Boston’s Pizza restaurant, in Merida’s North End, continues to be a popular restaurant for our fellow extranjeros, due, no doubt, to our moderately glowing review on these very pages. Please consider this post an addendum to that review, the gist of which you have likely already gotten from the title of this post.

For the uninitiated, Boston’s “Gourmet Pizza” is located next to Gran Plaza, making it a perfect ending to a day of consumerism, or, in our case, fruitless futon-shopping. Its darkened booths, cheap beer, and promises of “Pasta Tuesday” make it the perfect place for when you don’t want a GREAT meal, but would maybe like to get re-acquainted with ricotta cheese. On Wednesday night, it was perfect for us. Jillian had an individual pizza, and I had a French dip, something I had been craving for months.

Three o’clock in the morning rolled around, and I had some of the worst stomach trouble I have yet experienced here in Mexico. This was followed by 12 trips to the bathroom (I counted), plus two more for throwing up, all before sunrise. I spent all day yesterday in a delerium, fading in and out of sleep, unable to hold down even water, until about 4:00 o’clock yesterday afternoon. I am only now holding down liquids, and am utterly dehydrated, shaky, and cold-sweaty.

As I writhed around that night, one of the things that made what WAS coming out of my backside, start coming out my front, was the realization of just how horrifying the meal I selected was. A green salad, which may have been the culprit but which I for some reason don’t blame, and a roast beef sandwich of bizarre texture, color, and flavor, accompanied by a bowl of room temperature beef broth. It seemed fine at the time…my body told me otherwise late that night.

So what is the point of this post? Just that, I got sicker than I ever have been in my life, let alone since I have lived here in Mexico, not from my usual diet of street food, ice cubes, cocinas economicas, or Tacos of Questionable Origin. No, I got terribly ill eating from a chain restaurant, serving so-called “American” food, in an establishment striving for “modern” standards. The amount of quotes I just used should indicate the tone of my voice. That says to me, that travelers here should ignore travel warnings. As I have said before, eat what’s being passed out of the back of a truck. Drink in the Jamaica punch served to you in a jam jar filled with grainy crushed ice. Take the ham off your Fiesta Taco and eat it with relish. Crunch through a marquesita that was cooked on the back of an old piece of galvanized roofing. Whatever you do, just don’t eat a roast beef sandwich from a chain restaurant.