This rice and beans dish can have some heat. Gallo pinto is the national dish of Costa Rica, but it’s also the national dish of Nicaragua.
Prepare yourself – we are heading into dangerous territory. Again. Gallo pinto is the national dish of Costa Rica. But, it’s also the national dish of Nicaragua, and if you ask any resident of either country who invented it… well, you can guess what will happen. But anyway, we will get into the origin story soon. First, let’s talk about the dish itself, possibly the tastiest variant of the rice-and-beans combo found throughout much of the Americas.
In 2003, Costa Rican cooks set a world record for the largest gallo pinto with a batch that weighed 440 kilograms; two weeks later, however, Nicaraguans created a dish weighing 545 kilograms. The countries have been one-upping each other ever since.is a Sydney-based travel writer, columnist and author with more than 20 years' experience. He specialises in food and wine – writing about it, as well as consuming it.