Lunch - Victoria Cafeteria/Café Victoria

Yesterday, Saturday, Lance suggested we have lunch at Victoria Cafeteria which we had yet to try. As you can see from the map below, it is very close to where we live.

Victoria Cafeteria is in a charming wooden building with covered porches on two sides. Lots of flowers on the grounds and in and around the porches. It is located next to Coopevictoria, the huge coffee and sugar cane processing plant.

A couple of views of the Coopevictoria plant next door - that is some huge gear on display:

We can’t figure out what those four big “things” are in the background:

Lots of items to choose from the menu. For drinks, we both ordered mora with milk. They were really large.

Lance’s lunch choice was arroz con camarones/shrimp with rice. The rice was loaded with shrimp.

And for me, it was the casado Tico with cerdo (pork):

From left to right clockwise: pork with grilled onions, plantains, black beans, mixed salad, picadillo de papa and white rice in the centre. 

The portions are huge and neither of us could finish our rice and beans.

This restaurant is in a lovely setting, with quick service and friendly people. Highly recommend.

Click on images to enlarge.

The Quest for Cheese - Una búsqueda de queso

I recently read an article in the Tico Times about a cheese making enterprise in Santa Cruz de Turrialba. The business is called Le Chaudron Artesanal and what caught my attention was one of the cheeses they make - raclette.

We first tasted raclette at the Swiss pavilion at Expo ‘86 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  We enjoyed it so much that we would buy the cheese and have our own raclette meal. We even had an electric tabletop grill designed especially for serving raclette.

Le Chaudron is selling their cheeses at the Auto Mercados, at El Mercadito Azul in Cartago and at the Feria Verde in Aranjuez, San José. We decided to drive to the Auto Mercado in Alajuela to see what varieties of cheese Le Chaudron had there.

Alas, no raclette but we did buy their Petit Blanc Cebollino (green onion) and it was tasty. 

I will keep watching for this brand of cheese goodness. After shopping at Auto Mercado, we drove to Price Smart in Alajuela and picked up a big block of cheddar, some fresh asparagus and mini frozen egg rolls.

 We made a dashcam video of our drive to Auto Mercado and back home.

The dates on the video are incorrect - we forgot to change the settings.

Click on images to enlarge.

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - June 2022 / Covid-19 Update

During June, visits to this blog were received from the following 9 countries:

The total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received remains at 134. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions such as the Isle of Man, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, etc. Seven countries are less than average.

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The following is a summary of weather for the month in the area where we live:

The green season continues. June was the second month in a row where we received at least some rain on 28 days of the month. However, most days began with relatively sunny mornings and did not become overcast until late morning or early afternoon.

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Covid-19 Update

The following table updates information which appeared in my blog entry posted on June 9, 2022:

Since my last post, the death rate in the United States is down 0.03%. That in Canada and Costa Rica remains unchanged.

If you want to see how some other country is doing in comparison to Costa Rica, then visit the website of Worldometer. Numbers for populations, reported cases and reported deaths can be obtained from that site. All that is then needed is some simple math to calculate the percentage death rate for the other country and the death rate in that country compared to Costa Rica.

Click on images to enlarge.