Chispa Stories

Working my way across Central America one forkful at a time.

Vacation from my Vacation

June 4, 2007 at 12.13 pm · Filed under food, travel, Costa Rica

After 10 very full days in Cuba, I decided obviously to step away from the computer for a brief break. My apologies for the unannounced hiatus. But after a few weeks off, I’m back and hungry.

I’m now back in Guanacaste, Costa Rica with just enough time for everyone to get geared up for the Winter. It’s absolutely amazing to see the fields, parched from the long and dry Summer go from drab and dusty browns to explosive emerald greens virtually over night.

Yesterday morning, I piled into the car with a friend of mine to drive to the nearby Santa Cruz, the seemingly forgotten Tico hub laying a bumpy forty-five minutes to the southeast. Far from any prominent position in international guide books, Santa Cruz is a long sip of Costa Rican life, streets choked with slow moving bikes, passengers hitching rides on the handlebars, street side vegetable stands, and women chatting sitting low in their laced rocking chairs on their immaculate front porches.

Locals come here to take care of their day to day business: affordable groceries, impossibly slow banking, auto repairs. As they wrap up their affairs, wait for the bus or take a break from replacing transmissions, everyone seems to pass through Co-op Tortilla, in my opinion, the greatest restaurant in the history of ever. In an effort to scrape up a few extra Colones years ago, a group of Santacruzanas began selling hand pressed tortillas door to door. Their efforts, wildly successful inspired them to set up their own little restaurant, located in a sun stained barn at the very back of town. Furnished with two 40 foot long picnic tables, this restaurant is standing room only come mid-day as anyone worth their weight in rice and beans slips in for a lunch you only wish your grandmother was capable of.

There are only a few options every day so the menu, rapidly recited by your server, is always changing. The more times you eat here the more you realize the waitresses don’t divulge all of their offerings seemingly keeping a few of their best plates a secret just for the guests in the know. Sopa Albondigas, rich chicken and vegetable soup with fist sized corn and chicken dumplings peeking through achiote tinged broth and Puerco en Salsa, salty sliced pork loin bathed in a glossy tomato sauce with chunks of carrot and onion, two plates among many, remain unmentioned only to tease us after we’ve ordered our lunch.

Arriving before the big lunch push we shared our enormous picnic table with a young couple more intent on cooing at each other than eating their quickly cooling food. As we waited on our lunch we swatted at lazy panhandling flies and watched families slurping up bowls of Caldo de Pollo and plates of scrambled eggs. Our waitress slid by laying out a jumbled pile of mismatched silver, a plate of steaming hot tortilla fresh off the wood fired comal and my little juice glass of tamarind juice saving or overloaded plastic plates for her second trip.

And then it was upon us: A quarter chicken poached in cilantro and onion broth resting on a pile of Gallo Pinto, Tico rice studded with black beans and sweet peppers and a jar of fiery pickled Panamanian chiles. I laughed as I noticed that in between each bit I would exclaim “oh this is sooo good” before jamming another bite of rice and chile in my mouth. These little local smoke filled corners always end up my personal reminders that life, despite all of our efforts, is simple and best enjoyed with a crispy tortilla.

Last Meal:: Roasted Carrot Soup
Listening to:: Sharks Keep Moving, Gang Starr
Location:: Langosta, Guanacaste, Costa Rica

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Living in Excess in Havana

May 12, 2007 at 4.27 pm · Filed under food, travel, Cuba, Havana

I woke early, again to the sound of the surf, now wearily crawling through the salt worn rocks. After another blasting shower, just toeing the line of ridiculous, I headed upstairs to the “Servicio Real” breakfast salon for fresh guava & papaya (a lesson learned the hard way: don’t ask for more “papaya” in Cuba because there it doesn’t mean what you think it means), Russian peach yogurt, apricot juice, Spanish Chorizo, Mahon cheese and more hot coffee and milk. In true form our day was completely centered around food and wandering the blistered streets of Havana. I spent a few minutes sitting on the balcony taking breaks in between hand written sentences to watch the fishermen hard at work out in the bay.

Alain, ricocheting our tiny pea pod of a rental through traffic choked Havana, took us to what many would call the most famous restaurant in Cuba, La Guarida, where the famous film “Fresas Y Chocolate” was filmed. After a quarter hour of popping up and down the vibrating back streets, he stopped the car in front of what looked like a building straight out of WWII riddled Paris. Crumbling holes in the wall big enough to drive a tank through, flaking paint showing flaking plaster showing centuries old brick and rows of blindingly white bed sheets hung to dry in the ever present Atlantic breeze.

“Where are we?” I asked.
“We’re here” Alain replied.
“Where’s here?”
“Chico, here, the restaurant.” he said looking at me funny.

I stuck my head out the window and scanned up and down the building’s three stories thinking to myself wondering how it was even possible that this place was still standing. And then I caught a glimpse of the tiny, almost imperceptible sign: “La Guarida.” Hey! We were here.

We made our way up two flights of questionable marble stairs that had long forgotten their weighty heritage after years and years of equal parts neglect and history. We came to a stop in front of a heavy, locked wooden door with a buzzer. As we waited for an answer I thought to myself that I couldn’t recall any good passwords that would ever get us in. After we were graciously buzzed in (sans secret code), we were ushered through tiny hallways plastered with old “Fresas y Chocolate” promo posters and fading photos of both local and international celebrities that had sat in front of steaming plates of Cuban fare and state brand cigarettes.

Our server, a genial forty-something woman informed us we were the first guests for lunch and sat us in the corner at a scarred wooden table next to an open veranda overlooking the cracked streets below. I knew we were in the right place as soon as the mojitos and malanga fritters were lain before us. We started out with a roasted rabbit and smoky eggplant “lasagna”, ceviche Cubana and fresh baked bread. As we were sopping up the last puddles of black olive sauce from the lasagna, our entrees arrived: Roasted Pork Loin in a tart mango sauce, Pargo a la Naranja, and a mixed seafood Risotto prepared table side. We quickly snatched up or forks and dug in, our eyes rolling back in our heads from sensory overload and before we knew it, we were fighting over the last bits of lobster stuck to the sides of the risotto pan.

As we waited for dessert to come, we sipped tiny cups of impossibly strong Cuban coffee and 15 year old Havana Club Reserva Rum served up in ballooned snifters. The server slipped by and dropped, in front of me, a flourless chocolate torte with an evaporated milk sauce, and in front of Fernando, a chocolate tres leches, sponge cake soaked in rum and sweetened milk. In the afterglow of our meal we sat full-bellied and all but laughing knowing that this wouldn’t be the last time we’d be here. To say that I was thankful is more than an overstatement. I was floored.