New Year's Eve - December 31, 2014

To celebrate New Year's Eve this year, a group of us met for dinner at Mar y Tierra seafood restaurant, which is not far from where we live.

We decided to walk there - about a 15 minute walk and all downhill. Reservations were for 5:00 pm which meant it was still light outside and this made walking feasible. I wouldn't want to walk in the dark on the uneven sidewalks/pathways or step on top of an unseen snake.

 

Just one view on our walk.

Walking towards Atenas on ruta 3. Those joggers are running uphill!

Sometimes it's a path, sometimes it's a sidewalk.

The restaurant is in sight.

Everyone had preordered their meals and ours were the first to arrive. We had bruschetta appetizers - very good and I'd order them again. I had the garlic prawns, which included a salad and white rice. Lance ordered the pasta carbonara and the amount of pasta on that plate was more then generous. It was accompanied by garlic bread.

Our friends.

 

A fun evening - very good meals, good people and nice friends. A lovely way to bring in the new year, especially since we were doing it in Costa Rica!

 

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Ladies' Lunch

While the informal (infamous?) Atenas Mens Club was busy at their blackjack tournament last week, some Vista Atenas ladies decided to go out for lunch.

We went to Mar & Tierra (sea and land) seafood Restaurant and Bar, not far at all from Vista Atenas on ruta 3. This is the former Bar Rill. Their phone number is 2446-5733. I could not find a web page for them but they are on Facebook. I don't know their hours of operation but they certainly do lunch and dinner.

The restaurant has been renovated and looks nice and open.

Now to the menu - I was only interested in seafood so didn't look at anything else. I ended up ordering the seafood soup and was very glad I did. Big bowl, the broth was excellent. Swimming in this little sea of goodness were clams, shrimp, fish and squid. Lots of cilantro, which I like. When I got near the end, I was sorely tempted to just tip the bowl up and finish off the last of the broth.

Next time we are there, I'm going for the garlic seafood. Total bill for me: six thousand colones or about $12.00 and that included an iced tea. In Vancouver, the bill would have been double and that's just for lunch.

I'm not sure exactly what the other Vista Atenas ladies ordered but I do know the portions were very generous.

Just one teeny tiny caveat: the delivery to the table of all the dishes was not consistent. Some of us were almost finished when others were just getting their order. Maybe this will improve as time goes by. We were a fairly large lunch table that they weren't expecting. Book ahead is good advice and only fair to the restaurant.

Here are some photos:

 

Lots of orchids!

 

Vista Atenas Senoras

 

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