Central Market Morning

Took a morning excursion to downtown for breakfast and light grocery shopping. Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) has a whole city block-sized building downtown, along with additional building spaces for sending money abroad, auxilliary kiosks for tellers in kiosks secure, and even a whole ground level with 6 or 7 ATMs. Off to the side of the main building were local plants (we even saw bunches of bananas on a tiny tree).

BCR dispenses dollars in addition to local colones, though I just maxed out on local currency (₡50,000CRC, roughly $93 USD). Lucky for us, many vendors, restaurants, and grocery stores also take credit card and with the American Airlines Master Card, we don’t incur foreign transaction fees.

Cash in hand, we went to the market. Since it was just 7:30am not all the stalls were open, but most eateries were serving breakfast. We stopped at a hallway-like stall to eat, though to be fair, most everywhere was a narrow walkway. Jon got a sandwich con carne while I got an empanada de pollo. Along with 2 coffees, it was ₡3000 (~$6). It wasn’t the most filling meal for me, but it was a great opportunity to try something from another stall.

A few stalls over I found my breakfast, part 2. These huge round balls that were as big as Jon’s fist sat on display, with fresh grill marks and oil drippings to boot. Apparently they were fried yucca with cheese and meat inside. I ordered one for ₡700 and we were on our way. I took it to go on a bunch of napkins, but I wonder if it’s normally eaten with cabbage or curtido since the contrast in texture and flavor would be a welcome palate cleanser. There wasn’t a whole lot of meat in there, but it was flavored well and certainly filled me up.

We also got a half kilo of carne, a small bag of crema, a quarter kilo of queso para freir, and a single marañón to taste. Will let you know how it all tastes when we get there.