(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)
Looking back at my blog posts from Costa Rica, it’s quite apparent that I was fascinated by all of the wildlife that I saw. I hadn’t expected to see so much diversity and to see so much of it in the wild. While you never hear of anybody going to Costa Rica just for the food, I enjoyed almost all of the food too! Today’s blog revisits some of the food (and related photos) from my trip.
Except for the fanciest hotel restaurants, dining in Costa Rica was generally informal. I really appreciated this, as the temperatures were sometimes scalding and anything more than a t-shirt and shorts would have been very uncomfortable for me.
My first few posts commented on the fact that all Costa Rican meals (even breakfast) appeared to include rice and beans. For breakfast, they were generally combined and cooked with other vegetables to create gallo pinto. For other meals, they were usually cooked separately but were still in close proximity on the plate! The photo at the very top of this post is from my river safari in the Caño Negro region and shows a typical Costa Rican lunch. In addition to the rice and beans, there was usually meat (chicken, beef or fish), some vegetables and a small salad.
As much as I enjoyed rice and beans, I started to get restless and try lunch and dinner dishes that did not feature rice and beans (they were almost unavoidable for breakfast). Most menus included some “pan-American” cuisine such as fajitas, so I tried that in a couple of places.
While the water was safe and very good, there were too many interesting beverages to ignore. Almost every restaurant offered juices, smoothies and milkshakes made from the local fruit. Pineapples, papayas and passion fruit were especially common, but there were usually about 8 different choices. I particularly enjoyed the limonada hierbabuena shown above: it was made with the local lemons (green!) and a variety of herbs (most notably mint). It was extremely refreshing. I don’t think Costa Rica exports much of its beer but the mild local cerveza Imperial complemented rice and beans quite well.
Later on in the trip, I really began to crave fresh vegetables. The salad shown above had a very tasty dressing and featured lots of palmitos (hearts of palm). I still needed dessert afterwards but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.
And speaking of desserts: I generally didn’t need any after a meal with rice and beans, but I did try the occasional dessert after a lighter meal. I started eating the cheese-stuffed plantains (shown above) before remembering to take a picture: this was definitely the best dessert I had in Costa Rica. The salty local cheese was a great counterpoint to the other very sweet ingredients. And who knew that honey and caramel could combine so well?
This almost finishes my Costa Rican reports. The only confirmed journey on my horizon is a relatively short (but still intercontinental) trip in just under 3 weeks’ time. I’ll be dropping the usual hints about that trip, as well as providing some more information on the exciting personal news I mentioned in my previous post. Stay tuned!
