Costa Verde Restaurant
- Price Range: $$
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: Yes
- Delivers: Yes
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Dinner
- Alcohol: Full Bar
12 Reviews for Costa Verde Restaurant
It definitely feels like a nice family owned restaurant. Their ceviches are great. Pisco sour was nice and potent. It's a nice place for a casual dinner with a group of friends.
Their 'main' main dish is steak. I ordered mine medium rare but it came medium well to well done. It was a bit dry and tough. As Jake pointed out, it was a little hard to get the waitress's attention.
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Great meal!
The Lomo Saltado is one of the best meals out there. Strips of flank steak, french fries, covered in a great sauce and served with steamed rice. It's as if my brain dreamed up a meal and had it magically appear on the Costa Verde menu.
The ceviche I've had is good as well. Nice to split with your party or even enjoy as a meal. I've also had the seafood paella but I doubt I'd order it again knowing how great the Lomo Saltado is (and even the ceviche).
Check it out!
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I was scoping out some conference room space in the area for work and had several places in mind to try. This was the first one we encountered of four possibilities, so we walked on in.
The waitress brought out some unpopped popcorn kernel looking corn and a bowl green salsa. We stared at it for a while and then had to ask her how to eat it when she got back since we were a little afraid we'd crack some teeth trying to eat it. The corn wasn't super hard like we figured, but crunchy and tasting of masa. I guess a simpler version of tortilla chips or corn nuts or something.
The menu was huge. I know very little about Peruvian cuisine, but had heard about lomo saltado before, and decided to go with that. My coworker got some stewed beef thing.
The food came out pretty quickly. The lomo saltado was delicious. The steak pieces was well done but still tender and very beefy. The fries tasted like they could have just been Ore-Ida, but the rice was very well flavored. Overall the combination was great. I tried my coworkers stewed beef. Super tender, a little bit fatty though. The sauce was definitely cilantro based.
I recently discovered tres leches cake and really wanted to try their version or the alfajores, but I was way too full. Oh well.
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I came here to meet a bunch of Yelpers with a craving for Peruvian with auspices of welcoming Takaki closer to the city. Overall, not a bad place. Here are some of the high (and low) points of the night:
1. Food was interesting. The shrimp chowder soup was nice and tomatoey - a solid start. A tad soupy for what I was expecting - anytime the word "chowder" is involved, I think of nice and thick "gravy". The ceviche was also tasty - the yam that was on the dish was also a nice touch. Finally, I ordered the Chicharinos el Pollo (I think that was the name of it) which was an interesting fried chicken dish with a side of fried yuca. Overall, with some samplings from Pui Chi's Mahi Mahi fried rich, I left very full.
2. The service left a little to be desired. They only had one waitress serving what seemed to be the entire restaurant - granted they were only at 25% capacity.
3. The restaurant was a tad cold. Granted, it could have been because of the winds blowing outside but I felt like they could have been a tad more generous with the heat.
Overall not a bad experience - I'll have to keep this one as a nice little Arlington secret.
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I've driven past Costa Verde many times, but never really knew its existence until I signed up for salsa lessons through meetup.com. Costa Verde has two levels. The first level appears to be more for dining, and the upstairs has a dance floor, which is fairly big. There is a bar upstairs. The bartender, Todd was very friendly. Since I was upstairs for the dancing, I was able to order my dinner, which Todd brought to my table. I definitely plan to come back and sit at their main restaurant. The cuisine is mainly latin. If you enjoy fish, then you will like the menu as there's a lot of fish (i.e. mahi mahi and shrimp) on the menu. It's also worth checking to see if Costa Verde is hosting any dances. Since I live so close by, I was able to walk to the restaurant. There is a small parking lot, but it is walkable from either Clarendon or Virginia Square metros.
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I'm not sure why Costa Verde is so highly scored... CV does have extensive items on the menu but I was really disappointed by quality and quantity of the food.
I got Arroz Con Mariscos. Seafood dish with steam rice. There is another dish for fried rice but this STEAM rice dish was simply seafood fried rice. The manager (waitress couldn't speak english well enough to communicate and she couldn't describe most of dishes in english) told me that it was steamed rice fried with seafood. Well.. I wasn't sure how the actual fried rice with seafood looked like then.
OK. Fine with rice type. Seafood wasn't fresh either. Shrimp, chunks of fish (good amount), 2 pieces of scallops were fried and then put into the rice to be mixed and stir-fried again. Those were EXACTLY same fried seafood that were in my friend''s dish, Picante De Mariscos (seafood in cream sauce with rice and potato). The seafood was on top of a HUGE potato piece so when you first look at the dish, you think you got lots of seafood but it was very clever trick. It is filling, of course because of big portion of rice and potato and VERY creamy sauce. But not-fresh seafood (god knows when it was fried and how long it was sitting before being mixed up with other seasonings or sauce to be served) with majority portion composed of starch (potato, rice or both) is REALLY NOT worth $15!
