El Chivo = the goat = Greatest Of All Time?
Despite the rainy start to our trip that Saturday night and Sunday morning, Sunday turned into a beautiful day. After our delay at the omelette place, we ended up exploring the rest of the road that El Ramal was on. I mentioned earlier we discovered El Chivo, the bar/restaurant that would become our go-to spot.
The first thing I liked about the place was the same thing that caught our eyes as we walked past. It’s perfect advertising and it did its job; it made us stop what we were doing and come over to read further. Obviously, if you see a sign for “free beer,” you should investigate.
We stopped here on our way back from the beach for a snacky dinner and a beer, finding a table with ease. I think we were there at an off-time, around 4 PM. Kim and I were able to order beer from a different brewer than Imperial and that was a treat! I had the Howler IPA and she had the Leafcutter Lager. They were smooth and cold. Tayler, who happens to be of drinking age here, wanted an adult beverage also, and found a margarita/mojito hybrid on the menu. Aubrie, who still has a couple years to go before she should let alcohol stunt her maturity, settled for a limonada. All our beverages were refreshing in their own right.
And then there was a skillet full of beans…
We had skillet nachos, which consists of the stuff you’d put on top of regular nachos piled together in a skillet for dipping. It reminds me of the Deconstructed Nachos at Cafe Miranda in Rockland, ME. (If you can get to Cafe Miranda, GO. It may be closer to you than El Chivo. But if you can go to El Chivo, go there too.)
I fell in love with a yellow hot sauce at the table and decided I would put it on everything. Each individual chip, before entering my mouth, got a healthy helping of this sauce. It burned but it was so good. There were two men at a table next to us that ordered chicken wings and they were huge! One wing I saw looked like it had a chicken nugget growing out of it. We regretted not ordering wings but remembered the backside of the sandwich board outside had promoted half price wings on Mondays with the purchase of a 16 oz beer. We would come back!
…and we need to satisfy our collective sweet tooth.
Then we noticed the dessert menu. I love churros and I was heartbroken when I noticed they were dropped from the menu at Taco Bell years ago. I don’t even go to Taco Bell that often but I was sad. Anyway, we love churros. There are churros on the menu at El Chivo! Of course we ordered them. We tried to order a chocolatey option whose name translates into chocolate pots of cream, but they were out. We made a mental note to try again on that one.
The churros came, looking and smelling like sugar cinnamon heaven. They tasted even better. Freshly made, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, sugar cinnamon melting in our mouths. They were a perfect way to end a day that started out cool and rainy.
The next day we explored Nosara again, walking down to their beach and doing a little souvenir shopping in town. The rain held off all day and we took a dip in the pool, lounging until it was time to go back to El Chivo for dinner. We strive for constant improvement, never wanting to be stagnant, so we ordered the skillet dip AND wings, churros AND the elusive pot of chocolate cream. We were too ravenous when those wings showed up so we didn’t get a picture of them. Cue sad music. But we did capture a shot of the chocolate dessert in its natural habitat.
We paid our bill and got up to leave. I had already made it to the door before I heard Kim excitedly say “si!” I turned and saw her head toward the bar, where the bartender was saying something to her. The girls followed and I arrived at the bar in time to see red shots lined up in front of us. The bartender wanted to give us complimentary shots with hot sauce in them; Kim was so agreeable because she thought she was buying that yellow sauce I like so much! The shot is a popular Costa Rican shot called Chili Guaro and is made of hot sauce, Guaro Cacique, which is a sugar cane liquor, and limes. It was spicy and reminded me of a Bloody Mary, but without the horseradish. Muy bueno!
The next day we went to Samara for a family tattoo (more about the awesome Michael Stout at Samara Tattoo in an upcoming post, I promise) and packed a lot of sun, fun and family time into the day. And we did everything we could to make it back to El Chivo for Taco Tuesday. The tacos were tiny but filling and more importantly, it was Mother’s Day! The girls had written me a little note telling me how much they love me. They think I should marry Kim. I think I should too.
You should like El Chivo on Facebook here and you should check out their website too.