A "Taboo" Evening at “The White Lotus”

If you've binged watched the HBO series “The White Lotus” you know that the show focuses on the fictional White Lotus resort chain. The first season takes place at a White Lotus resort in Hawaii and season two at a White Lotus in Sicily. But, Sunday night, Nancy and John found themselves in what could have been called “White Lotus Isla Mujeres.”

It all started when Nancy chatted with a woman named Amanda at the local hangout, "The Joint." Amanda came to Isla Mujeres a few years ago and decided to stay. Without a job, this industrious young woman started a company on the island which provides tourists with discount coupons to restaurants, beach clubs, and sunset rides around the island. One of the things Nancy always asks people she meets is “what’s your favorite restaurants?” Amanda went on to tell us about a bunch of places on the island we hadn’t heard of. One of those was "Taboo Isla Mujeres." As we discovered, Taboo is a chain of clubs with locations in Cancun, Tulum, Los Cabos, Mexico City, and its newest location in Isla Mujeres. Its website says that it’s “ultra-high-end entertainment for the ultra rich.”

We assume these pictures from Taboo's website constitute what it means to be ultra-high-end rich.

Cut to Sunday afternoon…John was trying to plan which days next week to cook and which to go out to dinner. As he looked over his notes on his iPhone, he came across the restaurant/beach club "Taboo" and he loved the fact that a reservation can be booked through OpenTable. So, John decided (with Nancy’s agreement) to book Taboo for Sunday night. John, as is his MO, checked the menu but failed to really check the prices or the ambience of the restaurant---but the food looked good, so let’s go!

It’s Sunday night, so we dressed up a bit. Considering that we’ve been nomads for four months each using only a single carry-on suitcase and a backpack, our wardrobe choices are limited. Nancy wore a long black casual summer dress and John wore one of his only two pairs of pants and a colorful shirt.

We hopped in our golf car and drove the mile to the restaurant (remember, the island is only four miles long and less than a half mile wide). We arrived around 6:30 and were met at the desk by two young woman in “very sexy dresses” (Nancy’s words not John’s…he’s keeping his mouth shut). We should have known then what we were in for!

One of the hostesses took us to our table under a palapa. This palapa was not your typical open-sided structure with a thatched roof, but extremely fancy with hanging chandeliers and a great bar. The property was stunning. Besides the huge palapa covered restaurant, there were four VIP decks overlooking the aqua-colored bay and a private lounge area, all situated in the white sand of the beach.

When we arrived, there were three other tables occupied by at least 12 people each. Two tables were filled with 20-something young woman and the other with six couples. We noticed that down on the beach, there was a table of about 20 people, in what we found out was one of the private VIP decks that even had its own hookah pipe.

Before we even had a chance to order a cocktail, there were so many things going on that Nancy decided to have a look around the property. After about five minutes, she came back and told John that she had met the manager, Pablo. If you know Nancy, you know that she never hesitates to ask questions of restaurant staff (or anyone for that matter). She had asked Pablo why we couldn’t sit closer to the beach and the sunset. Pablo told her that that area is reserved for “high end spenders,” but, since it was a slow night, he would make an exception and give us a table by the water. He probably also thought that since we were the oldest people there, that he would make our night memorable...and he did.

He had the staff bring a table and chairs with all the accessories to the beach just for us. Our two-person table was three feet from the water and close to the VIP deck with the group of people having dinner. Certainly romantic and much more entertaining than our original table. We had front row seats to see everything that was happening! Fascinating to watch.

No, that little man is not sitting in John's wine glass. More about him later.

As soon as we sat down, many different people began to take care of us as if we were real VIPs. There was Pablo the handsome general manager, Renata the service manager with a truly beautiful body (that was obvious to all), plus the black tee shirt clad fantastic servers: Camilo, Erick (AKA Tanke), Neto and a host of others. Often through the evening, Pablo, Renata and many others would check back to make sure we were having a good time.

We must mention that the music was loud, and restaurateurs have found that louder restaurants are perceived as lively and successful, and nothing says “fun” like a pounding bassline. Taboo took that as gospel; the music was high energy house music. John kept wondering when they would begin playing Billie Holliday or Etta James; turns out the answer was never. But you get used to it after a while and we settled in for a cocktail. John ordered his signature Manhattan and Nancy ordered a fancy gin drink.

As many of you who have read our older posts realize, this blog has become more and more about food, so let’s talk about food. Someone, we don’t remember who since so many smiling servers came over to check on us, asked if we wanted to try the appetizer of the day. It was mussels in a fish fumet (a concentrated fish stock) with cherry tomatoes. “You bet” we said. While we waited, we checked out what was going on around us. Near our table was a large round deck out into the water with beach chairs placed around the center, which was open to the water. Along the side of the deck was a long pier leading out to four or five parked yachts.

Weirdly, right to the immediate left of the Taboo beach club was a couple of guys cooking dinner on what looked like a charcoal grill. Definitely not part of the beach club. They could watch the entertainment every night at no cost, though we’re betting it stops being fun after a few days.

These fellas are about 20 feet from the edge of the beach club. The guy in blue looks like he's having a good time.

Close to us were young woman (Taboo employees) dressed in white bikinis with white sheer skirts dancing to the music.

There was also this buff guy with no shirt and white linen pants moving to the beat of the music. Near us the table of people who had been eating dinner were now dancing on their own VIP deck; all the girls in thong bikinis the guys in swimsuits with no shirts. This really looked like a scene from the White Lotus.

Nancy told me to take this picture.

Our mussels arrived with a complimentary “Table Set.” Because it’s so White Lotus, we’re going to quote what their menu describes as a “Table Set.” Here goes: “Wood fired artisan pita bread, Kalamata olives, Piquillo peppers stuffed with goat cheese, onion dip, and sun-dried tomatoes with pesto”...ah, the lives of the rich and famous. All of those were delicious as were the mussels, which came with a round of excellent bread to dip in the fumet. Oh, and when they brought our sparkling water, it was served in a wine cooler…with a stem of red grapes sitting on top of the ice. The wine came the same way! And the grapes were nice.

Our dinner arrived shortly after. Nancy had giant octopus with a sweet pea puree and John had perfectly cooked (medium rare) New Zealand Rack of Lamb with mint jelly and roasted potatoes.

After seeing the prices of the wines, we ordered a moderately priced bottle of Italian Vermentino, which was quite good.

All evening we noticed that the clouds were getting darker and darker.

As a few small drops of rain came down, our trusty servers moved two large beach umbrellas over to cover us. It was just spritzing a bit as we continued dinner.

By now it was dark, and many other things were happening around us. One was this guy up on the round deck in a bathing suit with a towel around himself swaying rhythmically to the music (the same guy who looked like he lived in John's wine glass above). At one point, he and his friend ordered an expensive bottle of champagne. It was served by a running group of six guys and girls dressed all in white carrying over-sized sparkler torches. This is when we began to realize we weren’t in Perkiomenville or Turnersville anymore, we had most definitely entered White Lotus territory!

This same guy, after drinking his portion of the champagne had the servers bring a small table up on the deck. He covered it with a towel and meticulously arranged both champagne glasses on the table. Then he sat down in front of the table and appeared to begin to meditate. He stayed that way until it began to rain a little harder.

Not sure if the people dancing in the VIP area had a prescient weather report or not, but as soon as the few drops started coming down, they all left and moved to one of the large yachts parked at the dock. Then, as quick as that, it started to rain.

We both ran to the large palapa as the servers followed us with the remains of our dinner. We finished dinner under the dry palapa and even had dessert and coffee as we waited out the rain. As it got close to closing time (around 9:30) we realized it wasn’t going to stop raining anytime soon, so we decided to take our chances and head for home. We paid our bill and one of the hostesses brought an umbrella to walk us to our golf cart. What restaurant does that? She managed to keep us dry for the next few minutes until John fired up the cart and we headed back to our condo.

Golf carts, even with roofs, are not made for the rain. As fast as John tried to drive, the puddles were so large he had to slow down and try to maneuver around the deepest parts. And, the whole time, as the rain came pouring in, Nancy laughed and laughed and said, “this is so much fun, I’ve had a great night!” We finally managed to get back to our condo unscathed but completely drenched head to toe. But all-in-all we had a very fun night at the “ultra high end White Lotus of Isla Mujeres."

What’s your craziest restaurant story? Let us know by leaving a comment below. If for some reason you can’t leave a comment, send your story to either johnzuchero@gamil.com or ms.nancyhayes@gmail.com.

Before we go, here's a picture of a house along the beach as we head into town. As I'm sure they would agree...GO Eagles!

Adios for now,

Nancy and John