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Santo Domingo Local Customs
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Santo Domingo Local Customs

Colmado (photo from www.el-bohio.com) - Santo Domingo
Colmado (photo from www.el-bohio.com)
by marielexoteria
Learn the local customs of Santo Domingo. Tips and photos posted by real travelers and Santo Domingo locals.
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chat with the locals
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  • willy_wonka
  • By willy_wonka on July 24, 2006
  • Santo Domingo Page by willy_wonka
  • shake those hips! - Santo Domingo
    shake those hips!
    by willy_wonka
    the locals were a very friendly bunch, and i enjoyed talking to them, even if their english was quite limited. this lovely lass, whose name i wont even try to spell, was working at harry's bar on the plaza la hispanidad. i went there every day for a drink, and got to know her. she was so friendly, and eager to learn about where i came from, and what i do in life etc. i asked her to show me how to dance the 'merengue' and the 'bachata', and she showed me right in the middle of the bar! she was an awesome dancer, as are most dominicans. i really enjoyed chatting with her.

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    Playing domino
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  • marielexoteria
  • Updated By marielexoteria on July 13, 2009
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Playing domino while drinking a few cold beers is a pastime we Dominicans enjoy. If we can't play we like to at least watch and participate in the fun.

    Domino is usually played by 4 people in 2 teams of 2, where the players of the same team sit in front of each other. Normally we play on wood tables and we like to slam the domino bricks on to it, especially when making the game difficult for the opposing team or when making "capicúa". Most of the time the game is at the local colmado (convenience store) or at someone's front porch or patio. While this pastime is enjoyed all over DR, I chose to place it in my Santo Domingo page because here is where I've lived and spent most of my time.

    Read about how to play the game and a brief explanation of the word capicúa at the website below.

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    Picapollo (deep fried chicken a la Dominican)
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  • marielexoteria
  • Updated By marielexoteria on November 28, 2007
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Picapollo is chicken that's covered with flour and then deep fried until the skin is crunchy. This dish can be served with rice, tostones (fried sliced plantain) or French fries and it's a life savior for a lot of people when hunger attacks and they can't wait long. They can be found in any big city, being Pollos Victorina the most famous ones.

    Useless trivia: when I was growing up and Pollos Victorina was new, the tostones were very hard and were eaten only if there was no fries or if you *really* had no choice. So hard we used to joke that they could be used as frisbees hehe.

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    Cerveza Presidente
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  • marielexoteria
  • Updated By marielexoteria on October 4, 2007
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Presidente Beer almost totally
    Presidente Beer almost totally
    "vestida de novia"
    by marielexoteria
    Presidente is the #1 beer amongs Dominicans. We simply loooooove a good cold one, so cold it's frosty on the outside of the bottle - and that's called "vestida de novia" (dressed with a wedding gown). Before there used to be only the one kind of beer, but now they have introduced a light version (haven't tried it tho, beer isn't really supposed to be light imo) and a 2-liter bottle (if my memory doesn't fail me).

  • Website: www.presidente.com.do (only in Spanish)
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    Aguinaldos
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  • marielexoteria
  • Updated By marielexoteria on December 2, 2007
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Güira (photo from www.tyhturismo.com) - Santo Domingo
    Güira (photo from
    www.tyhturismo.com)
    by marielexoteria,
    1 more photos
    An aguinaldo is a typical get together where people would go singing Christmas songs from door to door, accompanied by our Dominican drums, güira (a cylindrical percussion instrument made of a thin tin sheet, see picture) and accordion. These informal singers and music players are received merrily with ginger tea, coffee, hot chocolate, cookies, empanadas, etc. Sometimes they'd even collect money to make a big sancocho.

    The most traditional song is a merengue with a not-so-subtle güira sound, and it goes like this, with my loose translation:

    "Ábreme la puerta (2x, open the door [to me])
    que estoy la calle (because I'm [out] on the street)
    y dirá la gente (and people will say)
    que esto es un desaire. (that this is a turn down.)

    allá dentro veo (2x, I see in there)
    un bulto tapao, (a hidden something)
    no se si será un lechón asao (I don't know if it'll be a roasted pig)"

    These parties can be either prearranged some days (or weeks) in advanced or something created by the spur of the moment, usually after we Dominicans get our "doble sueldo" - which is a tax-free 13th pay we get together with our tax deductible December pay.

