tasty but only saved by stealing the BBQ sauce from our friend’s ribs to put on them, too plain on their own; and BBQ Ribs small but tasty and BBQ sauce, not too bad.

Re-reading what I’ve written here I can’t put my finger on exactly why I’m unable to be more excited about Adriano’s. Nevertheless, I can’t say anything particularly bad about it.

Adriano’s is the kind of place you have to go at least once because of it’s uniqueness, and after that, you might come to love it, or you might decide that once was enough.

If you end up checking out Adriano’s, let us know what you thought!

Technorati Tags: Bucerias, Bucerias Restaurants