Where should I eat in Punta Cana, and which local food or drink is worth trying?

La bandera takes its name from the Dominican flag and is the standard lunch: white rice, habichuelas guisadas, and a stewed or braised meat, usually with a salad or tostones alongside. Mangú is the breakfast counterpart, green plantain boiled and mashed with onion; served with fried cheese, fried salami and egg it becomes mangú con los tres golpes. Sancocho is the heavy one — a long-cooked stew of several meats with yuca, plantain and squash, cooked for occasions rather than ordered casually.

The coast supplies the rest. Pescado frito, whole fried fish with tostones, is the beach lunch, and the fishing settlements along the strip — El Cortecito and Cabeza de Toro, with Bayahibe further west inside Cotubanamá National Park — are where it is cooked closest to the boats. Chivo guisado, stewed goat, is the inland specialty, and the goats in this part of the island browse on wild oregano, which is why the dish is associated with the east and the northwest rather than with the capital.

To drink, mamajuana is the one to try: rum, red wine and honey steeped over a mix of tree bark and herbs, sold everywhere along this coast. Dominican coffee is grown in the island's highlands, which rise to Pico Duarte at 10,128 feet (3,087 m), the highest point in the Caribbean. Presidente is the national lager, and chinola — passion fruit — makes the best of the fresh juices.

For somewhere with actual town life rather than resort frontage, Higüey, the seat of La Altagracia province, is the nearest option inland and has ordinary comedores serving la bandera at lunchtime.

The fish places at El Cortecito are open to the sand with plastic chairs and a kitchen behind, and the catch is laid out on ice at the front for you to pick from — the fishing boats pull up on the same beach a few yards away.

Merengue and bachata are both inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and in practice that means music is part of the meal rather than a separate outing — colmados, the neighborhood shops that double as bars, are where most Dominicans eat, drink and dance, and they outnumber restaurants many times over along this coast. If you want the real thing, the colmado is it.

• Breakfast — Mangú with los tres golpes, taken early; it is a working breakfast and rarely served late.
• Lunch — La bandera at a comedor, which is the main meal of the Dominican day and served from around noon.
• Evening — Fried fish at a beach place in El Cortecito, then mamajuana at a colmado with whatever is playing.

Strict customs rules apply to goods taken into and out of the Dominican Republic, and anything prohibited or liable to duty must be declared — relevant if you plan to carry rum, coffee or mamajuana home. The customs declaration is part of the same digital entry and exit form that every passenger must complete online before arriving and again before leaving. A yellow fever certificate may be required depending on your circumstances. Bayahibe and the fishing villages on the park coast are weather-dependent in the June 1 to November 30 hurricane season, when boats stay in and the beach kitchens close.

See the Punta Cana things-to-do question in this group for the Bayahibe and Higüey legs that these meals fit into, and the when-to-visit question for the months when the fishing boats are reliably going out.