The Dopamine Diaries: Delicious & Gluten Free in Mexico

Mexico had ALWAYS been my dream destination..

So after many years of waiting, I finally got to go. It was a once in a life time trip as I was staying in a luxury resort, Dreams Villamanga, just down the road from Puerto Vallarta on the pacific coast of Mexico. On one side of the resort was the Pacific Ocean and on the other side was the vast expanse of the jungle-clad Sierra Madre Mountains.

The hotel was stunning and had gourmet a la carte dining, 24 hour room service and even a Jacuzzi on the balcony. My room had the most amazing views of the mountains and jungle.

If you know me personally, you will know that unfortunately a lot of sh*t went down on that trip which is why I haven't written about it before. What should have been my (very expensive) dream trip, turned into a life-changing nightmare half way through the holiday.

After suffering several years of post-traumatic stress from these, and following events, I thought perhaps writing about it might actually be cathartic and therapeutic for me. I firmly believe that bottling things up, ignoring problems and pretending things didn't happen is never good for your mental health. Let it out!

However, for those readers who don't actually know me, I know y'all are here for the food so I'm going to skip past all that and focus on the positives of the trip. I've picked out all the best memories which were mainly food! My daily affirmation is 'focus on the positives, not the negatives' so here we go.

With my one true love...food!

Before we get started on the food, I want to share my most favouite memory of that trip - seeing whales in the Pacific Ocean. It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen. The whole boat went silent as we watched these whales jumping out of the water. It was something I had always wanted to see and something that I will never forget.

So, the food. The resort had quite a few restaurants and each one had a gluten free (GF) labelled menu. Heaven! Travelling is pretty hard when you are gluten free and can be pretty stressful but this took away all my stress as I knew what I was eating was safe.

Breakfast time was literally living the dream for me. Everyday I had room service deliver a delicious breakfast to the room to enjoy on the balcony with views over the jungle.

Mexican food is my favourite and I had the huevos rancheros (corn tortillas with eggs and spicy sauce) most days, pictured above and below. It was so good, I'll have to recreate it one day.

On the days when I didn't have that, there were bacon and eggs and fresh fruit to enjoy.

Dinners were just as enjoyable as there was a choice of so many restaurants - all with gluten free options. The adults only Italian restaurant was my favourite, Portofino.

The food was fresh and exquisite. I tried sea bass carpaccio for the first time (below) and they had caprese salads and salon with ratatouille.

Another restaurant that served fabulous food was called Oceana and served seafood and chicken dishes. The food really was amazing quality.

In town you could get authentic Mexican food. I had always wanted to try fresh grilled fish tacos in Mexico. I used to be obsessed with tacos, they were my favourite.

So getting to do that was great. Mexican tacos are usually on naturally gluten free corn tacos but I found that you had to ask for the corn tortillas because apparently the visiting Americans prefer the wheat ones so they automatically assume you want those ones, even though they are not traditional Mexican food.

They were so simple but so fresh an delicious. I also had fresh guacamole with chips and some cerviche. All simple and in a small little restaurant, nothing fancy, not like the hotel but just as good quality and flavour.

I would recommend anyone gluten free stay at this resort. It really is fantastic for eating gluten free as well as being luxurious and having stunning surroundings.

Here are some more photos from the trip: