Hungry? Hate Traffic? Try Uber Eats Costa Rica

A few weeks ago I decided to give a try to Uber Eats.  This is an offshoot of Uber, the ride sharing folks that I use often for convenience, security, pricing, and pleasant drivers!

Uber Eats will pick up your food from  a ton of restaurants and deliver them directly to your door (or your car or ????) for about $2.25. However if you use the code at the end of this post, your first order is free.

To use them, it is best to download their Uber Eats app from the App Store or from the Play Store. Signup and login are pretty simple and once done you will be presented with a long list of dining options, sorted by type of food.

Interested?  Read on….

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Thanksgiving in Costa Rica 2013

Trying to find a good and comprehensive list of restaurants that offer a good Thanksgiving feast in Costa Rica is difficult.  Several sites and user groups offer a few, but nothing really complete.  Saying that, I am starting this list. It contains almost nothing, but I am asking that my readers:

1. Add in the comments any restaurants that you know offer a Thanksgiving dinner in CR.  Include location and cost and opinion if possible. I will add it here on this blog page.

2. Spread the word by sending this direct link to anyone who you think might add to this list… i.e. eaters 🙂

Permalink: http://blog.therealcostarica.com/2013/11/26/thanksgiving-in-costa-rica-2013

The List – Please be proactive and add your favs in the comments! I know this is lame… so help me!!

As of Turkey Day at 7:30 AM, this experiment was not working well… only a handful of recommendations.  Oh well…. Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!  Now, go pig out. As on your birthday, calories do not count today.

Central Valley

EL PATIO DEL BALMORAL
(2-221-1700 / http://ElPatioDelBalmoral.com http://ElPatioDelBalmoral.com  /  https://facebook.com/pages/El-Patio-Del-Balmoral/138691386226515 )
Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, along with waldorf salad, mashed camote/sweet potato, calabasa/pumpkin cake, CRANBERRY SAUCE and a glass of wine (regular menu also).
HOURS: noon till they run out (they close the kitchen at 9:45pm)
PRICE: 14,000/$28 (INCLUDES Impuesto and service fee).  Reservations suggested but not mandatory.
LOCATION: San Jose-Centro – Avenida Central – between Calle 7th and 9th

Wyndham Hotel Herradura  (old Ramada)

Autopista General Canas        3 Miles South of Intl Airport, San Jose, CR
506-2209-9800         506-2209-9800
Excellent food, but bring your own cranberry sauce!
http://www.wyndham.com/hotels/costa-rica/san-jose/wyndham-san-jose-herradura-hotel-convention-center/hotel-overview

14,000 colones.

Begins at 7 PM

Sportsman’s Lodge

Downtown San Jose is the SPORTSMAN LOUNGE  $22.50  all you can eat, glass of wine .  Half price for 65 and over.  Same for women and kids
Caribbean   Thanks to Sarah

La Costa Papito
Puerto Viejo, Limón
$20.00 (I’m assuming this is cada uno)
Tel: 2750 0080
http://www.lacostadepapito.com/

Outback Jack’s
Puerto Viejo, Limón
$20.00/ per
tel: 2637 0407

Casino Club Colonial always has a Thanksgiving meal.
Here’s the link for this year. It’s $25 adn includes a beer or wine.

South Pacific

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A Nasty Little Parasite – Parents Take Care!

I did a fair amount of work a couple of years ago when researching the various illnesses and  health issues common to Costa Rica.  I thought I had a pretty good handle on it… then some nice lady sent me an email about Chagas Disease… so I checked that out and added it.  Well I guess Chagas was not the end because today, I will introduce you to Angiostrongylus costaricensis, a nasty little parasite that has made sick and sadly killed some very young children. Of the 42 cases treated since 2003, 16 were girls and 26 were boys under the age of 14 years. At serious risk are the youngest… under nine years old.

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Travels with Della and Joanna

This post was actually sent in as a comment to an earlier post about crime in Costa Rica, but after reading it, I thought it not really relevant to crime… or maybe it was as these ladies apparently did a lot of cool things and experienced nothing but a fun time.

