week 4

This week I interviewed my sixteen-year-old tica brother.  Usually I ask my tica mom the questions, however the night I asked the questions my tica parents went out to dinner for their anniversary. I thought was a coincidence considering this weeks blog questions. My tica brother is very quiet so it was difficult to get answers more than a few words from him. He told me that special occasions were the main reason that people went out to eat. Occasions like anniversaries and birthdays. However, I was surprised when he told me that they would normally go to a fast food restaurant for a birthday dinner. He said it was because it was fast food and very easy to do. Although, when I was asking my tica mom about her anniversary dinner with my tica dad she told me that my tica dad made reservations at a nice restaurant and they spent a long time there eating and talking. This relates to the next question about the generational differences. While my brother said that younger generations ate out more than the older generations he mainly talked about fast food restaurants. This makes me think that since the older generations only go out for special occasions, that when they do go out it’s to a very nice. They make more of an event out of it. My tica brother said that fast food restaurants like Taco Bell and sodas are the most popular types of restaurants in Costa Rica. I believe this is because my tica family rarely goes out to eat and if he is to go out with his friends they’re more likely to go to a fast food restaurant where the food is fast and cheap.  My brother also said that foreign restaurants are positive for Costa Rica because they save time (this is the only explanation I could get out of him). He also told me that Mexican food is his favorite type of foreign food to eat. I was trying to get more of a feel of how often he actually went out to eat because when I was in high school and even at Elon, going out to dinner or any meal was something we did/do as a social event. A lot of times my friends and I would go to dinner and a movie or after school we went out to lunch. My brother said that he and his friends go out maybe once every two months and when they do it’s to a fast food place.  

 This is a soda that we saw in Puerto Viejo and it's similar to one that I've eaten at here in San Jose. It is small with a few tables and has outside seating.

The food served at sodas is typical Costa Rican food. Which makes it appealing to all types of people. The food is also relatively cheap for the amount of food that is served. It's different from a restaurant in the United States when you look at the type of food served but it's like any restaurant that serves main dishes. 

The next restaurant that I visited was TGI Fridays. I had a picture of the inside of the restaurant but it wouldn't upload. The inside of the restaurant looks like one you'd find in the United States. It was large with many tables of all sizes. All of the tables had the red and white checkered table cloths which created a unified look throughout the entire restaurant.

Although the menu is hard to read, the food choices are very similar to the food that would be served in a TGI Fridays in the United States. This is what I expected considering the restaurant is a chain. 

The inside of the restaurants were also very clean which is sometimes hard to find in the United States in a fast food restaurant or a chain.