What's your favourite Costa Rican food ?

LOL. Costa Rica is certainly not known for great food though I suppose there must be some dishes that are recommendable. Personally I find the food bland and undistinguished.

One thing is that the chicken and eggs tend to be very fresh, and there's a lot of seafood - my friend ordered lobster once that he said was great. But I don't think it had much to do with the way it was cooked.

I'll be interested to see if others here on this forum have any great dishes to recommend. Personally I find Tico food to be less than exciting or delicious, in general.

Hi samramon,

Thank you for your reply .
I would also be interested to know if anyone else can recommend (or unrecommend!) any dishes... Thank you in advance!

Julie

At restaurants, I frequently order the Casado plate, the "typical" CR meal.  It typically has fish or meat, rice, beans, salad, a vegetable, and some fried plantains, all for a reasonable price. 

Something I want to try to make is Chorreadas - corn pancakes.  I've found some recipes online but have not yet made them.

Otherwise there is not much "special" about CR food.  Seafood is generally good if fresh.  The beef in CR is not very tender - it is best to buy Argentinian beef for home cooking.  Good restaurants often have good quality imported steaks.

Lobster I've had in CR is typically rather small lobster tails, often served with three tails on a plate to get sufficient meat.  I prefer boiled lobster dipped in melted butter, but here it is typically grilled, sometimes flavored with garlic, and served without butter.

Redbeard, I had heard that  these 'tails'  are local 'Crayfish'.  Meaty & tasty!
Agree with the Casado as the best bang for you buck....which it what it did cost when we first moved here!
I do like the non-salted Natilla mixed with a little icing sugar, which then tastes like Clotted English cream.

I think my most pleasant surprise were the huge freshwater river prawns,

I had my Costa Rica'n brothers in law take me fishing with flashlights at night in the local rivers, I was amazed how large they were, frankly I like them better then Costa Rica shrimp or Costa Rica lobster from the Ocean.

My favorite as at Cuenca restaurant on the way to Canada, just after Mira Mar

Cruz

Dos Pinos Ice Cream, Plain white rice.

There is nothing unique to Costa Rica food. They have vegetables, rice, only one variety of potato, awful awful beef and pork chops. They have no unique seasonings. Eating any dish here is just like the last one because Costa Rican food is bland, dull and not worth the effort to leave the house for something that is just plain tasteless.

Using a recipe for cooking this food is a waste of time. Learn to cook before you come here and make your own meals at home. Oh yes, also bring all your favorite spices and herbs with you because you won't find them here.

The food in Costa Rica has no comparison (unless you consider terrible as a comparison) to the food I ate when I lived in the U.S. NONE!! You know why you have never seen a restaurant specializing in this food in the U.S.? You know the answer already! If not, think for moment!

If you are moving here, bring a crock pot so you can cook the beef for eight hours. If you like tasteless rubbery beef, then come on down and bring some good teeth with you.

I do agree the food here is different. But, your statement about the U.S. not having any Costa Rican Restaurants is not correct. Not a bunch, but some.   irazuchicago.com/

Ok, but what do the food critics say about the place?  Has any food critic ever eaten there? You pointed out one restaurant that serves Costa Rica style food. I found one (off the internet) in the Northeast of the U.S. that is a Mediterranean restaurant run by two Tica sisters that also serve some Tico dishes. However, may I point out that my main point about the food here is a sub par quality, especially the protien. Your Chicago restaurant serves many dishes with the same name as here, but I'll bet a hundred dollars that the "Chorizo" being served there is of the authentic Mexican flavor and not the plain (very plain without flavor) and simple "pork" chorizo served here. I'll also bet that the steak they are serving is flavorful and tender because they would'nt be stupid enough to import their beef and pork from Costa Rica. There is only one place I know of here (near enough to where I live) that serves the kind of steak and quality of food that no other resaturant in Costa Rica serves. That restaurant is owned by a Gringo and he imports his steaks from the U.S. It is expensive, but several times a year I go there just to realize how good food can be again. When I say expensive I mean equal to a fine dining restaurant in any big city in the U.S. I also noticed that you did not mention what you thought about the cuisine here. Do you even live in Costa Rica?

