Laundry Day Take Two: Food Fight Friday

Hola Food Fight Peeps!

Here I am writing another food fight Friday post and I don’t really have a formidable triple F recipe to share… what’s a girl todo? Well, I’m dialed in on the laundry sitch (short for situation 😉) from last week so this week all I needed to do was drop it off and head back over to our casita’s pool to write this weeks contender. Sounds easy enough, right?!?

First of all, Dandays takes me over to the laundry facility about 600 meters away from where we are staying. I saw the ever elusive “golf cart” parked out front indicating that Mrs. Lavanderia was indeed inside… wrong… the abierto/open sign on the door lied again but this time with a golf cart as an accomplice; the door was dead locked instead.

I jumped back in the car and asked Dandays to take me to The Pescaderia. We hadn’t been to this one before but it was right around the corner and I needed a triple f contender so off we went…

They were doing construction right outside but the sign looked promising. I hopped out of the car excited to read their fish and seafood menu, and by menu I just mean what kind of stuff they have to offer for that day.

I was really only looking for one thing, Mahi Mahi, aka dorado, or dolphin fish, which has no relation to a dolphin whatsoever. Not only did they have dorado but they had a big hunking frozen dorado that had to be purchased in its entirety. It was just too much fish for what I needed it for, plus it was frozen… pass! We decided to take a ride down the road to the freshest seafood market we’ve discovered since getting here… El Camaron, aka El Jefe (just kidding, I made that up but it might as well be true when you are the freshest fish market on the block 🤷🏼‍♀️).

This is the view you’re struck with upon getting out of your car to walk up to the joint. Not too shabby! Pivot a little bit to walk towards the fish market and it looks like this…

So last time we were here, about a week ago, we got a kilo of camaron which came out to about 4 nights worth of shrimp. They were extremely fresh too, caught in the Nicoya peninsula which is about 1 hour from where we are. Not only did they have those for sale but they also had jumbo shrimp (oxymoron, I know) that I almost couldn’t resist but the better deal was on the shrimpy shrimp. I said “I’ll get those next time”.

Today, walking up I thought “I want me some Mahi Mahi and maybe if they have jumbo shrimp, I’ll sneak a few of those too”. They didn’t have jumbo shrimp today so my decision was a simple one; Mahi Mahi all the way.

Incase you missed the sign, not only can you buy the freshest seafood here but they also have a beach front restaurant attached, that will cook your fresh seafood for you too. Talk about customer service. I prefer to prepare our own food so no need to cop a table here today but having the option is nice. Dude, you can’t beat the view either…

I mean, you can’t get more sand in your toes than that. I bet the sunset from this spot is spectacular too. Would you believe the price isn’t outrageous either? Seriously, a kilo of shrimp is a lot of fresh shrimp and we bought it for a quarter what it would cost in the states. It’s probably a whole lot fresher too. Check out the pieces of Mahi Mahi they have goin on…

They were such a deal we got 4 large pieces and dude threw in an extra one for free. His name was Eric and he’s not unique in the way Costa Rican’s are cool like that. It’s part of why we moved down here. Everyone is Pura Vida and especially in Guanacaste, people are just chill 😎.

This is the goods on the almighty scale but who needs a scale when you have an Eric hooking you up anyway…

Really, he wasn’t second guessing his generosity here- he was just passionately telling us about their daily sunset happy hour. @dandays was listening intently even though we don’t drink and I was secretly taking pictures of everything. It’s kind of embarrassing getting caught taking pictures like a common tourist. I’ve actually always been a little shy about taking pictures of my food. Maybe it’s because I worked as a bartender for so long that I’d watch people do the funniest things when their food came out and immediately think to myself “pura, don’t ever do that”. Haha… I also took note of how many damn people can’t put their phone down in a restaurant, while in the company of another, and some while actually eating their food. We have a strict no phones in restaurants policy at the Pura-days table. It just looks ridiculous and then they miss out on a total experience of eating, chatting, people watching, whatever. Anyway, I digress…

We politely chit chatted with Eric for a minute, grabbed our fish on ice, and headed back to the car knowing that we still haven’t been able to drop off the laundry 🤦🏼‍♀️ . Parked perfectly next to our vehicle was this bute (pronounced: bew-ttt, which is short for beauty) that repped our sentiments exactly…

Do y’all see that:

water, water, water, water, water everywhere?
Water, water, water, water,
Water everywhere…
rockin everywhere, rockin everywhere…
I found you, Mr. blue
Get it together and wave it back soon,
Let me party with you,
For about a month or two… haha

Yep, I can’t get enough of the ocean here. Now that we bought our fish we need to hustle back to the laundry center to see if we can drop our clothes off.… I’m jonesing for this fish tonight now :)

Success!!! She’s here and since I know how this goes it’s going down much smoother than before. Wait a minute… I don’t have exact change and she only takes cash. Dang it, we have to make a run to the cajero automatico. There’s only two in town, lucky for us one of them happens to be on our street.

I tried to make this quick but decided we should probably stop in the market too so I could pick up a veggie to go with the mahi and break my bill. I’m guessing Mrs. Lavanderia won’t have change for me.…

The first store I ran into didn’t have good produce. There’s only 3 little markets in town so we headed to the next one. Miss again- they didn’t even have broccoli here. Dang it! Third times a charm 🥶? I walked into the final market on our route back to the laundry place. They had a whole other room in the back of the store… it was looking promising… and bingo! A fridge full of green broccoli, avocado, and other goods. I grabbed my things and headed to the cashier so we could get this road on the show.

While standing in line a woman and her two daughters under 10 couldn’t stop staring at me. The older daughter kept poking my broccoli and smiling up at me to which I responded with “hola and a big 👋”. The guy behind me seemed like he was in a hurry and the store was hot so we were all sweating. My turn, I put my stuff on the counter and said “hola, buenas tardes”. The cashier said something fast back but I assume it was polite. He gave me the total and I gave him my large bill to break. Dang it, he gave me change in larger bills. At this point I don’t know how to ask for singles and I’m feeling the dude behind me getting anxious so I just scampered out of there semi defeated. Haha

Dandays waited for me in the car when we got back to the laundry joint. I knew my girl wouldn’t have change so I wasn’t surprised when she asked if she could bring me my change in the morning. No problema, I have a pool to get to and a @foodfightfriday to write.

When I got back in the car I had to fess up to Dandays that I didn’t get change even though that was the point of our stop and that she’d give us change tomorrow. He’s got to think I’m a meat head 🤦🏼‍♀️

When we got back to the pad I ran out to pool as fast as possible, got comfy in my lounge chair and began writing. I realized half way through I’d like to add a picture of the fish all dressed up and ready to go out for the night so I put my phone down and got in the pool. A tan o clock later it was time for me to start dinner.

Pan seared Mahi Mahi in a lime garlic basil butter glaze, topped with a cold cucumber relish and accompanied by a broccoli medley bake. Uh yummmm 😋.

Is licking the plate considered bad form? Ahhh, flick it- plate licked.

Thanks for playing with me today friends. Friday has got to be the best Food Fight of the week. Thanks @jlsplatts, @weirdheadaches, and @dandays for putting in so much work for all of us to have a cool place to chill before the weekend. You guys are the true warriors here.

Hope everyone enjoys their weekend and as always…

Pura Vida ✌️

This message is brought to you by a multiple triple F title holder. Look for yourself, I have a belt to prove it. Yo, belt Gods… when do I get a belt that marks all of my triple F triumphs?