Eating Out - Grecia and Atenas, Costa Rica

Recently, we have been enjoying having lunch with friends at restaurants here in Grecia and also in Atenas, where we used to live.

We met our Canadian friends, Diane and John, at Casa Nostra in Grecia. We couldn’t find this restaurant the first time we tried to go there. It has two spellings of its name: Casa Nostra and Casa Nosstra - why, I do not know. We were trying to find the “Nosstra” version on Waze but it only showed “Nostra” and so we gave up trying. Yes, I know - why didn’t we go to “Nostra” and see if it was the right place? It was raining and the traffic that day, for some reason, was really bad. Tried again another day using the “Nostra” name and were successful.

The menu uses “Nosstra”.

Like many homes/buildings in Costa Rica, you can’t judge a place by looking at the outside.The restaurant is east of a public pool and a special needs school in Grecia, down a very narrow road that dead ends at an ICE works yard. ICE stands for Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad - the country’s government run electricity and telecom services provider. When the gate is closed, it looks like nothing special at all. However, once the gate is opened and you drive in to park, the view is lovely.

The restaurant is open sided, like many in Costa Rica, so you get the nice breezes. Service is excellent and so was the food we ordered. 

Margaritas!

My order - shrimp, rice and a beet salad.


Lance had shrimp in rice with the beet salad and fries. The fries were so good - coated in a batter of some kind.


John ordered this and I can’t remember what it was - hearts of palm? Diane had a pasta dish that she said was very tasty.

We returned a second time with our other Canadian friends, Jean and Mike, and everything was as good as we remembered.

Then our next food foray was to El Fogon Campesino in Atenas. We used to have breakfast here and the omelettes were terrific. We were there for a reason and that was to meet with our friend Tom who lived in Atenas for a number of years but then moved to Georgia. He was here on business. John and Diane and Tony and Rosemary (our former neighbours) also joined us.

Everything is cooked over wood fire, in the old campesino way that food is prepared. 

Our friend Tom.



Here is what I ordered - a seafood soup or sopa de mariscos. Whenever I see this on a menu I always get it. 

Lance and John both ordered the Caribbean chicken (pollo caribeño). Those are plantains on the left, chicken and salad in the middle, and patacones on the right. I like how everything is served on banana leaves.


Tom’s dish - rice with chicken? Not sure.




There are so many places to eat out in Costa Rica.