Sopa: crema de pejibaye. Everything else here is crap. They haven't invented a sauce since 1920(garbage Lisano).They think all meat is to be pressure cooked. They think black pepper is spicy.
If you add a little meat to Gallo Pinto you didn't make it right.
If you do eat something good here the idea was imported. Cevice for instance. Peru. Truth be known Gallo Pinto is Nicaraguan, from the heyday of Grenada.
I imagine even the crema de pejibaye is Peruvian.
Personally, I can't think of a single thing invented-created in CR.Food or other. Nada. Zip.
The "cowboys" don't forge their own horse shoes and are clueless as to what a whip is.
Update: They plan a space program....soon after they learn how to construct a bridge and pave a road.
Update " They gave up the idea of paving and used something more familiar too them ! Concrete !.
Update: They hired the Spanish to do the work.
Update: The Spaniards may move on since their equipment is disappearing.
Update: The Chinese may take over:
Update: They will bring their own EVERYTHING like when they built the stadium.

Arnold, I have a question for you, do you live in Costa Rica and if so, why?

My first reply was based on the idea that the question was about restaurant food or "dishes" and so that's why I answered the way I did. The fact is that the majority of people are going to say what I said - some much less diplomatically - that Costa Rica is not known for great food.

That said I will tell you about some of the things I do like that I have had only in Costa Rica:

pejibayes. They are found at many grocery stores in a big pot of hot water as they have to be boiled for quite a while to become soft. Sometimes you can find them being sold on the streets. I love them! Their taste seems to me impossible to describe. I personally like them with mayonnaise and sometimes just with salt. They are my #1 favorite food in Costa Rica. I can eat a few almost every day. An old timer Tico told me that they have complete protein like eggs and are very healthy. He was near 70 and living up on a mountain in a shack with no plumbing and no electricity and no transportation - not even a horse - and was healthy and strong, so I believe him about pejibayes being healthy!

Pipas - Pipas are sold in San Jose' on the street and they are young coconuts with coconut water in them. A guy punches a hole in the coconut and puts a straw in it and that is a "pipa".

Of course coconut water is all the rage now in the USA but Costa Rica has had it for ages! I find that when I start to come down with a flu or cold, pipas help me fight it off. Not to mention that they are just a great thirst quencher on a hot day and taste great in general! Getting them fresh that way is one thing the coconut water fad in the USA does not allow for. There used to be one place (not sure if you can still get this or not) on the outskirts of San Ramon where you can go in and get a quart bottle filled up with fresh coconut water. A guy at the store would open up half a dozen or so pipa coconuts and pour it right into your jar for you, for under $1.  Here in the U.S. coconut water goes for up to $2/ 12 oz.

Cafe' con leche - Costa Rica has excellent coffee and I like the way they make it even at little hole in the wall restaurants. You have to pay for each cup, which drives most Americans a little nuts since  Costa Rica is a coffee-producing country and coffee is CHEAP to buy there - but in any case you rarely get a bad cup of coffee as each cup is made fresh - they don't use those big industrial coffee makers like restaurants in the U.S. do. The coffee is almost always good anywhere you go! In the USA I have often had coffee so bad I can barely drink it!

The eggs in Costa Rica - it is easier and cheaper to get good fresh eggs from organically raised or at least free range hens, especially if you live in the campo. They are delicious and I love scrambled eggs with some gallo pinto in the morning. I pay over $4 for a dozen organic eggs in Los Angeles!

The one problem I have with getting breakfast at a restaurant in Costa Rica is the restaurants' lack of salsa except for Lizano, Worcestershire sauce or that really super hot sauce where a few drops is more than enough. I really wish they would get into the habit of offering a Mexican style salsa fresca or tomatillo salsa or SOMEthing that resembles Mexican salsa. Are Ticos too proud to admit that Mexico has better food and that borrowing some ideas from other countries is not a bad thing? They have cheap tomatoes, cheap onions, cheap chilis (if they wanted to grow them) so it would be quite easy for them to make great salsas if they but chose to!

