We were just sitting here, looking forward to Jocelyn's "Killer Shrimp" dinner tonight with our friends Tony and Laurel and thinking about where to get said shrimp. See, we live on the ocean- fresh seafood abounds- paradoxically there is no Seafood Store in town. Go figure! The fundamental reasons seems to be that A) tourists don't cook; and B) the same guys who sell to restaurants and would sell to a seafood store also drive around in their trucks with big coolers in the back and sell seafood to anyone at all who is interested, at virtually the same price. So in the end, locals probably wouldn't buy at a store all that much unless they can't find what they want fresh off of a truck.
The problem however, is that the trucks are, by their very nature, unpredictable in terms of time/date and also supply.
So, as I started to say above, we were talking about where to go to find some fresh shrimp for a yummy dinner tonight and just then, wouldnchaknowit, a guy we've never met before pulls up out in the street and shouts up to Bb "Camarones Jumbo?", asking her if she would like to buy shrimp.
Never ones to look good fortune in the mouth (or is it "never question a gift horse?") Steve hopped down to check out what turned out to be beautiful, very fresh, cleaned shrimp. We bought 1.5 kilos for 4,500 colones. Put in "we can't use a decent measuring system like the rest of the world does" terms- that works out to about 3.3 pounds. Total cost to us? $10.32 Not bad for huge fresh-caught shrimp! And we didn't even have to leave the house.
Yum!