Hong Kong Wong » Reviews & Comparisons

5 Restaurants Recommended For San Jose, Costa Rica

HKW — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:25:05 +0000

Yeah, I love food. I love it so much that I often snap photos of what I eat to make my facebook friends jealous. Hell, I even embarrass the Japanese tourists with their big ass Canon 3CCD HD camcorders.

That’s how much I love food.

So when I get to a new city, good food is a priority. Here are 5 restaurants we discovered from our research, during our time in San Jose Costa Rica that would make a good starting point for you if you are ever there:

1. Cafe Mundo
Address: Calle 15 and Av. 9
Phone: +506-2222-6190
Cuisine Type: Italian
Hours : Mon-Thurs 11am-11pm; Fri 11am-midnight; Sat 5pm-midnight
Price range: $5-$20

We ate at Cafe Mundo on our very first evening. The owner at our hotel (Casa 69) recommended it to us. With no signs out front, it took us a little while to find it. Good thing my blackberry had GPS built in. The restaurant is well hidden in an old converted mansion, and a great spot for people watching. The menu here, while varied, is mainly Italian. Options range from salads to pasta to steak. Wall murals by Costa Rican artist Miguel Cassafont adorn the place. Our waiter looked like a Russian hit man, but service was generally ok. The standard 23% surcharge for tips and taxes in Costa Rica adds up though, so bear this in mind before thinking you are going to splash it like a king.

2. La Esquina de Buenos Aires
Address: Calle 11, Avenida 4
Phone: +506 2223 1909
Cuisine: Argentine
Hours: M-F 11:30 am to 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm to 10.30 pm, Sat 12:00 pm to 11:00 pm, Sun. 12:00pm to 10:00pm.
Cost: $25-$30 per person

Insist you want to splash your cash? Well, La Esquina is the place to do it. This Buenos Aires restaurant is rated as the best place for a steak and glass of red in town by the Lonely Planet. Food was on the spot, and service was fantastic. When you walk in the restaurant, the colonial touch will make you feel like you’re in San Telmo (the oldest barrio in Buenos Aires, Argentina). In fact, the entrance door to the restaurant was actually imported from Argentina. My mouth still waters at the thought of those perfectly tender medium
rare filets. Yummy.

3. Vishnu
Address: Av. 1, between calles 1 and 3
Phone: +506 2256-6063
Cuisine Type: Vegetarian/ fast food
Hours: Daily 7am-9:30pm
Prices: Main courses $3.50-$5

Costa Rica, surprisingly, has alot of vegetarian options. Vishnu is one of them. A famous San Jose chain, Vishnu is where both gringo and tico veggies go to, thanks to its no frills prices and great food. They also serve freshly squeezed orange juice unlike many places serving jugo de naranja with 50 spoons of sugar out of a bottle despite claiming it to be ‘fresco’. What to start with? Try the very filling plato del día that includes soup, salad, veggies, an entree, and dessert for under $4 for lunch. Oh… and the organic fruit ice cream layered over pineapples and papaya… yummy. We will be back.

4. Tierra Nuestra
Address: Avenida 2 & Calle 15
Phone: +506 258 6500
Price: $20-$30
Hours: 24 hours
Phone: (506) 258-6500

Tierra Nuestra is a ranch style restaurant located between downtown and the embassy area. It has a Costa Rican campesino (farmer/peasant) style theme, as witnessed by the cups, onions and peppers dangling from the ceiling as soon as you walk in. The food is served on heaving wooden platters spilling casados. Even Tico families pack the place on weekends. But this place is not cheap. Our total ended up as US$56. But the portions here are huge, and frankly we should have gone more conservative as one dish was really enough for 2 hungry gringos with leftovers. Look out for Jeffrey, get him to serve you. He will try his best to chat up your girlfriend… and fail miserably. Adds to the amusement.

5. El Buen Comer
Address: Just off Calle 25bis
Phone: +506 233 3857
Cuisine: Latin American
Price: $5-$10

They say to leave the best for the last (but not the least). El Buen Comer would be that last but mandatory best. This is a restaurant we discovered on our very last day in San Jose before departing to Dominical and Santa Teresa. This simple looking restaurant from the outside may not immediately catch your attention, but as soon as you walk in, you will notice that there are almost no tourists. Instead, ticos pack the place, enjoying their healthy portions of casados, ensaladas and papaya shakes. This restaurant actually reshaped the rest of our dining taste here.

Got any other places that we should check out when we return to San Jose Costa Rica? I’d love to know. Please share them in the comments below.

Voovit Review UK: international shipping made easy

HKW — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:15:58 +0000

There is only so much space to cram your whole life into one suitcase.

Last year, when I decided to relocate, I had a measely 20kg allowance that came with my cheap one way plane ticket.

That’s what I get for flying economy.

