Animal Cruelty

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Geo: 9.88, -85.53

Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of Costa Ricans is the passion and love they have of wildlife - there's a certain appreciation and respect they have for animals, and it's something that isn't all that common in other parts of the World. So what we experienced tonight, when that respect turned into complete and utter contempt, made us sick to our stomachs, both figuratively and literally. The level of cruelty inflicted upon poor Costa Rican animals tonight was incomprehensible; how could one living thing have so little regard for the well-being of another?

Tonight, we witnessed the end result of the most brutal torture and murder of a squid - now, of course, we didn't actually witness the torture and murder, but in another nod to the wisdom of the great Spock (BTW - shout out to Leonard Nimoy, who passed away today - RIP), we deduced that it must have been the most excruciating death. The poor little squid was slowly stuffed up its butt with a mixture of bread, herbs, and way too much salt, until it was so constipated that it finally succumbed to its anguish, exploding all over our dinner plate at El Sueno Tropical, a highly-rated restaurant on Tripadvisor, though we have no idea why that would be the case.

Internet reviews are sketchy, since you never know if they were written by a satisfied customer, or by a buddy of the owner of the establishment. There were only twenty reviews online, but they were so good that it convinced us to try it out, and we were quite confident in our choice when we had seen that some of the reviewers had posted dozens of reviews on Tripadvisor. That couldn't possibly be faked! But perhaps there is another El Sueno Tropical in an alternate universe that dishes out delicious fusion cuisine, because while it was named "The Tropical Dream" in English, it was more of a Tropical Nightmare, surpassing our previous worst dinner ever!

But it didn't end with the suffering of that poor little squid, as some unknown fish suffered an equally-horrific fate, tortured to the extent that we could not even recognize what species it was! Our best guess was that it had been brutally kept in a hot room for hours and hours, because that is the only way that the beautiful fresh fish of Costa Rica could wind up being so tough and chewy, something that our culinary experiences here so far, had suggested was an impossibility. It could have also been due to the fact that the fish appeared to have been dunked repeatedly over those hours into a vat of soy sauce, which would also explain why it was so damned salty and discoloured.

At least the torturers had the decency to artistically display the squid and fish carcasses on the plates, with random blobs of sauce and shreds of greenery scattered about, resembling a disjointed Picasso painting. Alright, so it wasn't really all that artistic, but I guess that's what passes for fusion food in these parts, and explains why our food took so long, despite the fact that everybody else in the restaurant had long been served their carcasses ... uh ... I mean food. But that didn't explain some of the other oddities of the night ...

The fact that the fish wasn't served with any starch was odd, since the squid was essentially served with two starches, counting both the rice and the enema that was its bread stuffing. And there wasn't a shred of vegetable to be found with the squid, though there was some type of vegetable medley accompanying the fish, whose individual components were rendered indiscernible by the excessive amounts of soy sauce. Dinner was quite a letdown compared to our simple little lunch earlier at Lo Que Hay, a dive beach bar in Playa Samara,

It's funny how a simple meal can sometimes blow away one that attempts to be fancy - some fish and chorizo tacos, and an incredible dish of grilled local cheese with watermelon were all that we had for lunch, but it was all very well-prepared, delicious, and cheap. It was very memorable, the quintessential beach bum lunch you dream of having in a tropical locale, cold beer in hand and feet in the sand. Unfortunately, dinner tonight was equally memorable - too bad it was for all the wrong reasons ...

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Photos

Red Snapper With Volcano Sauce ...
... with a name like that, you'd expect something spicy, rather than simply salty and oily. The snapper was tough and rubbery, something that you would think was impossible with fresh fish of the quality available in Costa Rica. The veggies weren't bad in terms of the cook - nice, crisp peppers - but they were completely drenched in soy sauce.

Stuffed Calamari ...
... a complete mess! Imagine calamari stuffed to the point of bursting, with a giant lump of salty, soggy bread. The volume of bread made the inclusion of some dry, hard rice completely redundant as a side dish, though on some level, the rice was welcome because the calamari and accompanying sauce was so incredibly salty.

Redeeming Dessert ...
... a giant fruit salad with ice cream, back at the Hotel Leyenda. We had originally considered having dessert at El Sueno Tropical when reading the menu upon arrival, but we were so put off by the food that we ran away as fast as we could. Nothing special, and they actually screwed up and gave us plain vanilla ice cream instead of vanilla caramel, but it was still flavourful enough to wash the nasty flavours from dinner out of our mouths.

Tres Leches ...
... again, nothing special, but we found the one to one ratio of cake to whipped cream off-putting, and the generous drizzle of maple syrup was completely unnecessary, given how sweet the cake already was on its own.