Mahi Mahi Fish in Baileys sauce - awful !

Fish in Baileys sauce – sounds weird. And it is awful!!!

But as part of food traveling, I have to try something food. Mahi Mahi Fish itself is not bad, but the sauce is awful. The Baileys sauce is so strong that over-powered the fish. It feels like dipping fish in Bailey, a weird sweet taste with strong alcohol flavor. I have to scrape off the sauce to eat the fish. Even then the sauce ruins the whole dish.

It is a big disappointment that other dishes are not good at all. Overcooked veggi and so-so mash potato. We were very disappointed because it is a big fancy-looking restaurant, right across the central park in Liberia. It seems is the place to go to impress your date. However food is not special at all. Some local small places are much better. Later on we met other travelers, who agrees with us too.

Ceviche

Ceviche is really popular dish in Latin American countries. I love that idea: Raw seafood is cooked in citrus juice.

In Costa Rica a lot of restaurant have ceviche. But my favorite place is where the locals buy, almost like take out style. They have small stores, which only sell ceviche. Locals buy them to bring home or eat at the counter, chatting with friends. They normally have fish, shrimp, squid or mix of all seafood. They all taste really good with some hot sauce on a Soda cracker. I saw locals put a lot of hot sauce and tomato sauce mix with the ceviche. But I quite like the light citrus juice soaked with seafood flavors.

Fajitas??

In a local restaurant in Liberia I ordered Fish Fajitas. To my surprise, it came with deep fried fish and chips. Is that Fajitas??
The waitress said : Yes.

oh, well, taste pretty good. Then the next day, pimple full of my face.

Fresh Coconut Juice

Nothing is better than fresh coconut juice to start a hot sunny day. When we were in Palaya de coco (beach), there is a coconut vendor near the hotel. He is there everyday. One coconut cost 350 colons (Costa Rican money), less than $1. This is the cheapest I had; the others sell for 550 colons. The juice is really refreshing and subtle in taste. Not like the coconut juice they sell in Canada, because there is no sugar added.

I eat like locals do. After drinking the coconut juice, he opened the coconut for me to dig out the meat. It does not have a particular coconut smell. It taste really subtle as well. The young coconut is very tender and filling.

Veggi dish

Tuna salad in a local restaurant near Tamarindo beach.
What can I say. It is not what i imagined at all. The tuna is from canned tuna, with some over-cooked beans.

I missed my green veggies!

Shrimp in coconut sauce

I ordered this Shrimp in coconut sauce in a local restaurant near Tamarindo beach in Costa Rica.
It came with the usual rice & bean and plantain. The shrimp is really fresh and tasty, as for the rest, nothing special.

Green Orange in Costa Rica

My monkey instinct makes me appreciate fruits right picked on the trees than those selling in the supermarket. For that reason I picked the green orange from the orange tree in the hostel’s backyard. The local say those ones are not as sweet as the ones in the supermarket. They are right; another kind of green orange is sweeter than those in my hands. But they are not too bad, at least not sour.

One day in someone’s backyard, we saw a Costa Rican is eating those oranges right under the tree, with the ground covered with failing down oranges. I would love to do that too!

Deep Fried Chicken

I tried so hard to forget that I love them because health reason (also contribute to the pimple face). But since I am in Central America, they are everywhere. Sure in Costa Rica they love their Deep Fried Chicken. You can find them almost on every corner of the city.

When we were in Santa Cruz, northern city in Costa Rica, we picked a place where is full of local people. We figured since locals love it that must be the place to eat. An order of 3 pieces chicken combo costs about $ 12 CAD. The chicken was really juicy and tender. But 3 pieces were too filling.

A few days later, we tried another chicken place in Liberia, but they weren’t as good as the other one. That is it! for my fast food experience.

Seafood Platter in Costa Rica

Whenever I see Seafood Platter on menus, I can never resist ordering it. After few days of seafood only diet, I said to myself: no more seafood, I am going to have meat today. But when I heard the Seafood Platter is amazing in this tiny fish shack near Tamarindo beach, how can say No?

Just like they said, it is the ultimate seafood feast: fish, shrimp, crab, clam and squid. They are so fresh and heavenly tasty. That giant pile of seafood platter is for one person, cost about $ 22 CAD.

The next day I went back and want to have it again, but the restaurant (actually only a one room shack with seats outside facing the beach) is not open for lunch, because they cannot find enough helpers to work during the day. So I have to wait till dinnertime to taste the best seafood platter before I leave Costa Rica. This time we tried seafood soup as well. The soup is yummy fishy, full of flavor since it is cooked with the same mixture of seafood. It is served with rice. According to the waiter, that is the half size soup. I do not know how big is the full serving is. Half size is enough for me.

Sweet Star Fruit

I always have trouble to find ripe star fruit in the fruit market. Even when I was in China, my first memory of start fruit is sooooooooo sour that my father put tons of sugar still tastes sour.

Lesson learned: Never buy it again!

This time I was just wandering around the streets in Santa Cruz in Costa Rica when I saw few trees full of star fruits in a school backyard. I shamelessly picked one to try it out. It was really small, you can see the size to the ratio of my palm (I do not have big hand). To my surprise that is the sweetest one I have ever had. It was so good that I went back to pick more. But the other ones were not that good. The really ripe ones were on the ground or high on the top of the tree.
Too bad I am not tall enough.

Santa Cruz Beef Casado

Santa Cruz is a small town in north Costa Rica. We went there to see their version of “cow boy festival”, but we were 1 week early. That night, we order steak dinner (Beef Cosado) to try out the local meat.
With difficulty communicating in Spanish, the beef did not come medium-rare. But in fact, the beef was so thin; it is not what we call “steak” in Canada. At least, it was pretty tasty.
The dish came with the regular rice and bean, just like everywhere you go in Central America. A little surprise is that it also came with small omelets.

The best red snapper

I had the best red snapper in my life, in a small Jamaican restaurant near the Tamarindo beach in Costa Rica. It is a small simple restaurant with all natural tree-truck shape tables. I assume the chef is Jamaican and the owner is Costa Rican.

Of course, the freshness is the most important fact for this simple dish, which cost about $ 12. The fish is deep fried, covered with onion and red pepper, with a sort of sweet sauce. It is perfectly cooked; the fish meat is firm, the tail and side parts are very crispy. It is really exceptional. ( not spicy at all, is that authentic?)

More dessert in Paris

Desserts in Paris

Desserts in Paris

These are random pics of desserts I took in Paris. I did not have a chance to try all the desserts as in my pics. But still, I manage to eat 2 or 3 desserts a day, which gave me an overdose of sugar.
This montage just to show you how beautiful they are. They are everywhere in Paris. I have to bow to the pastry chef in Paris because the variety of forms and designs are pure art. Personally I like the desserts in Switzerland better because they are less sweet. But I bet most Canadians will find most French desserts are not as sweet as those are in North American.
Please click on pic to see enlarged details.