At that point, I realized that I had to either get rid of everything. It was either that, or to hawk some stuff on eBay/Gumtree, and ship the rest home.

4 Problems with shipping stuff home

Problem #1: I was in the UK. Home was in Hong Kong.

Problem #2: Shipping internationally looked expensive and untrustworthy.

Problem #3: I had my own luggage to ship.

Problem #4: Most companies gave rough estimates.

So to resolve the issues above, I needed to find a reliable service. I started by comparing Royal Mail, Parcel Force, DHL, Fed-Ex, amongst other shipping companies listed in the yellow pages. Most of these services quoted upwards of £150 for a 10 kg box. Before VAT. Shippers mostly offered an estimate quote, and had crappy websites lacking a useful interface.

I like transparency, so they had to go.

Voovit

I got pretty close to donating my photo album to the grinders. One day, by chance I discovered a forum thread discussing removal services. A couple of people mentioned a company called Voovit (www.voovit.com). The name sounded like a web 2.0 biz. I got curious.

It turns out that Voovit specialises in international shipping from the UK. They also provided their own special boxes that are twice as thick as standard storage cardboards.

Best of all, they could ship my own luggage for a small extra fee.

After exploring their website, I got a specific quote. The total would only be £240 for 5 boxes. £20 would be a refundable deposit.

There are a couple of restrictions, none of which affected me, but worth noting anyway:

1. You do your own packing: Voovit does pretty much everything else, but you do need to pack. They give very good guidelines on how to pack safely.

2. Total dimensions of goods must be under 300 cm after adding the length + 2x height + 2x width. But the average suitcase size is way under this.

3. Shipping gets to your local depot. You have some local fees to pay (should there be custom, handling etc.). If you want to save money you can pick this up from them, or you can pay a little extra to have it shipped to your door.

None ofI these were issues for me. I wanted to pack myself, my largest suitcase was within the dimensions (and it was a large suitcase). Hong Kong was a small place, and the depot charges were all very reasonable (no more than £100 including delivery to my door).

Process

After filling in the simple online form, I got a few emails from their ops team, giving me step by step instructions.

Within 24 hours, Voovit boxes arrived at my door.

We had a special request asking for their drivers to call when outside because our doorbell was not working at the time (a trade off for the cheap rent). We were told to put a note on the front door. The boxes were delivered successfully. The boxes even came with a roll of their own tape, which I thought was a nice touch.

Do note: calling their ops used to cost 50p a minute on a 0900 number. But email correspondence is more than efficient. I never required the phone.

*Update: Since my shipment, Voovit now has a low cost VOIP number. The details are in the registration/quotation email, so people who register don’t have to use the helpline if they don’t want to.

Packing

Creating the packing list was easy: we just logged into to the Voovit member’s area and provided a general item count in each box with the total value. e.g. 15 shirts worth £250, my hair gel worth £0.50, the photos worth priceless etc. The list was probably designed just to make sure you aren’t smuggling drugs.

Payment was easy. Paid by card. The deposit of £20 was deducted from my final total.

Now I just had to wait for arrival.

Arrival

I was traveling through Asia for the next 2-3 months, so I completely forgot about it. About 2 months later, I got an email stating that my stuff was now at the Hong Kong international terminal port.

The depot charged around £100 including all terminal/tax/custom fees and delivery. A few days later, they delivered it right to my house. Everything was there! I will however say to be careful with packing. A few fragile items were damaged. The shippers must have thrown the boxes around.

To be fair to Voovit though, they did arrange everything smoothly, and gave detailed instructions with the packing. I should have just packed more carefully, but I was in a rush leaving. Having all my memorable stuff safely back home though is, well, priceless.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I am very impressed with the service. They don’t ship to every country though so check their website. If they do ship to your country you can get your own quote through their website.

If you have any experiences with Voovit or experiences with international shipping, please post in the comments below.

La Vie En Rose Apartment Amsterdam Hotel Review

HKW — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:48:57 +0000

Yay, Amsterdam. Here is a great accomodation we discovered in the centre of Amsterdam that can accomodate up to 4 people that is worth checking out.

Background

It’s been a while. I was pretty excited about this trip as the last time I was there was almost 4 years ago.

When I used to go visit friends in Amsterdam or head over there for work, we’ve always stayed outside the city centre. It’s a total pain having to take the train in and out every day. I really wanted something quite central, so that we can walk everywhere. So on this trip, I decided to try something different.

Timing wise, we probably could have picked a better time. With the GBP -> Euro taking a beating, the first thing I noticed was that the average price for apartments ranged from around 80-200 euros a night. Not cheap.

Secondly, I left booking accom to the very last minute. We looked at hostel private rooms, but strangely they all worked out close to 100-130 euros a night as the prices were calculated per person and not per room.