However, I did not want to discard it, and I decided it might be of general interest to a lot of readers, especially to older folks considering a trip to Costa Rica and more especially to older women who might like to travel together! Here is the account or the trip taken by Della and her female companion and written by Della.

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Costa Rica Eateries is Back

There certainly is no shortage of restaurants and sodas in Costa Rica. The problem as anywhere, is to find the good ones with great food, decent service and reasonable prices. With that in mind, I opened a Forum a couple of years ago so people could post their favorites and warn others away from those places that are not-so-good.

I had an issue a few months ago, and was forced to remove and reinstall the web site. Today I was able to get it back online with all the original Posts and reviews. There is also a nice section for trading recipes!

All my readers are invited to join and give your opinion, good or bad, on any restaurant, soda or other eatery here in Costa Rica. The Web Site is Costa Rica Eateries and I hope you will call visit and add your favorite places to eat in Costa Rica. Enjoy!

Travels to Monteverde, Costa Rica

As my regular readers know, Luisa and I enjoy mini-vacations around Costa Rica. We do these regularly, and I often like to blog about what we did, the hotels where we stayed, and general info that may be useful if you are traveling or living here and are looking for an escape.

Recently, my daughter Karen, 40 something mom of three, well actually two but we often count her husband as one of the kids, came a visitin’ from Chicago, and we all made the four hour trek to Monteverde, Costa Rica. With us was son Bill, his wifey and my granddaughter, Lucy all of whom live here.

I had the cool idea of renting a van and driver for the trip. Normally I drive, but there is a 10-15 miles stretch of nasty road and I figured I’d save wear and tear on the car and use taxis when we got there. Turned out to be a great idea. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every so often!

If this interests you, read on!

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Costa Rican Typico – Typical!

On a road trip, I stopped at a little “Typico,” which mean typical restaurant, in Costa Rica. I had eaten and swallowed everything in my cooler from chocolate covered coffee beans to Mentos to two bottles of coconut water. Wasn’t doing the job. Finally, after many hold ups for construction, I made it to a place. I ordered the “casado de la casa,” which is the married plate. Basically a large amount of ingredients end up on the plate, married. If I wandered to the restaurant across the road, they’d have the same thing. It’s actually a sure thing at any typical restaurant. And it’s cheap. If you stay away from the pork rinds, nothing’s fried and it’s pretty good for you.

I pulled out my computer to read something I had downloaded and to my surprise! Internet connection. Who’d have thought in the middle of Central America, in a small mountain town I could read about the latest news on the latest book that’s come out about Diana. It’s freaky. A marriage made in heaven.

Thanks for stopping in to this blog.

Discover Spiritual Truths in Costa Rica

Someone told me spiritual truths all stem from the same root. Every few months, I get invited to a very typical, Costa Rican family event. Kids birthdays go like this: give a gift; have a cup of coffee; eat rice and chicken with macaroni topped with potato chips all on a plastic plate handed to you by the host or the person in charge of the kitchen that day (usually a tia -aunt); sing happy birthday; eat cake; bash pinata; more coffee; ice cream cone; and then mill about until it feels socially acceptable to leave.

This event went as usual except for the blessing of the birthday child, her mother, and their home. A woman took out her rosary, a prayer book, and older ladies gathered in a U around a small nativity set with a candle burning in the middle. In my earlier days I would have scoffed and rolled my eyes at the whole thing. Life sat me down and taught me a thing or two. I’ve mellowed. Now I love listening to the rosary. I can watch the mouths of the women race over the prayers in harmony. I can laugh because after many years, I can still whip out a quick Hail Mary with the best of them.

It is such a peaceful thing to pray. No matter the language or religion. It is a moment of thinking about unity, love, forgiveness, and others. Upon finishing, the ladies were served up treats by our newly blessed mom and her three-year old daughter. My daughter came up to me and asked for more candy. My son woke up from his nap, and little ladies who’d come to pray all left for home, holding a piece of birthday cake in their hand and a rosary in the other.

I’m Returning to My Roots

When Whole Foods Market came to my town in the United States, I was ecstatic. I’d shop for an hour or two, milling over which brand of organic eggs or beef or celery or salad dressing to buy.* On my way out, I’d load three neatly packed, sturdy, brown papers bags into the back seat of my car. After awhile, I purchased the cloth bags to tote the vegetables home. I even brought back those sturdy brown bags to use again.

