Happy Holidays. Mine have been!
After eight years, I am finally writing an updated sequel to Feasting and Foraging in Costa Rica. It will be called Feasting in Costa Rica’s Central Valley and should be available on Amazon in print or digital form by fall of 2014. The always daunting task is to evaluate dining venues fairly and accurately according to my own standards and tastes and to honestly note when my impression is an outlier in either direction. First task: rating restaurants on a five * system. I began with only two *****s, two ****&1/2s and a select group of ****s.
Then came December. Four new restaurants with an accumulated total of 17 *s. WOW!!! Three fabulous young Costa Rican chefs who learned their craft in Europe and a transplanted European chef.
When Tica neighbor Alejandra touted a restaurant in an out-of-the-way and hard-to-find Alajuela neighborhood with a Tico chef/owner operating out of the garage in his home, the last thing I expected was a **** experience. I even felt some of the adrenaline rush. First the chef: Alvaro Porras Fernandez is a local passionate lover of food who fled to Madrid and apprenticed for seven years then went to Thailand and China for three more years. His journey was scuttled by a tumor on his spine that was successfully removed, but he couldn’t walk for three more years. Back home in Costa Rica, bent but not broken, he began to sell ceviche out of his garage. He had a five-year plan to create a premier restaurant in Costa Rica fueled by his all-consuming love of fine food and an indefatigable work ethic. After the first year, he built a kitchen and modest dining room in his garage. By the beginning of his third year, he became the number one rated restaurant in Alajuela according to Trip Adviser, based on sixty-three reviews. Trip Adviser evaluated 62 different restaurants in the area. Because it began with just ceviche, he called it C-Vichitos & More, not only a difficult name to remember but confusing since the name El Cevichito, Chevito and Chevitos are common to eateries in nearby El Roble, La Garita and Alajuela central. Only this past month has Alvaro changed the name to Casa Fusion Restaurant. The new sign came in early December. If you can find PriceSmart, you can find the restaurant. As you head west from the gas station past McDonalds, the Friday/Saturday farmers’ market, Maxi Pali and PriceSmart, the only pitfall is the leftward bend in the road just past PriceSmart. DON’T TAKE IT. Continue straight ahead on the lesser road past the blue water tower, past the park and watch closely for the cross on the roof of an otherwise unobtrusive church a few blocks ahead on the left side. Take the first left after the church (south) and go one short block. The restaurant is on the far left corner. He is now open for lunch and dinner every day but Wednesday.
There were no menus as late as early December, but they were on their way. Mounted screens in give a vivid slide show of many options. Ask prices before you order if the menus have not yet arrived, Figure $12 to $25 per order of appetizer or main course. Many complimentary touches will please you including two ounce shot glasses of extraordinary corvina ceviche with five dipping sauces (maracuya, tamarind, mora, guanabana and a reduction of kolita, a local soft drink), lovely cold fruit drinks and dessert, the liquid white chocolate topped with iced reduced red wine if you are lucky. Joan and I shared two beautifully presented large portions of pork short ribs in tamarind sauce enriched with chocolate and soy, with crisp Asian stir fried vegetables and whole small potatoes, and homemade fettuccine in a rich brown sauce of reduced crab and tomato adorned with baby clams, mussels, shrimp, squid rings and surimi.
The flavors were incredible. He asked if I craved more heat and responded to my nod with a tall shot glass of red habanero chili juice sprinkled with fresh ground black pepper. A wedge of olive bread and saucer of grated cheese also came to the table.
