One night last week, Lolly & I found ourselves in Jaco looking for somewhere to grab dinner when I remembered reading about a new restaurant in town called Graffiti. Hidden in the Pacific Center (look for the KFC) at the north end of town, Graffiti Resto Cafe & Wine Bar is a tiny gem.
We entered the small restaurant and were immediately greeted by a very welcoming server who sat us at a table next to the window. The walls are covered in graffiti art and the radio was pumping a reggae version of Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain." We arrived on the early side and there were 4 or 5 other tables of diners already settled in.
The menu is a mixture of tropical dishes and Asian items (there is a small sushi menu). The menu is a bit tongue in cheek, with the main courses referred to as "Ghetto Gourmet." Our server happily explained the entire menu to us taking special care with the house specialty steak, rubbed with coffee and cacao. In the end, we both decided on fish dishes. Lolly tried the catch of the day, dorado (mahi mahi), encrusted with macadamia nuts and served with a miso sauce. This was a really lovely dish- all of the flavors complemented and none overwhelmed. The fish was also offered with your choice of 6 different sauces. I opted for a tuna special, a coconut encrusted filet of tuna seared with a Thai chili sauce. We also tried 2 of their martinis - a cucumber basil martini & a lemontini. Both were delicious. Entree prices range from $15 to $20 and martinis are all priced at $5.
All in all, we highly recommend this great new find for your next trip to Costa Rica!
Buen provecho!
Lolly and I just spent the last week in Vancouver attending the Agora Wealth Symposium which attracted over 800 internationally oriented investors. The topic this year was "America:Fight or Flight" as many people are concerned about an increasingly tax-hungry Washington, D.C. implementing a more "progressive" tax system to fuel big government. William, Fernando & Leslie also joined us and our presentation on Costa Rica: Creating Your Safe Haven in Paradise was well received. We also had over 100 people visit our booth to discuss how owning real estate in Costa Rica could fit into their personal financial planning. Please feel free to e-mail us if you would like to receive a PowerPoint of our presentation.
Vancouver is an incredible city where the climate was in the 70 degree range - similar to the breezy weather in San Jose, Costa Rica. What was amazing was the incredible real estate bubble they are now experiencing in Vancouver. Waterfront luxury condominiums are now selling for $2000 per square foot! That equates to about $4.2 million for a three-bedroom condominium. Now compare that to our condos at Del Pacifico which are selling for about $250 per square foot. The real estate boom in Vancouver has been fueled by a large influx of people from Hong Kong and more recently mainland China and it's estimated that over 20% of all the condos there are purely for investment and are vacant.
At the conference we ran into a number of old friends including Bill Bonner of Agora, Rick Rule of Global Resources and also some of our long time owners at Del Pacifico including Dennis Hopton who traveled from Hong Kong, and Linda Stack from California. We were fortunate to be with this group of people during the budget debate as it became clear that a growing number of people are looking at adding rental resort properties to their investment portfolio for a "just in case" investment; in fact a number of people will be coming to visit Del Pacifico in the next several weeks and we have offered them a special end of summer "friends and family" rate at our beachfront Alma del Pacifico hotel of $157 for a garden villa. If you would like to inquire about this rate please contact our Baltimore office directly for availability.
It's been 10 years since Lolly and I first visited Costa Rica- what an incredible journey! On our first trip we stayed at Villa Caletas, Los Sueños & La Mariposa in Manuel Antonio. Little did we know that the sleepy village of Esterillos would become Del Pacifico & the focal point of our lives.
Back then the drive from Manuel Antonio to Del Pacifico was an easy two hours and you wouldn't venture to do it at night. Now it's a 25 minute jaunt and we'll hit the restaurants in Manuel Antonio for dinner. But more importantly, over the past 10 years, as Tom Friedman has said, "the world has become flat." The sleepy village of Esterillos is now wired to the rest of the world and we have high-speed Internet, cable TV and cell phone coverage which puts Del Pacifico just a dial tone away from Atlanta, New York, or Los Angeles.
It's also incredible that over the past 10 years Del Pacifico as grown from a dream drafted on the back of a single piece of paper into a real community. This year the addition of the Alma del Pacifico hotel and setting up a long-term partnership with RockResorts were both important steps in our long-term strategic plan. Going forward, tourism has returned at an all-time high to Costa Rica and we are witnessing more and more "average Americans" looking to diversify some of their net worth into paradise and outside of the United States. Come visit us at our beach front hotel and spa- you can call us to take advantage of special summer rates. Additionally, we have condos and houses available for daily or weekly rentals. Of course there is also the opportunity to own as well is rent. I'm always available to talk to people interested in learning more about the logic of investing in international real estate and sharing our vision for Del Pacifico. Please feel free to contact me by phone or e-mail.
I'd like to personally welcome you to our blog...News from Paradise
