Caribbean Coast Cooking

The food of the Caribbean coast came with Jamaican workers who arrived for the railway and the banana plantations from the 1870s, and it is distinct enough from the rest of Costa Rica to feel like another country's cooking. Rice and beans here is not gallo pinto: the rice is cooked in coconut milk with thyme, scotch bonnet and the beans together, which turns it richer and faintly sweet. Rondón is the coast's great dish, a stew of whatever the cook could run down, fish or meat with cassava, plantain and yam simmered in coconut milk for hours. Patí is a spiced meat turnover, and pan bon a dark sweet bread eaten at Christmas.

What you actually see

• Rice and beans - cooked in coconut milk with thyme and scotch bonnet.
• Rondón - the long-simmered coconut milk stew of fish and root vegetables.
• Patí - the spiced turnover sold from home kitchens.
• Pan bon - dark sweet bread, particularly at Christmas.

When to go

Year-round. Rondón often needs ordering hours or a day ahead because of the cooking time, so ask in the morning for the evening. Sodas along the coast road serve rice and beans daily. Limón carnival in October is when the whole repertoire appears at once.

Honest expectations

Rondón takes hours and most places will not make it on demand; ordering ahead is essential and many visitors never eat it as a result. Scotch bonnet is used generously. The Pacific side of the country does not cook this way at all, so it is not available elsewhere in any authentic form. Vegetarian options are limited beyond the rice and beans.

Nearby

Puerto Viejo, Cahuita and Puerto Limón all cook it; the Pacific side does not.