La Vie En Rose

After spending a good amount of time scouring through various hotels, B&Bs, hostels, apartments and more, we stumbled upon an apartment known as La Vie En Rose. It was a one bedroom apartment located just 5 minutes from the train station, on a main street, with a kitchen, a large living room, free wifi, etc. It didn’t serve breakfast, but that didn’t matter too much. The photos also looked awesome, and my GF loved it.

It also just so happens that they had availability for the EXACT dates that we were arriving. Coincidence?

The photos of the place looked amazing. I also like hidden gems that are not outright obvious, and places that were nice but a touch homely. La Vie En Rose appeared to meet those criterias.

Booking

We went ahead and booked it. The rate varied between 125-150 euros / night (the higher rate applied to Fridays and Saturdays, which seem customary to most accomodation in Amsterdam). There was also a 50 euro deposit, and normally Paypal payments were accepted, but as I left it to the very last minute, I had to arrange this by cash.

Arrival

Yvon, one of the owners, gave me pretty good directions on how to get to the apartment. It was pretty easy to find, just a few minutes walk from centraal station, and located right next door to a pub on NZ Voorburgwal.

As soon as I walked in, the immediate thing I noticed was how narrow the stairs were. It was somewhat tricky to navigate with luggage. Immediately, I had concerns about how the apartment would look like.

(As a side note, remember that if you go to Amsterdam to pack light! Lots of luggage is definitely not compatible if you are staying anywhere above ground floor.)

La Vie En Rose I: The Apartment

My concerns were relieved as soon as I walked in the apartment. I was welcomed into a bright open space, probably even nicer than the photos. It was bright, spacious, and nicely furnished. La Vie En Rose I, which was on the 1st floor, was ours.

Christa, one of the other owners, came down and greeted me. We talked in the very open lounge with large bay windows. I was already thinking how awesome they would be for people watching. The living room was spacious with modern furniture, a nice Samsung flat screen LCD TV, and very comfy looking couches and pillows. The bathroom was great – power shower, modern floors, a heating rack and all. The kitchen came with china, glasses, utensils etc.

I must admit when I first got there, I was so tired that I thought it was a studio. But then Christa took me to the back, and showed me the bedroom, which was nicely tucked facing a quiet street, and was darker than the living room, just as I like my bedrooms :) It had 2 single beds next to each other, but were the most comfortable beds ever. It faced a side street, so was very nice and quiet almost every night.

Krista also gave me a quick guide through the area and a basic hand drawn map of interesting sights she recommends. She really does know the city well, and definitely distilled some good info to us that came in handy.

I paid in cash, and also a 50 euro deposit. She left me the key and I was on my own for the next 5 days.

Here’s a few thoughts on the apartment in general:

1. Location: the location is truly fantastic. I was right bang in the middle of the city centre, right across from the Dam Square, the major tram routes right at my doorstep, and the main Centraal train station within minutes. There were loads of restaurants, shops, chinese massage places all around us. It made life easier for sure than being in the middle of no where. You can hear the streets a little from the living room for that reason, but it never bothered us.

2. Service: unlike hotels this place was really self service. So if you’re looking to have a cleaner every day, or breakfast, or a variety of indulgences, this place probably isn’t for you. You are expected to look after the place, with a strict no drugs policy on site. However I was given their personal contact number should any emergencies occur, and they lived right above, and said if anything to just go knock on the door. One thing I would have loved to have there was a washing machine, but I guess most people stay for literally 2-3 days. There are a few laundromats just in the area anyway. The owners also never bothered us throughout our stay, which was really nice.

On the last night, I also got a nice letter from both Yvon and Christa, along with my deposit back. It would’ve been great if we could have checked out a bit later in the day, or stored our luggage on site, but as new guests were arriving at 10:30 on the last day, we had to check out by 10. This was probably the only downside, so I would probably suggest they have a policy for new guests to not check in by at least 2 pm, giving current guests ample time to check out. Being able to store luggage on site would have helped too as we wanted to wander around the city on the last day. It cost around 7-8 euros at centraal station to store stuff (if you have alot of stuff and need 2 lockers then it would be up to 15 euros or so) as it required 24 hour storage minimum.

3. Sleep: I slept really well. The beds were uber comfortable. The only thing is they were put together as 2 singles. This therefore could work well if you have a group of friends (up to 4), as 2 could stay in the bedroom, the other 2 in the living room. However for couple that like to cuddle… do note that as the beds have wheels on them, it had a tendency to move around and split apart in the middle of the night…

4. Shower: Awesome. I love a good shower. It takes a minute or so for the water to heat up, but it’s a great power shower, and there are ample towels supplied. They also kindly gave us a couple of shampoo pouches. I love the toilet, even though I minimized spending time in it.

