Los Gatos

Our trip from San Evaristso to Los Gatos was a slog. The winds had died down, but the seas were large, confused and right on our nose. Los Gatos is basically a roadstead, and since there were two boats in there already when we arrived, we were preparing ourselves mentally for a fairly unpleasant, rolly night, when along came a Panga. We talked to the two men aboard, who had introduced themselves as "los dos Migueles", for a while, and then they got to their point: Would we like some lobsters? Well, sure. We'd love some lobsters - how much? $100mx/kg. Who wouldn't want lobsters for that price? A couple of hours later, los dos Migueles returned with five lovely slipper lobsters, we gave them $240mx and a Ballena (large bottle) of Pacifico, I dug out the crab boiler we hadn't used since we were in the Pacific Northwest, and we had ourselves a fine dinner. It made the trip to get there almost completely worth it.

Ginger Steamed Lobster:

Cut the heads off the lobsters and discard. While there may be some meat in there, it's hard to get at and makes them really unwieldy to work with. In a large pot, bring about an inch of water to which you've added 1 c of dry sherry, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, a shake of siracha, a few drops of sesame oil, four smashed and chopped cloves of garlic, the juice of four or five limes and a teaspoon of dried ginger to a boil. Add the lobsters and cover. Cook on high for about 10 minutes, or until the shells turn reddish and a skewer encounters some resistance when you poke between the plates of the shell.

I had thought about making some sort of ginger lime sauce to dip them in, but in the end couldn't resist plain old garlic butter. The were delicious.

The next morning, with much calmer conditions, we took of for Agua Verde. We'll look forward to seeing los dos Migueles (and eating some more lobster) in a month or so.