Juices like watermelon juice, papaya juice, tamarindo juice, etc are often found freshly squeezed and are delicious - just ask them to please not put sugar in it if you don't want the added inflammation-inducing sweetener; otherwise they well may add sugar which to me ruins the taste of the juice. They'll also ask if you want it with leche (milk) or water. I choose water and that's one nice thing: most of the water in Costa Rica is good and I've never gotten sick from it like you do in Mexico.

So Costa Rica has some good basic foods as above to be thankful for. I'm sure there are more that I haven't remembered at this moment. Oh, I just remembered, I also like yucca a lot - it's like potatoes but different. It's a root.

Unfortunately when you talk about COOKING, that's when there isn't much good to say. Which reminds me of when I was studying Spanish and staying with a very nice family near San Jose. The woman's cooking was better than most because she had spent some time in the USA. That said, the first morning she asked me if I wanted toast and I said yes. When she brought it, it was two completely dried up hardened pieces of bread! (which is the opposite of the way I like my toast) Turns out her method of toasting was to put it in the oven and let it get totally burned up like that. I just didn't have the heart to tell her I hated it that way so I just began to say "Gracias, no" when she asked if I wanted toast!

The fact is, Ticos for the most part simply do not have a flair for cooking. They tend not to use spices or sauces that would make their food taste better and also be healthier.

rendrag wrote:

I do agree the food here is different. But, your statement about the U.S. not having any Costa Rican Restaurants is not correct. Not a bunch, but some.   http://irazuchicago.com/

Your comment is accurate. However, I would note in support of the original statement that Los Angeles - which some might call the "land of restaurants" - I would bet there are 30-40 within one square mile of where I live and I don't even live in one of the restaurant-dense areas! - has either none or very few Tico restaurants. I've lived here 28 years and have yet to see a Tico restaurant! Now that I think of it I'll do a search and report back! (You see, I find Tico food so unremarkable as to have never even LOOKED for one before!)

Update: I did my search. Google revealed zero restaurants Tico in Los Angeles. It revealed one in Anaheim which is an hour from Los Angeles - which gets only 2.5 stars out of 5, and one in Van Nuys which further investigation revealed is no longer open.

San Ramon, the eggs sold in supermarkets are neither organic nor free range.
Those sold in ferias may be neither, either or both .
There are also small companies the produce many very different and tasty salsas, but can't always get them into the larger supermarkets.

BTW, in Europe, many B&B's and hotels, make their toast well in advance and leave it on the toast rack, on the table...

kohlerias wrote:

San Ramon, the eggs sold in supermarkets are neither organic nor free range.
Those sold in ferias may be neither, either or both .
There are also small companies the produce many very different and tasty salsas, but can't always get them into the larger supermarkets.

BTW, in Europe, many B&B's and hotels, make their toast well in advance and leave it on the toast rack, on the table...

Thanks for the info. I figured that supermarket eggs were likely to be regular "agri-business" type eggs. (Though I wonder if the agri-business in CR is as bad as the agri-business in USA in terms of as many antibiotics, hormones, gmo feed, etc.?).

I did overstate the case re eggs; didn't think it through. So thanks for correcting me. I will change my post re eggs to reflect that often eggs at small restaurants and ones you buy from ferias or small markets or pulperias taste better and are probably free range or organically produced.

I've found that when I buy organic eggs here in the U.S. which I do now, they taste much better than the agri-business eggs which are from chickens shot and fed with god-knows-what-all bad stuff. I can definitely taste and see the difference.

When I have lived in San Ramon I have bought most of my food at the feria which is what I recommend people do, to avoid agri-business poisoning. But you have to talk to the farmers and ask how they grow their food/chickens etc. if you want to avoid pesticides and herbicides as much as possible because certainly many farmers there - as here in the U.S. - will use whatever pesticide/herbicide that makes their job easier.