If you like Chinese food, there are more than 300 restaurants just in San Jose. And you won't find it hard to find McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and other fast food places. In my case, I eat there only in an emergency or if I'm away from home, really hungry and willing to disregard my cardiologist's advice.
Costa Ricans are great chicken eaters and you won't have difficulty in locating a place where it's served roasted or fried. You're apt to see many places with the sign Pollo Asado a la Leña (chicken roasted over firewood). When roasted over coffee firewood, the chicken is especially tasty. Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Pollos Campero franchise of Guatemala, and the local As de Oros chain have been very successful. A recent arrival has been Church's Chicken which is also handled by the group that owns the local Burger King and Papa John's Pizza franchises. Calixto Chaves, known as the chicken king of Costa Rica, earned a fortune by being the flrst to introduce it to the masses in ready-to-eat form in the many As de Oros establishments he set-up. Chaves started his business years ago by importing used incubators to hatch eggs he imported from the US and selling the baby chicks to chicken raisers.
With the high price of meat and fish, it's no wonder that eating chicken has become so popular in this country. There's plenty of fish being caught off the Pacific as well as tons of Tilapia which are grown in fresh water artificial ponds mainly around the town of Cañas in Guanacaste The latter, however, is mostly for export, so what stays in the country commands a high price, one reason why many consumers turn to chicken.
Good bakeries with fine pastry are available and an excellent one, Spoon, has several locations in San José. The local Musmanni chain of franchises, owned by the Pacheco Musmanni family of Italian origin, was started more than 80 years ago and has over 200 locations in the country with expansions going on in other Central
American countries and Panama.
Costa Ricans are great eaters of rice and beans, bean purée to spread on tortillas, sopa de mondongo (tripe soup), arroz con póllo (rice mixed with chicken) and sopa negra (black bean soup) topped with a hard boiled egg. Gallo pinto is a plate of rice and beans well mixed and eaten especially in rural areas for breakfast, lunch and dinner. These local dishes are generally low priced and taste good. It's a matter of getting used to them. Although Ticos generally like red and white bean, the black ones are overwhelmingly preferred. I remember that when as a child I lived in Colombia, we had my grandmother in Costa Rica send us black beans regularly as there were none in Colombia, only the red ones.
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