Τρινιντάντ

Trinidad is not the Caribbean of white sand beaches and umbrella drinks. There is oil money there, and tall buildings in which to count it, and grinding poverty and the sound of calypso drifting by on the breeze. There is serious cricket when there isn't serious soccer, and there is always a plan afoot for Carnival, the island's monthlong, pre-Lenten feast.

People visit Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, for Carnival, or pass through on their way to more traditional vacations on Tobago, the nation's other main island, a short flight away and thick with resorts.

But stay a while, exploring the busy streets in which V. S. Naipaul, the country's prodigal son, found his literature and eventually a Nobel Prize, and a truth emerges: This is one of the great eating towns in the Caribbean, the greatest of the Lesser Antilles, and the fount of some of the finest rum in the world.

Start with breakfast, in particular the ones available at the Port Authority Canteen, a stevedore's cafeteria perched on the edge of the harbor. It is made up of a dozen or so tiny kitchens with electric hot plates and propane hobs. There are long picnic tables in front of these, some set with oilskin cloths, others painted a soft lime green.

They are packed for breakfast, and again for lunch and dinner — men eating in shifts, wolfishly, then heading back into the sun. Fans move the humidity around, under signs at each end of the room that proclaim, “No Obscene Language.”

People talk about the laid-back, easygoing nature of the Caribbean, but Trinidad is a working hub, one of the most prosperous islands in the region. There is plenty of off-work downtime, the slow and pleasant dance into sociable half-drunkenness that Trinidadians call “liming,” but the women who cook in the Port Authority Canteen have little time for it.

Charmaine Cupido is one of them. Her stall is in a far corner of the room, almost invisible from the door. Fish sandwiches are her thing, the delicacy known here as bake and shark, best consumed with one of the frothy sweet drinks sold nearby: a watery concoction of mauby bark, cinnamon and sugar, say, or sea moss and milk.

Ms. Cupido slices a round of bread into two discs, and places on one of them a number of pieces of fried fish — carite that October morning, a local mackerel, though she'll cook the traditional shark if she can find it at market. The fish has a flavorful crust, bright with the tingle of ginger and pepper, with an undertow of salt: her special mix. Next comes some lettuce, sliced tomato, sliced cucumber, along with a squirt of thinned ketchup and a more substantial one of her own pepper sauce, which has an orange, slightly sweet hot-pepper kick that is in tune with the morning hour.

She wraps this into a waxed-paper bag and sends you on your way, down to the far end of the cafeteria, where other women are doling out fresh juices in paper cups.

It is really about the best fish sandwich in the world. But, of course, there are others. Bake and shark is a point of national pride in Trinidad, and fierce debates rage over who serves the finest.

One of the handsomest places to take a stand on the matter is Maracas Bay, a 45-minute drive north from Port of Spain, and one of the island's most famous beaches, both for its proximity to the capital and for its shocking beauty: a limp half-circle of soft, reddish sand beneath towering mountains and wisps of fog. Imagine the Oregon coast with palms the size of redwoods and water as warm as a baby's bath and you have about a quarter of the experience; you need to add a funk of humidity, and much besides.

The city empties onto the beach at Maracas Bay on weekends, and the lines for bake and shark at the stands there can stretch for yards. Davan Maharaj, a Trinidadian of great passion and distinction who is the business editor of The Los Angeles Times, would not speculate on the best of these in a telephone interview, but he offered expert advice: “Look for the longest line.”

Which will leave you, inevitably, under the red awning of a stand called Richard's, where you are given a plain plate of bake and shark, then told to go to the condiments table to dress your own sandwich.

“Lots of people make bake and shark how they like,” said Irwin Britto, who was selling gourd purses and pretty shell necklaces in the parking lot, “but Richard's, you make it how you like.”

Which means extra pepper sauce, of course, lettuce, a bit more tamarind than usual, three pieces of tomato and two of pineapple. To drink? There are giant plastic fish boxes set up beside the stand packed deep with ice and beer. Carib is the label of choice, there and across the island. Lunch — rich, fatty shark deeply spiced against the bread — is served, slightly different from breakfast, and almost as good.

The North Coast Road will take you back to town, back down the range of mountains that rise above Port of Spain to capture the clouds. It is a narrow road plunging through the forest, giving way occasionally to splendid views of the ocean. Strange magical birds with yellow chests — boat-billed flycatchers! — perch on the telephone lines. It is hard driving for Americans used to being on the right side of the road. Every passing vehicle is an excitement: possible death in a far-off land.

At one turnoff, a farmer's shed stands: Raja Jahan's produce. Edmund Hendrix works there most days, selling sugar cane, mangoes and spider apples to passing motorists. Gesturing down toward the sea one day, he said, “They call it the Champagne glass view.”

And for good reason: the mountains give way in front of his farm like the curve of a glass in a Cole Porter song to hold the fizz of the ocean beneath. Teenagers from the city drive north after school to photograph it; it's as if they are documenting perspective itself.

TRINIDAD'S history is a long run of indentured diversity. Slavery left its African mark on the native Amerindian population, of course, as it did all over the Caribbean. But the servitude that followed in the 19th century brought people from even farther afield: East Indians first, followed by Chinese, Syrians, Lebanese. Each group had its effect on the nation's food; the result is a kind of culinary heterogeneity that finds common ground in pepper sauce and friendly rivalry.

You can head to the Hott Shoppe on the Maraval Road in the city's center to try it in a roti wrap of beef curry, accompanied by a cup of red fruit soda, or up to the Tiki Village restaurant on top of the Kapok Hotel in the north, where the fried dumplings come fat with pork and local chives. You can taste it in the Lebanese kibbe at a Syrian bagel shop called Adam's, up in the foothills of the Maraval suburbs. And in the chicken tikka at Apsara, a fine Indian restaurant not far from the president's residence on the east side of town; it's right out of a Graham Greene novel, down to the pouch-eyed old Englishman eating curry in a dark corner.

