Catching lunch in Coronado

Up the hill from Academia Tica Coronado a cozy little place by the side of the road serves up about the freshest trout imaginable, Tico style. At this family-run “trucheria,” (trucha means trout), you can catch your own lunch from a backyard pond. Luckily professionals take over from there. Have a seat in the rustic dining room as […]

A bittersweet tour of chocolate

As I tentatively sip a watery concoction of cacao, almonds and chili, the possibility that this bitter-spicy beverage is even a form of chocolate seems remote, let alone that under my crinkled nose froths the ancient precursor to all chocolate as we know and love it. But history is a lot like taste — surprising, born of the […]

Amazing corn

We loaded our plates with fresh empañadas, cheesy tortillas and sweet chorreadas, unwrapping huge banana leaves to reveal steaming tamales filled with  veggies and meat. We ohhed, ahhed and salivated over the tamal asado, a sticky sweet cornbread that frankly put me over the edge of satisfied, too full to try any more typical Costa Rican dishes made from maize, the star ingredient in […]

A fresh take on fruit

Studying takes a turn for the delicious at Academia Tica’s fruit tasting class, where we sample some of Costa Rica’s most sumptuous offerings. After an hour at this mouth-watering table we know our mangos from our mangas, our guanabanas from our guabas, our nances from our elbows. In Costa Rica fruit is a USD $1.5 […]