Costa Rica Restaurants

Brunch is one of those classic Sunday activities... A good brunch should be just like hanging out at the bar with your buddies, except with breakfast food! Mimosas and Bloody Marys are a must. I've been searching for a good brunch spot in Costa Rica and The Alta Hotel's La Luz restaurant may just have the perfect setup.

The brunch special is an a la carte, and costs $20. With that you get your first mimosa, an appetizer (think shrimp cakes), main course (eggs benedict to filet mignon, depending on your mood), and a dessert. Click here for the full menu here. This looks good on paper, but at a higher end hotel like this you would come to expect small portions... not the case.

The food was excellent. The sweet onion sauce on the bacon wrapped tenderloin was probably the best steak preparation I've experienced in this country. The eggs benedict were just like they should be, and the salmon poached eggs with mustard cilantro suace were surprisingly good as well. The portions were huge, and we were all quite stuffed by the end of the meal. This is definitely good value for twenty bucks.

Desserts were well made, choices ranged from chocolate to cheesecake to fresh baked homemade apple strudel (not those goofy things you get at corner stores). Consuming a full sized dessert with an already large breakfast was definitely overkill, but it was included in the price so why not indulge?

The waiters were all excellent, very good service like you'd expect at a real 4 star restaurant. These guys made our meal pleasant. The venue itself is pretty nice, the restaurant is one level above the pool, and you get a great view of the Santa Ana valley. They open all the windows in the restaurant so the whole experience is very bright and airy, making you feel like you're on a patio. I know I'll definitely be going back.

Oporto's is a discreet, elegant looking property which I suspect was a mansion before it was converted to a restaurant. It's extremely convenient if you are in Heredia (a couple blocks south-west of Hipermas), and they have great lunch specials. Personally I love the place for dinner, the food is consistant and the service is excellent.

It's hard to say what their specialty is, they have a well varied menu and everything is great. Most recently had had the beef tenderloin with mushroom sauce which was cooked to perfection, and although their entrees usually come with rice and steamed vegetables, they were more than happy to substitute mashed potatoes.

I usually like to order the seafood pasta, which comes with generous amount of prawns, clams, scallops, and mussels, in a basic tomato sauce. Combined with their caeser salad (awesome homemade dressing), it's just as good as you'd get from any Italian restaurant. The different styles of grilled fish are equally good (although the style is quite plain). I even at one time ordered the tortilla soup (azteca) and was impressed.

The waiters really make the place for me... They are fast, attentive, and extremely friendly, and a few of them even speak english. The food comes fast, and you rarely have to wait with an empty glass for a beverage refill. As for wines, they pretty much only stock the usual chilean/argentinian offerings you see at most places, but there's nothing wrong with that.

If you're driving, the parking lot can be cramped, and with a larger vehicle you will have to park on the shoulder of the road across the street.

Overall for great food and a pleasant yet affordable dining experience, I give Oporto's three and a half twenty colones coins, mostly to get these heavy ass things out of my damn pocket.

Living in Costa Rica you are forced to give up some things... One of the biggest for me was good chinese food. Even though the restaurants here are owned by chinese people, they generally prepare foods in a style that ticos will appreciate: lots of grease, cabbage, rice dishes that are basically arroz-con-pollo, and what the hell is the cheap bread for?!

Your first clue walking into el Dragon Imperial will be that the customers are almost all chinese. It is a massive restaurant (taking up the whole second floor of a mini mall full of mostly asian shops and salons), and in the mornings will be pretty full. Entire chinese families come and the kids play together in the restaurant all day...

As for the food, it is extremely authentic. Most of the classic dim sum items like Ha Gow (shrimp dumplings) and marinated chickens feet are available... If you are there early enough in the day they have a steam cart that you can just pick your dishes off of. Everything tastes authentic, and the imported Sing Tao beer they serve is a great combination.

I have not yet tried anything from the regular a la carte menu, other than the Hot and Sour soup (sopa agri-picante), and it is amazing. I've tried the same soup at at least eight different chinese restaurants in Costa Rica, and this place has them beat by far...

Ever since we discovered the Imperial Dragon we haven't bothered eating anywhere else. If you are desperately missing good chinese, check this place out. Price wise? Extremely affordable... dim sum items range from 900 to 1500 colones each. The downtown San Jose location is very easy to find, and they have complimentary parking underground. (click below for directions) I give the place five waving cats!

Inka Grill is one of my favorite places to eat in Costa Rica. A lot of food snobs look down on "chain restaurants", but in a country like this one where consistency is rare, it's refreshing to know that I can visit the Heredia or Santa Ana locations and get the same high quality food and service. The locations are also extremely convenient (the Terramall restaurant is great if you are doing the Cinepolis VIP thing).

One of my favorite appetizers they offer are the chicken stuffed avocados. This is basically just a whole avocado, cut in half and pitted, with a scoop of chicken salad where the pits would go. They also offer it with shrimp, but I think the chicken salad with the avocado is a better flavor. It's amazing how good this is (and high in protein), I have no idea why other restaurants don't offer it.

On different occasions I've ordered the grilled seabass in different styles (just plain with garlic is probably my favorite), as well as seafood pasta (it comes loaded with jumbo prawns, it's more of a seafood meal than a pasta dish). For sides they do a great garlic mashed potato, a concept that a lot of places here don't seem to understand...

My favorite entree by far though is the three tenderloin medallions with mushroom sauce... Similar to a filet mignon, these tenderloins are nice and thick while being amazingly tender. Mine was cooked to perfection (medium rare) and the mushroom sauce was flavorful without taking away from the meat. Aside from the Argentinian steakhouses, it is my favorite beef dish served in the country.

They don't really have any Peruvian wines, although from what I understand winemaking in Peru is still a pretty small concept. They push the Chilean standbys like Caseillero del Diablo. Don't expect a quality recommendation from your server. Speaking of service, it is usually excellent, or at least at a level you'd expect for the price you are paying for the food.

Thanks to the many convenient locations (click the link below for some maps), Inka Grill will continue to be one of our regular choices. I give it 4 Inka masks of goodness.