Any good places? We just noticed our hotel dinner is pricey and we are wondering if any great little joints.

The nicest place we've gone is Don Rufino - cute environment and good food. For good cheap food, we like Soda la Parada. El Novillo has some good steaks, and we liked La Choza de Laurel too - they have rotisserie chicken and casados. For the most part, I haven't found hotel food to be that great in CR. Cafe Nene gets good reviews, but we haven't tried it yet.

We enjoyed El Novillo de Arenal, which is located along the road to Tabacon, about 6 miles outside of La Fortuna. Definitely it's all about the cows there. Huge steaks, way too much for us to eat, at reasonable prices ($60 total for the two of us, including a nice bottle of wine). It's open-air, informal, under a big roof. We also ate at Don Rufino's, which was good enough.

Monteverde has much better restaurants, in my opinion. We enjoyed Trio, Morpho, and especially Sofia's. Avoid the Tree Bar!

Hotel La Pradera has quite a good restaurant. (It's where they rent ATVs).

http://www.arenal.net/hotel/la-pradera/

If you happen to do the Hanging Bridges, we had a good lunch there; we were expecting snack bar food, but ended up having yummy casados. Also, if get a chance, try some batidos - good shakes made with fresh fruit. Johnny's Pizzeria is good in Monteverde; I had a great salad, and my husband liked trying their Costa Rican pizza. It's a pretty elaborate place, not your usual pizza joint.

I really enjoyed our food at the Pizzeria Vagabondo. They have a wood fired oven and the prices were very good. The place is spotless, the service was quick and welcoming. They spoke pretty good english as well.

If your driving and go around the lake ( I think this is a fantastic drive) you can find the German Restaurant. The food is excellent there as well.

I said Johnny's Pizzeria up above - should have said Pizzeria de Johnny - have to give the authentic name!

I can recommend you Rufino's Restaurant. It is located in La Fortuna, and they have the best food i have ever tried, excellent service and a lot of choices (the desserts are absolutely fantastic)
Arenal Kioro Hotel has also an excellent restaurant and a stunning view to the volcano.

I wish you to enjoy your food.

E, we really like it too. I had a great trout with mashed potatoes there. Very nice flavor.