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    Colmado (convenience store)
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  • marielexoteria
  • Updated By marielexoteria on October 26, 2007
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Colmado (photo from www.el-bohio.com) - Santo Domingo
    Colmado (photo from
    www.el-bohio.com)
    by marielexoteria
    A colmado is a place where you basically go and buy food. The difference between a colmado and a supermarket is that you don't have the variety you have on the latter, and that the prices differ. You can even buy some bread, salami or ham, cheese, tomato and a spoon of butter and a drink and feast for a very cheap price. Here's also a place where you can play domino if there's enough people, as music is being played as loud as possible (hehe), or simply enjoy a few cold ones, talk to locals and have a good time.

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    Casabe (cassava bread)
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  • marielexoteria
  • Updated By marielexoteria on November 19, 2007
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Casabe (photo from cenia.gov.ve) - Santo Domingo
    Casabe (photo from
    cenia.gov.ve)
    by marielexoteria,
    1 more photos
    Casabe is a thin, flat bread made of yuca, also known as cassava. Casabe is one of the few things that we inherited from the Taíno people and that we still enjoy to this day. We have several sorts of casabe: natural, with garlic flavor and filled with different kinds of fruit/marmalade. You can find them in big packages or buffet size, roughly the size of a coffee cup. They're eaten mostly by themselves, as a between meals snack but a lot of Dominicans like eating casabe with chicharrón de cerdo (deep fried pork meat).

    Yuca is a root and comes in 2 sorts: sweet, which we cook (boil, in empanadas, in arepitas, fried) and eat right away and bitter, which must be processed before consumption and which is the one used to prepare casabe.

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    Street vendors
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  • marielexoteria
  • By marielexoteria on February 26, 2008
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Plantain and fruit vendor 2 - Santo Domingo
    Plantain and fruit vendor 2
    by marielexoteria, 3 more photos
    These people sell their merchandise (usually fresh fruits, herbs and veggies) on the streets. They start shouting or talking through a megaphone from early in the morning to sometimes early in the afternoon in the neighborhoods. These vendors are found everywhere in the country but since the pictures were taken in SD, I made the tip here.

    These people are important for those who don't want or can't go to the supermarket everyday if they're missing something for lunch or dinner.

    On the pictures on this tip you'll find 2 plantain and fruit vendors, a bread vendor and a drinkable water vendor (in that order).

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    Picadera (starters)
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  • marielexoteria
  • Updated By marielexoteria on November 19, 2007
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Pastelitos/small empanadas - Santo Domingo
    Pastelitos/small empanadas
    by marielexoteria, 2 more photos
    These starters I'm going to talk about are available pretty much all over the country, but the reason they're on my Santo Domingo page is because it's there where I've found and eaten them the most.

    The Dominican traditional starters or buffet food include:

    - Pastelitos: they're like small empanadas or savoury pastries. The difference between empanadas and pastelitos is that pastelitos are round and empanadas are in the shape of a half full moon. The filling possibilities are endless: chicken, ham, ground beef, vegetables...

    - Quipes: this is a recipe that we borrowed from the Lebanese/Middle Eastern community living in my country. It's basically a meat ball but made of bulgur and filled with chicken or ground beef and then deep fried.

    - Croquetas de pollo: or chicken croquettes. They can also be filled with ham and are pretty much like the ones you can find in Madrid.

    - Bollitos de yuca: like croquettes, but with yuca "dough" and filled normally with cheese.

    These dishes are usually the buffet food of choice for a lot of events because everyone likes them and because cooks can get creative with the choice of filling and spices. They're also sold in supermarkets, raw for you to fry and enjoy, and in some bakeries.

    All the photos in this tip are taken from the link below and are temporary until I can take pictures myself.

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    Some popular desserts (other than cake)
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  • marielexoteria
  • Updated By marielexoteria on November 19, 2007
  • Santo Domingo Page by marielexoteria
  • Dulce de tres leches (photo from Wikipedia) - Santo Domingo
    Dulce de tres leches (photo
    from Wikipedia)
    by marielexoteria, 2 more photos
    When it comes to desserts, we have a lot to choose from besides the traditional cake with yummy fillings and frosting. Some of these hidden gems in the Dominican cuisine are:

    - Conconetes: a conconete is basically a soft biscuit made with brown sugar and grated coconut. This was a simple thing to eat together with cherry or raspberry soda when I was child. They can be found on colmados.

    - Dulce de 3 leches: my personal favorite, a cake made of 3 milks (hence the name): evaporated milk, condensed milk and regular (whole) milk. The cake doesn't have butter, which makes it have a consistency sort of like sponge cake but it doesn't get soggy even after being soaked with the 3 milks.

    - Arepa: it's a sort of cake made of coconut milk and corn flour. It's normally made in an iron pot on top of hot coal, then it's covered with a metal lid with more hot coal on top.

    - Flan: flan is so popular that it used to be sold in cans, ready to eat, being the most common the caramel one. I've also seen, but not as often, coconut flan.

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