Aero: Autumn Clearwater-Day – Costa Rica 2015 – Food and Dining

Aero: Autumn Clearwater-Day – Costa Rica 2015 – Food and Dining
Creative Commons Image via The LEAF Project

Aero: Autumn Clearwater-Day – Costa Rica 2015 – Food and Dining

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Autumn
Clearwater-Day

The first day in Alajuela my host mother made tortillas with cheese and bologna. While in Costa Rica I had plenty of tortillas, rice and empanadas. The usual meal with my host family was empanadas (tortilla with beans), white rice and chocolate, vanilla, strawberry milkshakes. I had coffee every morning with sugar that was absolutely delicious. The meals that my host mother cooked seemed to fill me up quickly and keep me full for hours. Many times it was time for lunch and I was still full from breakfast. While at the backpackers hostel I had a fruit plate each morning that was very satisfying.

What I found different for the United States is that when dinning in the restaurant people don’t leave tips for the waitress and waiters. On the menu there were usually casados with a choice of meat. Casados were a traditional food in Costa Rica and my favorite casado was with rice, coleslaw, and steak. I was surprised at how much american food was in Costa Rica; there were fries, pizza, chicken nuggets, and burgers, food that I could have in a restaurant at home. The hamburgers were different in Costa Rica because it would be served with a meat patties and a piece of bologna. I tried to order different types of drinks in restaurants like guyana, and banana smoothies, mango and ice teas. Deserts were different in Costa Rica, at McDonalds that desert stand was outside the restaurant. I also never saw Ticos have many desserts or candy. I visited a ice cream shop that covered the ice cream with different kinds of fruit that was delicious.

ML@FLCC Costa Rica
2015 Flickr Gallery

There were all types of restaurants in Costa Rica. There were fast food restaurants like Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Burger King, and Taco Bell. There were many little cafe shops in Alajuela that sold different traditional foods. Most of the restaurants our group ate at had traditional food that Ticos eat and food that Americans eat. There wasn’t any food that was completely strange to eat and nothing was completely out of the ordinary.

Autumn Clearwater-Day
LEAF Contributor