5. Safety: We felt very safe throughout. The pub downstairs tend to draw a friendly tourist crowd. There is a hostel next door, but people kept to themselves and didn’t particularly make any noise. The apartment is right on a major street, and all the windows in the apartment had locks and limits.

Tip #1: The bar downstairs, De Spaanse Ruite, is owned by the sisters, so if you mention that you are staying upstairs, the pub owner Bob (I believe is his name) will give you a 10% discount on anything. They also make a great burger. There is also a fantastic natural fruit juice / smoothie place right around the corner worth checking out.

Tip #2: Also, Christa and Yvon own a boat which they can take you on privately for 35 euros (I believe) on a canal dam tour. We didn’t get the opp to check it out, as I managed to get us a 25 euro canal cruise through the GWK currency exchange place for 4 euros. I would not have paid more than 4 euros for it though…

Conclusion

All in all, a great apartment in a very central location, lovely living room, nice quiet bedroom, fantastic shower and very consistent reliable wifi. If you want a place that feels like your own home in the Amsterdam city centre, and don’t mind climbing a flight of stairs or two, I highly recommend you check them out.

I will probably stay here again on my return to Amsterdam, especially if we can pre-arrange a group of 4 and split the costs. You can visit their website on http://www.la-vie-en-rose.com/. Mention you heard them through Hong Kong Wong and ask them to tell you about the awesome ice cream place!

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Battle of the ebook readers: Sony PRS-505 Vs. Amazon Kindle 2 DX

HKW — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:56:15 +0000

“Ebook readers? Pah. I prefer reading on toilet paper.”

That’s what a friend of mine said a year ago, and recently, he, like many other people, are starting to come around to the benefits offered by ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony 505.

Having recently purchased a Sony PRS-505, and absolutely in love with it, here’s a brief head-to-head smackdown over my decision making process between the Sony PRS-505 and the Amazon Kindle 2.

Let’s assume you can get your choice of the Kindle 2 and the Sony 505. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Here are 8 features compared between the two.

1. The Amazon Kindle 2 has loads of books available – nearly 300,000. Of course, you have to get them from Amazon. There are a number of newspaper and magazine subscriptions available for the Kindle, as well as blogs, such as Boingboing, TechCrunch, and SlashDot. Stats on the Sony 505 are not as specific: there are “thousands” of titles available directly from Sony. But more importantly, it supports PDF well, and Google has about half a million free books that are in the public domain, so this was a big selling point for me.

2. The Kindle 2 supports AZW proprietary technology as well as MOBI, as long as you have software called Calibre to put it in that format. Calibre is open source. Conversion of other formats to AZW costs $0.15 per megabyte (about 9p) if you get Amazon to do it for you. For some, this may be an issue. The Sony PRS-505 on the other hand, supports the following formats: LRF, EPUB, PDF, TXT, BMP, RTF, JPG, AAC, MP3, PNG, and GIF.

3. The Kindle 2 has a larger screen and a keyboard. The Sony is slimmer overall and does not have a keyboard. But do you really need a keyboard on an ebook?

4. The Kindle 2 has no expandable memory. Extra storage is on Amazon’s servers, for download when you need it. The Sony supports memory expansion with SDHC memory sticks.

5. The Kindle 2 has 6 different font sizes, while the Sony only has 3-4. There are 3 levels of zoom on the Sony, which works well in general, but could be an issue for those wanting to zoom better.

6. The Sony takes a little bit more time to refresh when turning pages. Personally this doesn’t bother me too much.

7. The Sony has slightly better screen contrast, which is great for reading outdoors, and glaring sunlight.

8. The Amazon Kindle is only available from Amazon.com with a U.S. credit card and a U.S. shipping address, so getting your hands on one in the UK is going to take some fancy footwork including calling in those favours your American friends owe you. You could also try eBay, and pay the extortionate markup.

Is it worth it? Remember that to download content in the UK from Amazon, you will first have to download it to your computer, then drag it over to your Kindle with the USB connection.

Finally, it’s not so easy to say which one comes out as the winner. It depends on how you feel about things like proprietary formats, supported data formats, and availability of content.

The winner in my book: The Sony PRS-505

Bottom line is that if you’re in the UK and you’re in a hurry, go with the Sony. The history of e-readers is new enough that it isn’t clear whether the better strategy is to sell the books and provide the technology to read them, or to sell the technology with the hope that enough content will soon be available to make it a worthwhile investment.

If you have any experience with the Amazon Kindle, the Sony PRS-505 or other ebook readers, please share your thoughts/opinions in the comments below!

Hong Kong Wong » Reviews & Comparisons

5 Restaurants Recommended For San Jose, Costa Rica

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Voovit Review UK: international shipping made easy

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La Vie En Rose Apartment Amsterdam Hotel Review

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Battle of the ebook readers: Sony PRS-505 Vs. Amazon Kindle 2 DX

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