My favorite cut of pork is upper lateral belly below the end of the sternum, which marries the perfect blend of some rib bone for flavor, rich meat and layer of fat to baste it and keep it juicy during roasting. The pork was one of the best renditions either of us have had anywhere. The crab essence in a brown almost gumbo (dark roux) sauce, al dente roughly hand-cut fettuccine and fresh perfectly cooked seafood also elevated our pasta dish to a new high in Costa Rica. On our second visit I had a corvina fillet poached in reduced crab sauce with a martini glass of yellow mashed potatoes and crisp cooked vegetables. The only flaw was in Joan’s beef cube dish. The browned pieces with pink centers bore lovely flavors from fermented soy and dark beer, but the meat was tough and needed to be sliced thinly to chew. Alvaro’s dream has two years to go, but Alvaro is already in rarefied company very near the top. Creativity, artistry and his passion for fine fresh food is as evident in his words as it is on the plates that he creates. **** $$$$
La Tache is French for the spot or the place. The restaurant La Tache is just the right place for my taste in French food. It hits the spot. Most diners love French food for its elegance and grandeur. My affection is different. I see it in the classics of the cuisine’s roots in agrarian times when humble folk created comfort food economically. By paying more attention to detail and liberally using reductions of stock and wine, the cooks concealed the lack of wealth in the ingredients. Consider these dishes that undoubtedly sprang from the need to fill bellies on the cheap: pot au feu (chicken in the pot), cassoulet (white been casserole with duck or chicken leg or neck, sausage and/or pig parts), charcroute (mixed sausage, cured meats and organs and pork ribs with boiled potatoes atop sauerkraut), bœuf bourguignon (beef stew made from tough cuts and root vegetables in wine sauce), onion soup, steak and pommes frites (grilled thin beef cuts such as flank or diaphragm with fried potatoes), rognons de veau or rognons d’agneau (veal or lamb kidneys), countrypâté, ris de veau (sweet breads , which used to be very cheap), cervelles au beurre noir (calf brains in brown butter), blanquet de veau (chunks of veal breast in a crème sauce with mushrooms), escargot (wild snails) and andouilletes (sausages made from tripe). You can still enjoy these dishes in Parisian bistros or dining rooms in the French countryside amid rural charm bedecked in flowery table coverings, busy wallpaper and a chandelier or two to add a touch of what locals see as cosmopolitan elegance.
When I wandered into La Tache in Plaza Tempo, Escazu, a wave of warm nostalgia for such a setting wafted over me. The C5800 executive menu offered three courses plus a beverage and one was steak and pommes frites. I ordered it in an instant and then second-guessed myself as I read the menu. So many of my favorites were included for only a few thousand colones more – cassoulet, charcroute, onion soup, escargot, marget duck breast, cocquilles St. Jacques, pâté etc. First course was a salad of mini-greens topped with orzo (pasta shaped like long grain rice) flecked with black sesame seeds, dressed in perfect balsamic vinaigrette. The two pieces of thin steak bore grill marks on the caramelized exterior and were pink and juicy inside. The fries shared the plate with crisp cooked baby haricot vert, carrot sticks carefully cut to match the size and shape of the beans and quarters of baby yellow summer squash. Dessert brought a perfectly executed small square of light cheesecake topped with a fresh strawberry slice to which a tiny bit of leaf remained attached to add a touch of green to the artistically plated finale. My drink was puree of cantaloupe. Visit number two with my wife was also great. She had charcoute for C5800 with pork belly, rib and sausage, boiled potato and carrot on a bed of red and white sauerkraut. Her drink was fresh pineapple puree. I had cassoulet of white beans with duck leg, Alsatian sausage and pork rib. For dessert we ate individual squares of thin white cake layered with scrumptious chocolate mousse.
I waved ever-accommodating Valerie to the table. She, the manager of La Tache, answered a number of my questions in Spanish with a heavy French accent. Unsolicited, she then brought the chef to our table. Young charming Douglas Ortiz is Costa Rican, left for France and trained at Cordon Bleu, worked in French restaurants in France and the US, and fortunately for us, came home. Very nice service. Visit three – outstanding snails in pastry, pork tenderloin in pastry and bouillabaisse. Busy tablecloths, flocked wall-paper, sconces, a pair of chandeliers and lovely flatware and china. Yet another **** $$$ methinks. Phone: 2228-2358. Better prices than most **** restaurants, although lunch for four with wine, coffee and shared dessert came to C85,000.
