What do the Hotel Employees Eat?

I started out in the hospitality industry at the very bottom, in a fast food franchise.  I would leave every shift at Subway with a sandwich in hand.  To this day, I have never eaten another Subway sandwich since I quit in junior year of high school.  Not that I don’t like them, trust me, just like everyone else, I think the bread baking in the oven smell is amazing whenever I walk by a Subway.  I don’t know, I just never really felt like I really wanted a Subway sandwich since then.  Then I ended up working in a Japanese restaurant where family meal (the industry term for the meal eaten by employees at the end of the night with everybody) was so amazing and I gained 5 pounds working there.  Eventually, I started working in hotels and this is where the variably employee dining became huge.  I have worked in some hotels where the employee dining is pretty decent and if you make friends with the chefs, they’ll even make you personalized grilled cheeses and tuna melts when you’re craving one.  I’ve also worked in other hotels where you’ll look at the mystery meat that’s probably been sitting there since the morning and you wonder if your starving stomach is worth trying whatever that thing is. 

Although many people reading this may have found it interesting to see my week in the restaurants, many probably didn’t think about what I ate in employee dining after.  So, I thought I’d give a glimpse into what is served at Petatillo, the employee dining “restaurant.”  I was actually really excited and curious about eating here because as amazing as being able to eat in the restaurants at Arenas Del Mar for a week, I really wanted to try some real traditional Costa Rican food that local people would eat on a daily basis, so this definitely has given that opportunity to try that.

All of the food here is cooked by Carmen, who I have deemed my “fake mom” while I’m here.  One constant at every meal is rice, beans, and iced tea or some kind of fruit juice.  There is sometimes some salad as well.  But the variety of the main part of the meal goes from fried fish, to soup, to some type of meat, to noodles.  A lot of the meat is cooked in a curry-like sauce that is delicious or something in something similar to a mix between BBQ and teriyaki sauce.  One of my favorites was the noodles, while the soup and fried fish were a bit more different.  The one thing similar though is that they’re all very tasty.  Although this is definitely not what I eat a home, it has that “home” taste simply because it’s home-cooked!  But, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking!

Dinner Extras

The last part from my little three-part bit about the chef’s compliments here at Arenas Del Mar.  So for dinner, there is always two choices of bread: whole wheat and another option.  It ranges from white bread, to sundried tomatoes, to olive bread, to spice bread, to capers bread, to some others I can’t even remember.  But it’s always quite tasty and they always give you a pat of herbed butter to go along with it.  Yum.  I apologize for no pictures, but I always ate my bread too quickly and just always forgot to take a picture of it.  But hey, it’s bread, everybody’s seen bread before.

Additionally, there is always a little amuse-bouche of sorts.  Usually it is some sort of chip with a dip on top.  For example, it could be a fried tortilla chip with some chutney on top, toasted chips with a scallion and chives dip, or baked chips with a watermelon and mango salsa, or a toasted plantain with black bean and fresh pico de gallo, and on the last night, it was even sushi rice topped with a bit of tuna, avocado, and sesame seeds.  It was always a little treat to look forward to and perfectly triggers your stomach to start craving your dinner!

Lunch Extras at Playitas

As a continuation from yesterday’s post, I am going to talk a bit about the chef’s compliments given at lunch every day in Playitas Restaurant at Arenas del Mar.  This is definitely one of my favorite parts about lunch as well.  After you order, the waiter will bring over the “chips of the day.”  Sometimes it’s potato chips, yuca chips, or plantain chips.  They’re always freshly fried as they’re still warm and still have just a bit of oil on them.  These chips are always good plain, but they always have a house made dip as well.  Sometimes it’s roasted red peppers, garlic, or mushroom.  I can’t remember them all, but let me tell you, they were good.  I always wanted to ask for more chips to finish the dip!  It was always just enough to get me hungry and really look forward to my real lunch!

Breakfast Extras

While I covered all the meals that I ate here at Arenas del Mar's two restaurants, I didn’t mention much about some of my favorite parts of the meal: the compliments of the chef.  For breakfast, other than whatever you ordered, you would also receive fruit juice, coffee or tea, and a plate of fresh fruit consisting of a sample of star fruit, pineapple, papaya, watermelon, and some others.  I love fruit so this was definitely always one of my favorites. 

Another thing they also serve you at breakfast is an assorted baked goods and pastries platter consisting of three different things.  Some of them would be sweet like banana bread, cinnamon sticks, mango strudel, marble bread, banana nut muffin, almond cookies, cinnamon buns, and caramel cake.  The others would be savory like croissants, cheese breads, spice breads, and cheese sticks.  Man, these were definitely one of my favorite parts of breakfast as I’d guess what they would bring me each morning before I had even gotten the main part of my meal.  Quite a little treat each morning!

       

Ocean Breeze Rooms

For the past week, I’ve been staying in a Ocean Breeze Superior Room in Building Two (there are seven buildings total.)  For all of those people out there like me who like to check their email all the time, no worries because there is free wifi in all of the rooms.  Another bonus for people whose cell phones don’t work down in Costa Rica is that there is free international calling as well! 

One of the best things about the room is the shower.  I was a bit confused at first when I walked into the bathroom and didn’t see a shower door or curtain.  But I understood after I took my first shower.  The shower is SOOOO big that there is no way water will splash outside!  I’m 5’5” and I even laid down in it to test how big it is.  (I still had a couple of extra inches with my feet against one side!)  I also liked using the eco-friendly shampoo, conditioner, and body wash provided in the various dispensers.  No need to worry about wasting the last little bit in those disposable little bottles.

