Instead, I thought we'd go shopping and then over to Nau at the Intercontinental Hotel in Escazu and then have dinner somewhere, preferably Bacchus. Well. Best-laid plans and all that...
I wanted to see if there was anything this kinda fat girl could fit into at Aliss, because sometimes they do have "large" sizes (not really large, just L, which is really like M here) that can almost fit somewhat large people. I found a great pair of pants, but nothing else. Being my birthday, of course esposo had to go shopping, too, and bought a bunch of stuff for himself. I ask you, was that rude or what? (Yes, dear, it was. It was rude of you to shop on my shopping day.) Then on to Nau.
Nau was horrible. It used to be a cool, lounge-y type place with great music, relaxed atmosphere, and extensive drink list (with something like 50 different mixed sake drinks). Not anymore. A real circa-1975 lounge act was playing when we went in (anyone remember Barry Manilow's Mandy? Oh yeah. Manders I thought of you, girl!), and the drinks menu is gone. I really wanted to order something off of their menu, and the rather stupid waitress was like, well, tell me what you want and I'll just have the bartender make it! No, no, I want to know what you have. A cosmo is not going to cut it on my freaking birthday! Never mind, I'll just have water. So she brings us two half bottles of Evian (Naive? Yes we were.), and esposo orders a vodka and soda with a twist. That's it. I'm ready to leave about 10 minutes after we arrive, so we get the check and ... wait for it... $6 for a half-bottle of Evian! Oh fuck! Are you kidding me? So the total bill for two half-bottles of Evian and one vodka soda was something like $18. Nau is so then. I will never go back there again.
After getting that bill, I was starting to get a migraine, but somehow esposo talked me into having dinner instead of going home. We first tried Bacchus in Santa Ana, but if you don't have a reservation on a Friday night, you can pretty much forget it. Which is too bad, because it looked wonderful. We wanted to try somewhere we hadn't been, so I thought, how about Essentia? It's just outside of Ciudad Colon, and esposo said, why not, so there we went. First off, the building is amazing. It's an older house completely decorated with artistic flair everywhere. The courtyard was booked (note to self: make reservations!), so we sat in what was like a patio. There isn't all that much vegan food on the menu, but I did order the summer rolls, miso soup and a salad. Personally, both the summer rolls and miso soup were entirely too heavy on mushrooms for me, but if you like mushrooms, like esposo does, you'll probably quite enjoy them. I didn't. I did, however, love the salad. It was simple: baby arugula, cherry tomatoes, and pesto dressing. That's it. Yet, it was the best salad I have ever had. Ever. Hands down. So I ordered a "giant" salad, though what came was what I'd call a side salad (and actually the bill showed I was charged for half a salad). I really could have eaten four or five of those salads. At the end of dinner, they brought us out a little chocolate terrine on a spoon; just a taste, but honestly I don't think I could have eaten more than that. Quite rich and delicious. Esposo also had a four-cheese pasta (again with mushrooms -- bleh!), though he said it was disappointing. And the meal came with homemade bread and two different kinds of spreads -- yum! Anyway. I'd definitely go back there for salad and desert. What more do you need, really? Oh and wine. Salad, desert and wine.
Happy birthday to me! Did I tell you I'm 40 now? Yep. The big 4-0.
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