I've had peruvian seafood dishes at other much smaller nearby restaurants or hole in the wall looking places in either VA/MD, but they , at least, served FRESH seafood and very tasty sauce or seasonings and GOOD real amount of seafood.
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Any place that will serve me an entire fish, head and all, i'm usually a fan of. This isn't to say that they do it well, but at least they're confident enough to serve me something that will look into my eyes while I eat it. Does Jim Gaffigan do a bit about that? I can't remember.
Anyway, of the few places I've had a whole fish, this place ranks in the middle somewhere. The entire dish was just a little too moist--too much liquid sitting around.
The lighting in here is a bit depressing, as are the prices.
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Another place that I drive by all the time and never noticed. It's right across from the Hess that has cheap gas. The food is sooo good and I left sooo full. The price is right too.
The inside is plain - we're talking banquet hall chairs with the cushion still wrapped in plastic and the tables have tableclothes and a plate of glass over it. The food is amazingly good and there's nothing fancy about the presentation. The six of us were the only ones there to boot - on a saturday night!
Ceviche De Mariscos is incredible. Shrimp, conch meat, octopus and squid marinated in lemon juice. There's also a chunk of sweet potatoes and a small corn on the cob. A very refreshing appetizer dish to share for 3-4 people. It can also be a light entree for one. Cost: $12.95
Part Two of my appetizer was Chupe De Camarones or shrimp chowder soup. A friend recommended it and boy was she right. It was more soupy than chowdery and it had some rice at the bottom. It was very flavorful. There is a cooked egg in the chowder and you break it open to reveal two shrimps. This is my must have dish at Costa Verde. It's $7.95 but you won't regret it.
For entree I had Arroz Chaufa De Pescado or fried rice with mahi mahi. It was spectacular. Big pieces of mahi mahi, the soy sauce on the rice was perfect and there were bits of egg mixed in there. It was a huge plate for $14.95 - got through about 1/3 of it. Now I have lunch for tomorrow.
Entrees are a great deal ranging from $10.95-$17.95. The ceviches range from $10.95-$14.95. The menu is ridiculously long so I definitely have to go back about 10 times to order everything that I saw that I wanted tonight.
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How can I missed this place all this time that I've been going to El Pollo Rico (next street over)!!!???
This hole in the wall restaurant is right next to the Jiffy Lube and right across the street from the Hess station near El Pollo Rico!
They have an extensive menu, so much choices, we were having trouble to finalize our selections tonight!
I tried the following:
-Ceviche de Mariscos (Shrimp, conch meat, octopus, squid, marinated in lemon juice, servied with sweet potatoes, and corn on the cob) $12.95
- Chupe de Camarones (Shrimp Chowder Soup) $7.95 YUMMMM - Tasty soup!!!
- Churrasco a la costa verde (Sirloin steak, grilled tasted, sauted shrimp marinated with garlic sauce (heavenly!!!), served with vegetables and rice $15.95.
Both my shrimp and steak is cooked just right, topped with that heavenly garlic sauce-to die for.
Great price. Portion of everything is quite large. I packed half my entree home for lunch tomorrow!!!
See Menu at: http://www.menupix.com...
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I love this hole in the wall gem! Great Peruvian chicken place! I highly recommend the Pollo Saltado or Lomo Saltado (which is marinated meat, chicken or beef, with tomatoes and olive oil and onions and then mixed with yummy french fries and served with white rice - great as leftovers too) and the Chicharon de Pollo (fried chicken with fried yuka). Order the super sweet bubblegum flavored Inca cola as well. For dessert - get the super sweet caramel creammmmmy filled alfajores cookies. This isn't a place for wimps on a diet. You also get a small bowl of the Peruvian version of "corn nuts" before you get your food - and a super spicy green chili paste to mix with your food.
I see other people order the Ceviches (pickled fish) and I like ceviche I'm just not daring enough to try it at a restaurant that isn't five star dining. However, I always see someone order this when I'm there so give it a shot if you're brave.
NOTE: Only go here if you're NOT in a rush and you enjoy the company you are with. However, if this bothers you then just order from Dr. Delivery in Arlington. (Sorry DC folks!) You can metro here from the Orange line Clarendon stop too and then just walk down Wilson a bit. Parking might be a pain but I've never had a problem.
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I haven't been here in years but when we first lived in Clarendon, my husband and I used to go here about once every two weeks. I just ran by the restaurant tonight and knew I had to review. I would always get a ceviche and lomo saltado. I can still taste the beef...sigh. I don't know why or how the Peruvians cook their food so well, but it's lip-smacking good.
This is exactly the type of restaurant Clarendon had more of just five years ago. Now, they have all these chains, bars, and pubs. I just want a place I can go to and eat good, solid food that won't cost me a day's work.
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Great place! good prices, EXCELLENTE FOOD, correct service, go alone, with friends or family, you won't be dissapointed.
Probably the best Peruvian food you can find in Arlington (not counting El Pollo Rico :)).
Please order a ceviche (any kind) and Lomo Saltado, all this with a chicha morada or Inca Kola. Plan on having just one meal when you go.
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