Follow-up to Previous Post - the Dinner that SHOULD Have Been

I've been working in the yard all morning thinking about food and last night's crappy dinner. With all the beautiful ingredients here this is what I would have liked to have eaten:

In my imaginary Puerto Rico restaurant there is really good, fresh food.
Appetizers: a really good fruit and cheese plate. No, not the white processed block of queso blanco with jelled fruit paste, a nice little plate with a flavorful cheese like cambazola, or smoked cheddar, manchego or port wine cheddar and some lovely fresh fruit like - HELLO- mango, carambola, lechosa. Stuff that is ripe now. Maybe a flower petal or two for garnish or a rambutan. There could even be a nice reduced glaze of parcha drizzled on top. (I think I'm going to the supermarket after this to get some ingredients).

Bread: pan criolla is a nice bread...why drown it in garlic oil? In my restaurant it is heated and served with a pat of butter on the side. Or butter with a few fresh herbs mixed in. It couldn't be in a fancy shape because of the heat, but it could be in a nice dish instead of a plastic cup.

Drinks: I am not an alcohol person often, but on special occasions I like a decent drink. Why aren't there any? Why is it all sweet? I just want a lemon drop, or something tangy with all the citrus that grows here, why not a carambola champagne thing? Why not a mango club soda thing?

Main course: the main course is a simple normal size piece of red snapper, or bar jack, or maji maji with grill marks on it (NO OIL) and a nice strip of mango salsa with culantro, cebolla, carambola on it OR a simple chicken breast without bones and skin and fat dripping off it. Maybe it has a nice basil (albohacca?) pesto on it or a culantro pesto over it.

Side dish: not a block of plantain mush and not a wad of beans or upside down cup of rice. Why not a lighter green mango or green papaya salad? A pickled cucumber salad? Why not something simple with carrots or a simple tomato/basil/olive oil salad? Or the onion/guineo thing? Just not a giant block of white. Or a real salad with nuts, herbs, carrots, tomatoes, mandarin orange slices, sunflower seeds...

Dessert: my restaurant does include molten lava cakes, but here in Puerto Rico where chocolate is not king I would have upside down passion fruit cake, mango cake, how about a fresh passion fruit or mango or lime sorbet with an almond cookie as a sidecar? How about just a fruit cup of perfectly cut local ripe fruits in a little whipped cream instead of the dreadful syrupy lechosa dulce that doesn't even resemble fruit. Why not toasted coconut over a slice of banana cake or even a hot fudge sundae? Or a tropical twist on the idea and have guineos, with 2 different sorbets and whipped cream and almonds with a drizzle of reduced mango or parcha syrup of it?

End of meal: you have to have a little bit of coffee to end things with a little wafer of a cookie of some kind.

So this is what I wanted on my anniversary and of course nothing here will ever be fresh or come close which is a shame. There are so many wonderful ingredients...I guess I'll have to cook something today!