www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Many have said that about JR ribs so I never went there. I do like the out of the way sodas and the well known places.

Is Il Piazzo still in business. Reminds of a place you would see on the Sopranos. Good food and pricey.

At the soda's, I just avoid lettuce and anything with mayo like cole slaw. They tend to let that stuff sit out w/o refrigeration.

I never had a problem in CR but had severe Montezuma's for 3 days from another country.


PURA VIDA!

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Livin' & Lovin' in Key Largo....oh....And the one in The Keys, too!

If you mean La Piazzetta on Paseo Colon almost to Sabana Park yes they are still there. Good food, nice wine list and they still make ceaser salad at your table.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Thanks, ID, I always mess up the name

PURA VIDA!

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Livin' & Lovin' in Key Largo....oh....And the one in The Keys, too!

I've gotten sick once, but I can't pinpoint exactly where it was: JR Ribs that I had for lunch maybe 4 hours earlier or Papa Johns Pizza at the airport.

On the flight home, I was firing on both ends. I would think it was the Ribs since I don't know if bad pizza would go to work on me that quickly.

ORANGE QUOTE:


"....On the flight home, I was firing on both ends."

That has to be one of the worst times to be sick, especially if there's a line for the restrooms.

ORANGE,

Ooooouuuucccchhhhh! That must have been a rough rough flight. Agree with the previous poster, gotta be one of the worst places for it to happen. That place JR's has a lot of "I think I got sick there" stories.

PURA VIDA!

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Livin' & Lovin' in Key Largo....oh....And the one in The Keys, too!

From other reports, it's the cole slaw at JR's that gets you. Solution: don't eat the cole slaw anywhere in CR. Since I hate the stuff anyway, it isn't a problem for me.

I just love how mayo is left out on tables--like at the SL.

Eating at the Mercado Central for a Costa Rican is not eating at an out of the way place. I eat out a lot and often at sodas or small independent places. You just never know . . .

One of the better known fish eateries was closed down about a year ago because many of the patrons got food poisoning. The place is now reopen and doing well.

I got really sick one time after I ate at Rosti Pollo. I ate something that I knew I should not have eaten: macaroni salad made with mayonnaise.

I know better than to eat anything from a buffet if it has been made with mayonnaise. I was craving for macaroni salad. The temptation was too great and I paid the price. FOOL!

Hey DiegoC! Ya remember Halloween?! Heck, I was yacking with you so intently I didn't even notice any "party".

Anyway:

"Commercial mayonnaise, due to the addition of acids like vinegar or lemon juice, has a pH between 3.8 and 4.6, making it an acidic food. There is a misconception that foods like potato salad can make a person sick if left out in the sun, due to the mayonnaise spoiling. This is false; the pH of mayonnaise prevents harmful bacteria from growing in it. Left out of refrigeration, mayonnaise will develop an unappetizing taste and smell, due to other types of bacteria and molds that can spoil it; but will not make one sick."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayonnaise

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=5639903

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"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 16

S-1. It is good hear from you. I enjoyed our chat.

Good info. All I know is I was very sick for a couple of days. It could have been the chicken; could have been too much food and booze; I blamed it on the mayo. DC

Oh, I hear ya, DiegoC.....irrespective of what that little quote maintains, I ain't gonna eat "old" mayo.

However, it was another CRT post that sensitized me to the reality that condiment quality in CR is in a different class when I, like you, suggested it was mayo at the Key Largo that sent me to the head....and how....

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"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 16

I for one stay away from those high end resteraunts and only eat at Cheles.

JOsie, I think you are getting a false sense of security by only eating at higher end places. Or else, at best, all you're really succeeding at doing is spending more for meals and missing out on the little gems that should really be part of the CR experience.

As to my own take on the relative health risks of eating in CR, I can only base it on my own experiences and perhaps I have a cast-iron stomach. Like so many others have reported here, I eat at a variety of "low-end" and "high-end" places and the ONLY times I have ever gotten sick was at the higher-end places. My worst experience came after eating a salad at Cafe Mundo (Juan Santamaria's revenge big time). But I also got some bad indigestion the one and only time I ate at Balcon de Europa. OTOH, I've eaten numerous breakfasts at one particular booth in the Central Mercado and never even remotely got sick from that. And I'm also a late-night regular at Chelles, which is hardly a fancy place, and never had any problems from that either. My conclusion from all that is that, even if there is a heightened risk eating at those "low-end" places, the risk is still very low or I think I would have had at least some sort of problem once or twice after all the times I've eaten at them. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I also got violantly ill once after eating a questionable shrimp cocktail at a hotel restaurant in Jaco 9 years ago (hardly a low end place) and still to this day can not eat shrimp because of it.

The conclusion that I would draw from my own personal experiences is similar to what others have said. If you want to reduce your risk of getting sick from eating in CR (or anywhere else), it is not so much WHERE you eat, but WHAT you eat.

First of all, be particularly careful with foods that spoil easily such as seafood (e.g. shrimp). I don't think it is necessarily so much a matter of "stretching" foods (though I'm sure that happens too) as it is a matter of spotty refrigeration due to aging equipment or even possibly periodic power outages. BTW, that seafood place that had mass food poisoning leading to it closure was the well-known and established Princessa Marina chain, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with, was extremely popular with locals and, one would have thought, was hardly a really low-end fly-by-night operation.

Secondly, be particularly careful of uncooked foods that might be contaminated. I was also under the false impression that foods with mayo were more easily subject to spoilage, so I found S-1's info that the spoilage was limited solely to look and taste rather than healthiness to be quite illuminating. The problems with cole slaw (e.g. at JR's) or salads (as in my case at Cafe Mundo) is probably not so much because of spoilt mayo as much as a failure on their part to properly clean the uncooked vegetables that go into it. Similarly, if you purchase any fruits at a local market or farmers stall or street cart (such as in the Central Market area) only eat fruits that you peel or with rinds (like bananas or oranges) and if you get anything else that is eaten with the skin (like an apple) be sure to wash it very thoroughly first.

Eating fresh fruit and vegetables particularly greens) is safer in Costa Rica than other parts of the world because they don't irrigate much. No splatter of feces laden agua. Plus, as I learned after getting cholera at a high end Argentinian steak place in Puebla Mexico, ground growing greens like lettuce can transport bacteria into the leaf itself.

My major concern is getting the weak sh*** from improperly washed dinnerware. Remember, they use cold water to rinse dinnerware and dishes. A little detergent in the digestive tract loosens up things a bit.

If you want a propolactic, take pepto bismol. Bismuth will kill bacteria, but stays in the gut. I take it daily if I go into an area where I question the food.

If you are new to overseas travel and want to avoid the inevitable adjustment to new flora and fauna of the gut, avoid raw fruits and veggies, unless they are pealed. Takes a few days for the gut to adjust to the new environment.

Cartagena Colombia was the place that I got sick. It as back in the 80's and I had eaten at an upper class restaurant named Doris. Oysters Rockefeller was what did it. I was sick the next morning and was with people heading back to Bucaramanga, very long drive and made longer by the frequent stops so I could hurl ever 20 minutes. I was sick for 5 days, the absolute worst experience that I had been through regarding food poisoning. I still eat oysters but have not outside of the states anymore. Other than that I have never been sick from food in any of my travels apart from that and I eat at all the local out of the way places.

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Go Dolphins!!!