My wishes for 2013 seemed to have come to partial fruition scrumptiously. I hoped for good German, Greek and Thai food in the Central Valley. Maya’s in ciudad Colon satisfied my German hunger. Aroi Thai, also in Ciudad Colon, the baby of a charming couple, he a Gringo, she a Thai, will morph from a highly regarded take out venue to a sit down restaurant by Christmas when their chairs and tables arrive. And finally, could you ever hope to see Turkish and Greek flags flying together? They are on display above the entrance to immensely popular new little gem, El Mediterraneo in San Rafael de Escazu together with the colors of Romania. Daniel, the owner, grew up in Istanbul, son of a Turkish father and Romanian mother. The family owns restaurants in many European cities with the flagship venue a huge place in Istanbul. When he and mama vacationed in Costa Rica, he met, fell in love and married a bright attractive dentist. He stayed and she suspended her practice to work with him in the restaurant. Their chef is another product of incomparable Cordon Bleu in Paris. He is Greek. They are wowing diners with reasonably priced, well prepared dishes from Greece, Turkey and Romania in the $5 to $15 range. I ate a fabulously tasty Romanian lamb steak for only $13. It was New Zealand lamb cooked in red wine, olive oil and herbs, Greek style. It came with fried potatoes topped the Romanian way with a mixture of eggs, Parmesan cheese, dill and parsley and a lovely salad of crisp greens, diced tomatoes, sliced almonds, walnuts and goat feta. Joan had lamb ribs with similar salad and couscous for $15, also in a red wine sauce. We shared a starter of Romanian eggplant salad (babaganoush in the Middle East). We learned from a friend in Aleppo that the best way to make it is to over-roast the eggplant to render the inside creamy and to add a distinct smoky flavor. That is exactly how it was made. It came with a thin large pita. Yum! The rest of the menu features gyros, falafel, hummus, pita sandwiches, stuffed grape leaves, Greek salad and more. Their Turkish schwarma and donner kabob seem popular. A chalkboard lists a number of ever changing daily specials. In the future I hope to see mousakka, which graced nearly every menu in Thessiloniki (mussaka), half the menus in Bucharest (musaca) and a few more in Istanbul (mousaka) in the spring of 2013. For dessert we shared a heavenly rendition of kunefeh (Turkish spelling. In the Arab Middle East it s Kanafeh), a cheese flan-like pastry bathed in rose water scented syrup and topped with almonds and walnuts. The cheese was Turkish feta far superior to other local renditions that try to substitute mozzarella and omit the rose water. Among my favorites that I hope to find on the chalkboard in the future, are sour sorrel soup, chicken livers cooked in brandy and sherry in a sour cream sauce, basturma (forerunner of pastrami), pastitsio, mammaliga, spanakopita, tiropites, yemista (stuffed tomatoes and peppers) and avgolemono (egg lemon chicken soup).
This gem of a restaurant has murals of the waterway separating Asian and European Istanbul. It feels cozy and very European. Among our fellow diners were a woman from Romania, a man from Germany and a woman from Turkey. There are only three parking spaces in front, but behind the gas station there are many more designated spots with a walkway directly to the restaurant.
Hours: 11AM to 10PM Phone: 2289-8153 - Across from the entrance to Scotia Bank in San Rafael de Escazu. **** $$$.
I celebrated my 75th birthday in December and Joan took me to the restaurant of my choice. I chose Furca on the corner of Rohrmoser Blvd. and Calle 76 (only a few hundred meters west of the new stadium) because it gave me the divine combination of fabulous food, gorgeous presentations, perfectly trained well-informed waiters with encyclopedic knowledge of every dish, stunning surroundings, hard-to-find gourmet cheeses and an impressive wine list. It is a steakhouse with live music on Friday and Saturday nights that attracts large crowds, but I prefer weekday lunches for relaxed serenity, smaller than the huge dinner portions and lower prices. Patio seating overlooks an urban garden. The décor is stunning. Sage, savory, chive, mint and basil in planter boxes and in the garden perfume the air. Baby figs hang from a small tree like holiday ornaments. Edible nasturtiums adorn a far wall and are used in the dishes.
Chef Leiva is only in his early 30’s, yet he has learned his craft with amazing technique in Spain and Italy. Bone-in steaks are Costa Rican. Entrecot chateaubriand and the like are American angus. The motto is “fresh from farm to table” and it is. My birthday lunch was a plate of about half a pound of thinly sliced roast beef sautéed with caramelized onions, Portobello mushrooms and raisins served with fabulous comote puree and haricot vert. The puree of local sweet potato was cooked with a bit of vinegar and honey, topped with cinnamon and brown sugar and brûléed. The crisp room temperature baby green beans had snap crispness and a coating of almond slivers, red pepper and grained mustard. Joan had a small perfectly cooked and seasoned chateaubriand served on a hot stone platter with a salad of fresh baby greens dressed with a bright fresh orange vinaigrette and topped with shaved pecorino cheese. The bread tray offered a rosemary roll, a chive roll, pieces of goat cheese and herb bread and spreads of sun-dried tomato-red pepper-pine nut Romescoe, chopped green olives and capers and herbed butter. We had two non-alcoholic drinks and shared a stunning dessert of mascarpone chocolate mousse cake on a Maria cookie under-crust covered with caramelized almonds and a top hat of fresh local blackberries and mint. The plate was sprinkled with poppy seeds. Bravo Chef Leiva! C25000. For large steaks off the dinner menu and wine, figure on doubling the price. ***** $$$$- Only my third five star rating in ten years. Hours: M-Saturday 12 to midnight, Sunday 12 to 5.
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