Costa Rica: Soda Viquez

On our last day in Arenal, we went on a tour to Cano Negro National Wildlife Refuge, located close to the Nicaraguan border around a two-hour drive from La Fortuna.  We were happy to see Jorge (the same tour guide who took us around the day before), but not nearly as happy as he was to see Abby alive and well after the shrimp allergy fiasco.  

Jorge is wizard.  He's able to spot the tiniest of animals from crazy distances.  It's like he has a built in radar for animals.  Either that or he plants them there before tours.  Regardless of how he does it, Abby and I were extremely satisfied by how many animals we saw during our river tour.

We kept talking about the tour as we were enjoying dinner at Soda Viquez:

The restaurant was pretty big with lots of seating:

We started with the drink menu as per usual.  We got a soursop smoothie (₡800 or around $1.20) and a cas milkshake (₡900 or around $1.35):

What is cas?  Well, it's a Costa Rican guava and you can find it basically all over Costa Rica.  By the end of our trip, I was all cas-ed out.

For our mains, we got the casado with steak (₡3000 or around $4.50):

And the breaded sea bass filet (₡5200 or around $7.80):

The portion sizes were very generous and very filling.  Everything went well with rice.  While I usually prefer my steaks thicker and on the rare side, Soda Viquez's steak was so well seasoned that I didn't mind it being well done.  The fish was my favorite though.  So light and tender.

If you're traveling on a budget or if you're more interested in eating where the locals eat, Soda Viquez is the place for you.  Don't expect anything fancy, but do expect some damn good food.

Soda Viquez  

50 m sur del parque, La Fortuna de San Carlos, Costa Rica

+506 2479 8772