I came back from holidays with my kids from Costa Rica.  At home we don’t stop talking about food all the time, we are planning the next menu while we are eating, and we eat very well. When we headed to Costa Rica we were looking forward to a gratifying culinary experience. Our guide book at some point said something like “… a piquant seafood and coconut stew…”  that already got us very excited.

 One of our first meals was near the airport in San Jose in what they call Sodas; simply a cheap buffet geared to locals and working people. It has the ever present Rice and beans, stewed meat ropa vieja style, fried chicken, fried fish (tilapia) some sort of chicken item, yuca, and other roots and cabbage and lettuce salad. Surprisingly this was one of our favorite spots; we were by all means going to avoid the “high end” cuisine of Costa Rica simply because I refuse to pay expensive meals for dishes that I can do better, or it’s simply not worth it. I want authentic local food, what the locals eat, the way they eat it. So this place was full of street workers, garbage removal personnel, nurses, you name it.

In the Pacific coast we hit various other Sodas and had the regular Casados which is one plate of rice, Beans, some protein wether it’s meat, fish or chicken and salad. Once or twice it’s ok but after a while I realized that there wern’t many other options. We started to get a little dissapointed, began cooking ourselves with great fresh fish caught on-the-spot and that was nice but not what I was looking for.

Even more frustrating was to find that there was an inmense lack of fresh produce. We were going a little crazy and really wondering how come people don’t plant, with such soil and great weather how come I can’t seem to find veggie gardens everywhere.

Eventually we found after a while, after many misses in the Atlantic The dish that should be rpinted in their $1,000 colones bills or maybe even be the center of the Costa Rican flag. The Dish: the piquant, seafood and coconut stew that blew me and my son’s mind; or tastebuds rather.

Rondon (from Round down)

A heavily Caribbean-influenced stew that reminisced of Cocina Bahiana, food from Bahia, Brazil. It was all that the book said and more. We had our first one at a place called Maxi’s close to Punta Uva, we were served a huge bowl of it with pieces of crab, fish, root vegetables and a thick coconut soup base, spicy and pungeant. Outstanding!

This was my best find in Costa Rica, other than the glorious fresh tropical fruits like a long pod called by them Guava (nothing to do with the Guava we know in the US) the fresh Cocoa pod (which has been my favorite fruit for years) the rest of the Tico food was quite disappointing. The Rondon did it and made up for everything else.

Tico breakfast

GUAVA, THE FUKIN WEIRD POD....