Week 4!

After talking to my tico brother and dad about restaurants, it appeared to me that going out to a restaurant was made into more of an event. Whether the family wanted something different to eat or they were celebrating something, going out to a restaurant for a meal in my tica family is an event that isn’t supposed to take less time than a normal meal. My family might go downtown to a “spoon” or go to eat somewhere that has food different from what is at home. Without a car and with many different schedules, my tica family normally goes out to eat for lunch because its safer and some family members are less tired. My brother told me that he and his friends go our to eat as a change in routine, which made me believe there was a generational difference. My tico dad didn’t seem as interested in eating restaurants as my brother. It seems that the younger generation is more interested in going out to eat than the older. I think this is somewhat similar to the States. College students are always looking for something cheap to eat and fast food always does the trick. While some families do eat out, it seems more cost efficient to eat at home.

            My tico brother was actually the one who brought up the conversation about the foreign restaurants and fast food restaurants in Costa Rica. He mentioned that Hooter’s was becoming a popular restaurant for families to eat at, which is the total opposite of the Hooter’s in the United States. My tico dad and brother said that there has been a major increase in foreign restaurants, specifically fast food restaurants, in and around Sabanilla. Taco Bell and Applebee’s are two that were just recently added. They noted that these fast food restaurants were more popular than typical sodas or spoons because there are so many of them. Typical sodas are less popular since they are local and there is probably only one of them, not multiple branches of the same restaurant, like McDonald’s. My tico dad said that McDonald’s has been here for over thirty years and he has seen the growth and increase in other foreign restaurants. My tico brother came to the conclusion that even though these places provide jobs and that people gain a living working there, these restaurants are bad for your health. He believes that how they affect the health of the people is the most important thing to look at. He admitted that he goes probably once a week to a fast food restaurant but that was mostly because he forgot his lunch at home. “It might save your day, but in a healthy way it sucks,” Jose said about fast food.

            This was all so interesting to me, because both my brother and my dad assumed that when I said foreign restaurants they instantly began talking about all of the American fast food restaurants. While there are Chinese and Italian restaurants all over, fast food seems to have made a bigger impact. How my family views fast food seemed to vary and I think that could be the same for other tica families. They think that while fast food might be a nice change in routine and nice to go to as a family, they are bad for your health and are negatively affecting Costa Rica at times. The United States has a similar view but emphasizes the word “fast.” Its so easy to pick up fast food, eat it on the go, or take your children there to play, but these restaurants are still not always good for your health. I think this is an interesting balance that the United States is having to find and I think this will become a problem in Costa Rica soon. Is the price you pay for fast, great-tasting food worth the negative affects on your health?

 These photos were taken at the school of law soda at the University of Costa Rica. It was set up cafeteria style, where you would grab a tray and go through the line, paying at the end of the line before you sat down to eat. They had menu, but it looked like while we were there almost everyone got the basic plate or the special plate, which they had the items included written on a piece of paper close to the trays. I thought this was a fairly similar set up to a college dining hall at larger state college rather than one like Elon’s dining halls. The basic and special plate that they offered definitely seemed like the way to go, because it not only included a main dish and a couple of sides, but also a piece of fruit and a glass of juice. This could be similar to a combo in the States but with less structure. The restaurant had many options for the two plates, allowing you to choose your sides and what type of meat you wanted. In the States different types of meat often cost different prices and the drinks vary more.

 In downtown San Jose, we went to a Chinese restaurant, but when we actually first walked in we weren’t sure if it was Chinese because the menu looked nothing like Chinese food. They had the menu on the wall, but we sat down and they gave us menus. Many of the combos that they offered included fries and fruit juice to drink which are definitely not Chinese. This was so interesting because this restaurant showed a combination of foods of the three different countries in almost each combo. Fries from the US, the main dish from China (or maybe the US too), and Juice from Costa Rica. As in the United States, combos were given and pictures were shown of what the meal would look like. I didn’t realize that showing the pictures of what you were getting was so common in many restaurants in the States, and here in Costa Rica I have only really seen it at fast food restaurants and a few sodas. Oftentimes, the pictures are what help the customers decide what they are getting. At the Chinese restaurant I was trying to decide between two combos and their pictures were the deciding factors of my decision to go with the meal that appeared to have less food from the picture. I think this can be an example of just how well visual advertising can work.