Then, I moved to Costa Rica. A plastic bag free-for-all. There’s no question these bags with handles are handy, and since it does rain in Costa Rica, paper bags aren’t always a good solution especially when one has to take the bus or walk home. But the other day when I came home, my AAA batteries (which are encased in plastic to begin with) were inside a plastic bag inside another plastic bag. After a shopping trip, I will easily accumulate about 15 bags. Recycycling? Remember what it was like in the 1980s to recycle? Lugging the bags to faraway bins. If you were lucky you lived by the Goodwill. That’s kind of what it is like here. I moved to a city that used to recycle, but the program stopped. Now I’m back to driving my bottles to a bin, or finding a fellow I can take them to who will gladly haul take them from me every few weeks.

There’s no place to recycle these bags other than the bathroom. For those who do not know, living in Costa Rica is much like living on a boat: you can’t flush the toilet paper down the bowl. Those plastic bags come in handy for the little garbage pail that sits in all bathrooms. But we just don’t use the bathroom enough to recyle about 30 bags a week I end up brining home. I feel like I’m drowning in the things.

But, I’m returning to my roots. While shopping for curtains, my daughter and I came across this great orange, zippy looking pull-cart. Kind of an up-to-date, stylish model of the metal cart with two wheels.

Hey! Let’s get it. It’s not in the budget, but think of the gas we’ll save by walking to the store!

We choose orange over all the other bright colors.

The next day, we walked to the grocery store. I put the grocery cart next up to the cashier and started unloading the items onto the belt. My daughter started in on her deep desire for M&Ms. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the grocery boy pulling out little white plastic bags.

NO! Stop!

I had even brought cloth bags to pack the vegetables in. I snipped at Coco to forget the candy and dashed for the vegetables. The young man looked at me as if I was looney. In a manner of ten seconds, he’d already packed up about eight plastic bags with an average of two items in each bag. My daughter still loomed long-faced by the chocolate and the cashier was ready for money. I felt like a defensive player on the basketball court: no matter how big I spread my butt, I couldn’t keep my court safe.

The grocery boy flung up his hands, rolled his eyes (crazy Gringa!) and went back to the his bench. I paid and began taking items out of the plastic. I left a pineapple and some plantains in bags so they wouldn’t leak in the cart. It’s not easy being green. But darned if we aren’t going to keep trying. We tipped the orange cart back and started walking for home.

*You can get fresh, organic food delivered right to your door in the Central Valley of Costa Rica from the fine people at NaturaStyle.

Salsa Lizano and Other Stuff

Where can I buy that??

The first time I started to get that question was right after I posted my daughter-in-law’s recipe for Gallo Pinto. Her recipe is, in my not too humble opinion, the absolute hands-down best I have had anywhere in all the years I have lived here and the years before when I was a visitor. She got the recipe from her mom and who knows before that… but it is superb! Those of you who know me are aware perhaps that I am not exactly an amateur eater!

Gallo Pinto, the basin ingredients are rice and beans, is perhaps the most famous of all Costa Rica foods and is served mostly as a breakfast dish, but also for other meals or even as a snack.

However, it is the seasoning ingredients that make the dish!

The key ingredient in her Gallo Pinto, or for that matter a large number of Costa Rican typical food dishes is Salsa Lizano. This dark brown sauce has a pretty unique flavor, and not a few tourists have loaded up on it before returning home. The problem, of course, is that they run out! That’s when I get the emails.

So, I decided to add a small online store to The REAL Costa Rica web site that sells not only Salsa Lizano and Costa Rica coffee, etc, but a variety of other foods gifts, clothes (check out the baby clothes!) and even a Costa Rica flag.

To get to the store, just click here. Then just click on the Salsa Lizano category.

Of course there are also the usual books on Costa Rica, but I also threw in stuff like music and DVD’s as well as learning Spanish. Just for yucks, I also added references to Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama as I get a lot of email from people asking about those countries.

All stuff is shipped from the USA. Enjoy!