RESTAURANT: Bread & Chocolate in Puerto Viejo

Bread & Chocolate is a charming coffeehouse offering homemade desserts and sandwiches and breakfast. They also offer lounge-about visiting cats for your pleasure. ** They're located about 50 m west of the main drag in Puerto Viejo.

The Dog and I - well, really it was just me - wanted an afternoon bit of cake and coffee. We were overwhelmed with the choices for cake (and coffee, too, but I wasn't looking for anything fancy for coffee - just a regular cup). The Dog ordered Queen of Sheba cake - a dark chocolate almond torte and I had the Quintessential Chocolate Cake. Both were 1600CRC/each and frankly, an EXCELLENT deal. The torte (The Dog almost ate it all without even sharing a bite with me!) was silky and rich and indulgent. My cake was moist and perfect with just the right amount of icing - not overloaded and not too thin. I would have shot pics of the desserts, but dang it, my battery died right after I shot the interior of the restaurant. Suffice to say, they looked like something out of Gourmet magazine.

We also ordered one of their handmade truffles. The Hot Damn - dark chocolate with cayenne pepper. This was a bit of a disappointment to us. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't anything dynamic. Good, but..... the truffles are 600CRC (about 1USD) each. They offer several other flavor combinations, but we were so satisfied after the tasty cakes, we didn't try any other truffles.

The coffee was served individually to us in French press pots for 700CRC/each with cup and saucer. Nice body on the coffee, not too light and not too heavy.

Bread & Chocolate is a fine place to duck into and lounge with some fine coffee & cake and ponder the greater implications of early sunsets and toucans.

** There are many wandering cats and dogs in Costa Rica. These pets hang out on tables, near couches, on porch steps, wander purposefully down the streets, and so on. If you are allergic to cats and/or dogs, you should probably not come to Costa Rica or if you do, stay at one of the internationally-owned mega-resorts.