An unhealthy amount of Brazilian feasts

Time was short to try all Brazil had to offer us on our plate. Luckily it was not hard to find the foods on my hitlist.

Haddock Lobo serving up Pao de Queijo - often rated the best in Sao Paulo and all of Brazil.

With Feijão out of the way in Sao Paulo, the country's food mecca, we could explore beyond ethnic cuisine and boiled black beans with pork. Steph and I proceeded swiftly to the Churrascaria where charcoal grilled meats come in endless varieties.

Picanha – Lumps of sirloin steak covered in rock salt and cooked high over a barbecue to perfection. They were brought out on huge spits to our table, even during the multiple power outages.

The Churrascaria - I had learned that the picanha cut of beef is the most celebrated in the land – homework pays off sometime. The carne do sol was equally tasty with it's surface covered in flavoured salt. The table is covered in side dishes. The grillmasters return as soon as there is space on your plate to offer sausages, steak, chicken until you are almost dizzy with delight. Some good advice I was also given from a friend was to refuse the early cuts of beef until they bring the good stuff. Dan also advised to go either late for lunch or early for dinner, so as to avoid being knocked out into bed by a beef-enduced coma.

Like in Argentina, the grillmasters here have their techniques down to a science.

Chips? Obvious. Rice, potatoes? Pass. I was saving most of my room for gloreous meat not sides. However there was one curiousity. Then there was Farofa. The owner told me it is a kind of 'stuffing' that's more used as a topping or garnish from what I could see. It's an undoubtably tasty breadcrumb-like topping mixture of corn flour, bits of bacon and onion.

STREET FOOD

Acai – This fruit is special. Elsewhere in the world açaí (a berry-like fruit) is criminally expensive and normally exists as a powder mix or concentrate. In Brazil, it can be found on every corner, available as an ice cream snack (or juice and smoothie).

Topped with a dizzying aray of sweet brown sugary garnishes. Brazillians put sugar on everything, and sometimes use a liquid sweetner that comes in what looks like a dish liquid bottle on the coffee counter.

One new-best-friend Brazillian man at the corner juice shop advised me to try the smoothie version the way he liked it best (blended up with granola, bananas and crushed ice). It was equally delicious, filling and maybe even healthy? Depends how much sugar they put in, I suppose.

Pao de Queijo - famous cheese bread and the classic accompaniment to the famously Cafezinho puro – hot and strong coffee by the glass. These two just go so well together as a pit stop on any street. I can't honestly say where the bread ends and the cheese begins in these beautiful little savory morcels.

Pastéis - While waiting at bus stops and the like I tried the pastels (battered and fried pastries) with meat, cheese or shredded chicken filling (which sometimes seems to be the only method of serving chicken here).

Empenadas – Finally I must meniton the very unhealhily fried Brazillian version of the Empenada. They can be bought on the street dirt cheap but can also be bought in restaurants. We've tried beef, veg, etc elsewhere. In Paraty I found them especially good with catupiry (a Brazillian cream cheese), which is sealed inside the coxinha next to the potato. Our extreemely tourist-patient driver from Isla Grande encouraged me to try one at a pit stop along the side of the road. It was salty and delicious as the greasy texture promised. One of these is enough to keep hunger at bay for a few hours from the service station all the way up to Rio.