Another great thing about the room is the patio/deck area.  This area is outfitted with cushioned chairs that are great for curling up with a book or just sitting out there and thinking or enjoying a drink.  Especially since the weather is not too hot or cold in Costa Rica right now, it is very nice to just sit outside.

The best part about the room though is simply the location of Arenas Del Mar.  You know those things that people buy that imitates the sound of rain or ocean/waves to help them sleep?  Yeah, it’s like that, except it’s actually the Pacific Ocean!  I can literally hear the ocean from my room!

       

Animal Encounters and the Tico Bar

Teresa's experiences with animals and the minibar...

Encounters with nature here are pretty common.  There are the bugs flying around, the mini Godzilla-like reptiles crawling on the ground, and obviously monkeys and sloths flying in the trees.  I hear the monkeys in the trees and saw them from afar, but I never thought I would get really close to them. 

I had gone to bed really early last night (early for me is before 1 am, really early is before midnight.  What can I say, college habits.  Also, I’m still young enough to function on less than 8 hours of sleep and then recover by sleeping in on the weekends.) but heard what I thought were the guests next door coming back in.  I get it, this is a vacation spot and a lot of people honeymoon here.  Maybe they had a little too much to drink at the bar tonight.  But a minute later, they were still really loudly talking by my door.  I had no idea what they were saying though since it was really muffled and I was already asleep and was only half conscious.  Another minute later, they only seemed to get louder and I was becoming pretty awake at this point from the noise.  Trust me, it’s not that easy to wake me up.  And in my half-awake, half-asleep state, I realize that it’s too loud to be from the next room.  So, I suddenly jump up because I’m freaked out someone’s in my room.  I suddenly see some movement through the glass sliding door to the patio/deck area and I realize, “Holy crap.  There are monkeys raiding my mini fridge!”  (At least I assume it’s monkeys; I didn’t get a good look at them since it was dark!)

This brings me to one of my favorite amenities: the Tico Bar, a complimentary “mini bar.”  It’s not a true mini bar per se as it doesn’t have alcohol, but Arenas Del Mar provides a variety of Costa Rican snacks for you to taste.  One of my favorite things to do when I go travel is just to stop at a convenience store and look at the different types of chocolate bars, potato chips, and sodas they have, so I really appreciate this.  But back to the story, I had forgotten to lock the cabinet holding the fridge and the monkeys were so smart and knew where the mini fridge was that they had opened the fridge and making a bunch of noise screaming at each other!  Oh god.  Thank goodness I didn’t have anything in the fridge other than a couple of tea packet, which they tore open and threw all over the patio/deck area.  But for a good two minutes, I sat upright in my bed, scared to move because in my bewildered “just woken up” state, I couldn’t remember if I had locked the glass door or not and was afraid the monkeys wouldn’t be placated by my empty fridge and would try to come inside the room.  I never would have considered monkeys animals I’m afraid of, but I sure do now!  Thankfully, they got bored with my empty fridge pretty fast and left, but boy, let’s just say it wasn’t easy to fall back asleep after that little incident!

Catamaran Tour

I have to admit, I didn’t know what a catamaran was until I signed up for this tour.  Yacht, cruise, and sailboat just about covered my knowledge of all things boating.  So with my newfound knowledge, I was excited to go on this tour!

We left Arenas del Mar in the mid-afternoon and went to the marina in Quepos with the hopes that if the weather was good, we would be able to see the sunset.  I honestly wasn’t quite sure what the tour was about.  Was it just to go on a boat ride (which was perfectly fine with me!) or was it to go see some animals (which was also great with me!)  With some beverages and fresh fruit prepared on board, we were off.  We rode off for a while and the breeze and the ocean air was perfect to relax and just stare out onto the horizon.  It was absolutely gorgeous and so very calming.  There were a lot of birds flying really, really close to the boat.  Honestly, I felt like if I stuck out my hand, I could have touched them!   

Then after a while, I heard one of the crew members start shouting, there were dolphins!  At first they were a bit off in the distance and you could only see them rising together with their fin popping out, but the captain of the boat went off in their direction and then they were right below the catamaran!  It was amazing, but they disappeared after a while.

After another refreshment of some cookies and crackers, we had our next exciting sighting, humpback whales.  It was just like in the movies where the whale jumps out and splashes back down, except there were two whales!  I’m assuming a mama whale and a baby whale since one was much bigger.  It was amazing.  The captain just kept following them for a long while and it was honestly unreal seeing a huge humpback whale jump out or see it spray through its breathing hole or just to see a bit of its huge back pop up.  Originally, the tour included snorkeling, but the captain decided to follow the whales for a while and skip out on snorkeling since we wouldn’t be able to see much since it was dark and it’s not every day that a whale sighting happens!

After that, the crew docked the catamaran for a dinner of tuna pasta salad, a make-your-own-sandwich line, salad, fresh fruit, and some cookies.  Although it was a bit cloudy so there wasn’t a real “sunset” per say, there were streaks of bright pink and orange peeking out from behind the dark clouds.  Then an unexpected surprise was when one of the crew members who was Jamaican came out dressed as Bob Marley and started playing a banjo.  We were all given some instruments such as a tambourine and played along as he sang.   A perfect way to end the evening!