Meals - Playa Del Carmen

Traditionally, Mexicans eat a light breakfast very early, a snack of tacos or eggs in mid-morning, lunch (the main meal of the day) around two o'clock or later - in theory followed by a siesta, but decreasingly so, it seems - and a late, light supper. Eating a large meal at lunchtime can be a great moneysaver - almost every restaurant serves a cut-price comida corrida.

Breakfast ( desayuno ) in Mexico can consist simply of coffee (see "Drinking") and pan dulce - sweet rolls and pastries that usually come in a basket; you pay for as many as you eat. More substantial breakfasts consist of eggs in any number of forms (many set breakfasts include huevos al gusto : eggs any way you like them), and at fruit juice places you can have a simple licuado (see "Drinking") fortified with raw egg (blanquillo). Freshly squeezed orange juice ( jugo de naranja ) is always available from street stalls in the early morning.

Snack meals mostly consist of some variation on the taco/enchilada theme (stalls selling them are called taquerías), but tortas - rolls heavily filled with meat or cheese or both, garnished with avocado and chile and toasted on request - are also wonderful, and you'll see take-out torta stands everywhere. Failing that, you can of course always make your own snacks with bread or tortillas, along with fillings such as avocado or cheese, from shops or markets. Sandwiches - on soft, tasteless bread, and meanly filled - and hamburguesas are almost always awful.

You can of course eat a full meal in a restaurant at any time of day, but you'd do well to adopt the local habit of taking your main meal at lunchtime , since this is when comidas corridas (set meals, varied daily) are served, from around 1 to 5pm: in more expensive places the same thing may be known as the menu del día or menu turístico. Price is one good reason: often you'll get four courses for US$5/£3 or less, which can't be bad. More importantly, though, the comida will include food that doesn't normally appear on menus - home-made soups and stews, local specialities, puddings, and above all vegetables that are otherwise a rarity - a welcome chance to escape from the budget traveller's staples of eggs, tacos and beans.

A typical comida will consist of "wet" soup, probably vegetable, followed by "dry" soup - most commonly sopa de arroz (simply rice seasoned with tomato or chile), or perhaps a plate of vegetables, pasta, beans or guacamole (avocado mashed with onion, and maybe tomato, lime juice and chile). Then comes the main course, followed by pudding, usually fruit, flan or pudin (crème caramel-like concoctions), or rice pudding. The courses are brought at great speed, sometimes all at once, and in the cheaper places you may have no idea what you're going to get until it arrives, since there'll simply be a sign saying comida corrida and the price.

Some places also offer set meals in the evening, but this is rare, and on the whole going out to eat at night is much more expensive.