the oysters in Johnny’s special sauce… 14 oysters for 100 pesos

On the beach just north of Puerto Vallarta’s malecon you can find Johnny, the singing oyster vendor. Even if you don’t buy oysters he will often croon you a little song before he’s off in search of other customers.

I was hesitant to try raw oysters sold by a beach vendor, but our neighbour wasn’t, and after he had sampled one oyster, he ordered the special of 14 oysters for 100 pesos (about $8)! Afterwards he said they were delicious, but had worried about chipping a tooth on the shells. I was more curious about whether he would survive the night!

The next time we saw our neighbour, he had just been jogging miles along the beach before breakfast, and I knew then that we had to try those oysters!

Johnny selling oysters on the beach in PV

We caught hold of Johnny and ordered a batch of oysters to go with our three o’clock ‘cubeta de Coronitas’.

un cubito de Coronitas

And here’s Johnny, serving up his oysters, with some clues as to what goes in his secret sauce. Part of the video, we are talking about his debut performance singing at the ‘Canto del Mar’ beach bar the next day, the first time he had ever done a live show. And our neighbour decides he might like to try another oyster….

Unfortunately it was too dark to record anything on my little camera in the beach bar, so instead I present Johnny singing Happy Birthday to our neighbours at the next palapa over: