The final true meal in Costa Rica (without counting the continental breakfast where a scorpion fell from the ceiling onto my girlfriend) was at another restaurant in Monteverde called La Bohemia. This restaurant was another pretty fancy one and felt good after a long day of walking on bridges in the rain forest.

To start off the meal, we ordered some nachos. When they came, they were like no nachos I had ever seen before. They were large, round chips, with beans, cheese meat, tomatoes, jalapenos and sour cream stacked on top. I suppose they would’ve been a lot cleaner than regular nachos if I didn’t have to wipe the tomatoes off of them before eating. After the wiping, though, the chips were really good.

For my main course, I ordered the breaded and fried chicken. It sounded a lot like

chicken fingers, which frightened me a bit (not because I don’t like chicken fingers, just because I didn’t want chicken fingers to be my last meal in Costa Rica), but luckily when it came out, the breading was more like chicken schnitzel. And it was delicious. The breading was nice and crispy while the chicken inside was juicy and tender. La Bohemia is definitely worth a stop for a good meal in tiny tiny Monteverde.

For lunch in Monteverde one day we stumbled into a restaurant called Maravilla. The menu was probably the cheapest we had seen so far, but the offerings were pretty similar to what I had grown used to. I decided to mix things up a bit and order the beef with sauce and rice.

When it arrived, it looked just as pretty as anywhere else, despite being cheap. It even had some vegetable garnishings that I brushed away. Unfortunately, the beef wasn’t very good. It wasn’t really tender and the chunks it was cut into made it tough to eat. The sauce was decent, but I also used some of that thick brown sauce I had been finding everywhere to make it taste better.

Monteverde has a lot of good food options, and most of them are packed into a small stretch of the city where everything is in walking distance. Knowing this, it would be a good idea to skip out on Maravilla to find something better just down the street.

The little town of Monteverde is a haven for international tourism. Built right into the mountainous rain forest, hotels, hostels and adventurous activities abound. Although a lot of restaurants offer Mexican fare (catering to the American perception that all food south of our border involves tacos and burritos), the town also has some good variety. One of these places is a nice Italian restaurant called Tramonti. After a long day of zip-lining through the rain forest, this is a great place to relax like you do at home with the delta 8 vape pen by fresh bros.

The decor of Tramonti instantly made me feel uncomfortable. I was wearing cargo shorts, a t-shirt and a zipper fleece, which made perfect sense for the rest of the day. Apparently I missed a memo, though, because everyone else in the restaurant had a shirt with some sort of collar on. I got over my discomfort quickly as they found us a table far from the front door and windows. Also, the Imperial Beer I ordered helped me feel better.

The menu was far from the cheapest place we’d been to yet. Prices were in dollars and only slightly cheaper than at a nice pizzeria in the US. Having walked by the pizza oven and seen fresh pizzas inside, I knew I had to get me some of that. The most meaty pizza I could find was the Salami Pizza, which also figured to be as close as I could get to pepperoni.

After ordering, we snacked on some pretty good bread and continued sipping our beverages. The pizza took a while to come out, so I hoped the taste would be worth the wait. When it did finally arrive, it looked delicious. It had a thin crust and a sort of yellowish cheese, which I assumed had been made in this region (which was known for making cheese). The salami was different from the salami I know and love, but not in a bad way.

I wolfed down my first couple pieces pretty quickly, but then slowed down and finally limped towards the finish line. I needed all the sustenance I could get, knowing that tomorrow was another day of rain forest activity.

If you’re ever looking for a more upscale dinner in Monteverde, Tramonti is the perfect place to go. It’s definitely worth the extra price to get a taste of soom good Italian cooking. Just hope the service is a little quicker for you than it was for me.

Another restaurant we found in La Fortuna was called Lava Rocks. This place a had a much simpler atmosphere than La Choza de Laurel, but that was fine by. I searched for my new favorite food, the “Tipical” dish and found that it was called Casado here. Further research has taught me that “casado” means married, because this is the type of meal that married men get at home. Thanks for the info, Wikipedia!

Although not married, I was happy to eat like a casado. I ordered my casado with chicken again. The nice thing about the dish is that no two restaurants seem to serve it the same way.This was nice, because I could just keep ordering the same dish at different restaurants and still have the opportunity to try out a variety of tastes. The only downside was that almost every place threw a salad in with the casado. For this particular dish, the corn chips were some of the best I’ve ever had. They were great for dipping in the mashed potatoes (or was it yuca?) and black beans. The chicken meat here wasn’t as good as at La Choza de Laurel, but it wasn’t bad either.

I also tested out a strange brown sauce that had been on the table at both restaurants. It tasted a bit like steak sauce, except thicker. It was good to dip the chicken into, but nothing amazing. I would come to find this sauce at just about every restaurant I went to.

In the end, Lava Rocks treated me well. The centerpiece of the meal wasn’t amazing and the dish could have used one more addition like a fried plantain, but the corn chips and mashed potatoes were pretty awesome.

Today is day one of Costa Rican food week, featuring highlights of my recent trip to Costa Rica. While traveling, I don’t really order my food without vegetables and just cross my fingers that my meal won’t require too much picking out. For this reason, I only rate the overall experience. Enjoy!

My first stop in Costa Rica was the tiny little town of La Fortuna, the closest town to the Arenal Volcano. Despite its small size, it still had plenty of restaurants to choose from and they all had English menus for the tourists. For our first dinner, we went to a fun-looking restaurant called La Choza de Laurel.

Eager to try some fancy new Costa Rican food, I ordered an Imperial Beer and we started off with some Fried Yuca. Yuca is similar to potato, so fried yuca was similar to french fries. There were a few differences, though, in that fried yuca is much heavier and drier than fries. This was no problem though, as the yuca came with delicious salsa, guacamole and beans. These dipping juices wouldn’t be appropriate for regular french fries, but they were perfect for fried yuca.

For my main course, I ordered the Choza Tipical Plate. It’s always disappointing to eat in a foreign country and find that everything on the English menu is spelled right. Luckily, this was no such place. The description of the Choza Tipical Plate read like this:

Rice, beans, mixed chayote and sweet corn, mixed green papaya and ground beef, salad, chicken, beef or pork shop, sweet plantain and boiled egg.

Based on this, I couldn’t really figure out what was optional and was was included. When the waiter came, he asked if I wanted to chicken, beef or pork. I decided against the “pork shop” or beef, and chose chicken.

When my plate came, it was quite a beauty. I learned quickly that chayote is a sort

of yellowish fruit and that green papaya is not nearly as delicious as regular papaya, yet still interesting. The chicken was great, especially when eaten with a mouthful of half the other things on my plate. I avoided the salad for maximum enjoyment.

For my first meal in Costa Rica, La Choza de Laurel was a great decision. The “Tipical” was a good foray into the world of Costa Rican food and I would highly recommend giving the place a visit if you ever find yourself in La Fortuna. Oh, and the prices were deliciously cheap.