Street Food - San Ignacio, Belize

Don't let fine dining fool you, the best food comes from the streets. In San Ignacio, some of the best food comes from an avenue; Burns Avenue, to be exact. Here on Burns, carts and tables and stalls burn throughout the day and into the night, furnishing affordable food for the frugal and enough grease to feed every guilty pleasure.

I've spent a lot of time wondering what makes street food superior to half the things legitimate establishments sell, and after trying almost everything Burns Avenue has to offer, I think I'm onto something. 

For starters, street food is usually fresh. Most things are made to order, and they haven't spent their day under a heat lamp. Few things are fresher than unrefrigerated, naturally-ripened fruit. On a converging corner of Burns, you'll find all sorts of dealers with dime-bags of sliced Papaya, Pineapple, and Plums. The papaya and pineapple are just dripping with sweet, juicy nectar, and the regular plums are sour, sinewy spears. Just steer clear of the sliced plums with salt unless you have shot of tequila waiting. They're laced with an entire shaker of the powdery white stuff.

Another great thing about street food is that it's always cheap. In case you accidentally ate the plums, a 50-cent cup of Horchata, a sweet, rice-based beverage, will wash the salt away.

Street food is always the quickest meal you can get. I love me some dime-bag fruit, but I need the hard stuff when it's time to eat a real meal. I can always hit up my man Nelson's cart for a quick fix after 6.

After downing consecutive Panty Rippers until the sun goes down, you can't help but relish an instant Hot Dog with the works. Frankly, it's just a frank from a bag, but the sauteed peppers and onion with an Austrian flag of condiments are a game-changer.

The best thing about street food is the grease. And what's better than grease? More grease! The Beef Tacos taste just like the Pork Tacos, because they're all cooked in the same fatty pan. The corn tortillas are heated and fried right in the meat grease too. All that flavor will stop your heart...and all that grease will stop your arteries.

No local grease is complete without a few drops of Marie Sharp's Habanero Hot Sauce. Bottled as one of few national products of Belize, the habanero is a sharp burn and a slow death, but probably one of the better ways to go.

Marie Sharp's isn't the only happiness in a bottle. Belikin is the local beer here, Central America's Bud Light, borrowed from the nice neighbors in Guatemala. This beer-for-a-couple-bucks is sold in every corner store and pairs perfectly with tacos.

There you have it, all the reasons to go to town on all the tidbits they sell on the streets. Your food is swiftly made-to-order, with enough grease to keep you full for days. It goes well before, after, or with any beer, and it's a sweet way to start, middle, or end your day.

Speaking of sweet, a single US dollar will buy you a small scoop of a sweet ending if you're willing to pay. And there is no ending sweeter than Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream... Except the Sweet Corn.