But a meal at Veni Mangé is the wisest bet. It is one of the nation's best restaurants: an old home in the city's west, restructured as an open loft space, with ceiling fans and the jalousies known here as Demerara windows, with brightly colored chairs and fantastical tabletop paintings. The work of local artists crowds the walls, and the low hum of conversation leaks out onto the sidewalk at lunch, and late into the evening on Wednesdays and Fridays, when the restaurant is open for dinner.

Veni Mangé is the work of sisters — Allyson Hennessy, a local television star, and Rosemary Hezekiah, an artist — who opened the restaurant in 1980. The point of the place, Ms. Hezekiah said, was to present “an authentic aesthetic” of Trinidad's Creole food to residents and visitors alike. So while Ms. Hennessy is a French-taught chef, she provides only advice to the kitchen staff, not recipes.

“I've got a local Tobagan woman in there instead,” Ms. Hezekiah said. “She cooks with love, not training.”

And thus: there is callaloo to start, the classic, bright-green Trinidadian soup of puréed dasheen leaf and coconut milk, enlivened with blue crab, thickened with okra; and a plate of sweet accra, or fritters of crab and shrimp. Follow these with a dark and fiery pork stew and moist hunks of grilled mahi mahi served with a tamarind glaze and plenty of fried plantains. Rice, beans. More pepper sauce. Glasses of Angostura 1919 rum, smooth as molasses, apparently bottomless. Sleep will come easily.

For those interested in taking Ms. Hezekiah's notion of an authentic island aesthetic a few steps further, though, it is worth another drive, out of town through the gritty eastern slums in awful, exhaust-choked traffic, out the Eastern Main Road toward the central towns of Arima and Valencia, and from there down to the empty coast of Manzanilla Bay.

In Sangre Grande, a rough little town of auto-parts stores and metal shops southeast of Arima, you'll find the Cock's Bar, and on Fridays and Saturdays, a barbecue cook named Bharat Cooblall. Mr. Cooblall cooks pork, chicken and lamb over hard charcoal, bathing it in a tart sauce that nods slightly to the American South; it's more tamarind than tomato, though, and the perfect accompaniment to crisp, smoke-flavored pig tails.

Don't be squeamish now! The way Mr. Cooblall cooks them, they're meat popsicles, and one of the island's great treats.

But then so is a fine hamburger lunch dressed in pineapple and pepper sauce at the First and Last Bar, a few miles southeast in Upper Manzanilla. And so is a cold coconut hacked open by Rob Joseph at his rickety stand there, on the road above the empty beach.

And so, to finish where we began, is a breakfast of what's known as doubles, purchased in dawn's light from one of the stands along the Western Main Road in the St. James neighborhood in Port of Spain. These are two rounds of turmeric-hued fried bread, filled with curried chickpeas and topped with fiery chutney. Look for a stand with lines, then order two, and take with a cold Carib. That's liming.

VISITOR INFORMATION
Several airlines fly from New York to Port of Spain, with direct flights between the two cities offered by Caribbean Airlines (www.caribbean-airlines.com) and Continental (on Saturdays). Delta joins them on Dec. 20 (twice a week). A recent Internet search for a nonstop flight in mid-November turned up round-trip fares starting at $475 on Caribbean.

WHERE TO EAT
Port Authority Canteen, Dock Road, off Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, no phone. A breakfast of fish, juice and cake will run less than 40 Trinidad and Tobago dollars, $6 at 6.5 T & T dollars to the U.S. dollar.

Hott Shoppe, Maraval Road, Port of Spain, no phone. Two roti, with drinks, will cost about 60 local dollars.

Richard's, Maracas Bay, no phone. A plate of bake and shark, along with a Carib, will cost about 35 local dollars.

Tiki Village is atop the Kapok Hotel (16-18 Cotton Hill Road, St. Clair; 868-622-5765). Figure about 100 local dollars a person for dinner.

Apaara (13 Queen's Park East, Port of Spain; 868-623-7659) serves excellent Indian food. Dinner runs about 300 local dollars for two, without drinks.

Veni Mangé (67A Ariapita Avenue, Port of Spain; 868-624-4597; www.venimange.com) is closed on weekends. The menu changes daily, but a meal for two will cost roughly 400 local dollars, plus drinks.

Cock's Bar (Eastern Main Road, Sangre Grande; no phone). A plate of barbecue with rice and salad costs around 25 local dollars.

First and Last Bar (Eastern Main Road, Upper Manzanilla; no phone). Have a burger, buy a beer for new friends and get on your way for less than 40 local dollars.

WHERE TO STAY
The Hilton Trinidad (Lady Young Road, Port of Spain; 868-624-3211; www.hiltoncaribbean.com/trinidad) may be Trinidad's most comfortable hotel, and its location above the Queen's Park Savannah offers views of the harbor below. Facilities include a pool and a fitness center. Doubles start around $220, but can be less on the Web site.

Kapok Hotel (16-18 Cotton Hill, Port of Spain; 868-622-5765; www.kapokhotel.com), a nine-story building in the suburb of St. Clair, also offers harbor views from some of its 94 rooms; doubles start at $181, with Continental breakfast. Service was excellent, but it would be a stretch to describe them as anything approaching luxurious.

Reader suggestions on the Travel section Web site, www.nytimes.com/travel, include a recommendation for the “absolutely fabulous” L'Orchidée Boutique Hotel (3 Coblentz Gardens, Port of Spain; 868-621-0618; www.trinidadhosthomes.com). Doubles are $150 with breakfast.

(πηγή: travel.nytimes.com, 26/10/2007)