The Food

Brazilian food is not for vegetarians or people on diets....burp!. We have been to an Argentinean restaurant and had large pieces of dead cow that have been thrown on a fire for a while, usually for not quite long enough. It is always delicious and tender, with minimal gristle, fat etc, but stomach-straining: as the walk back to hotel is up a steep hill, the extra kilograms of food make quite a difference. We have also found an Italian restaurant that was very smart: the ‘small’ pizzas proved a challenge even to eating machines like us, although the bottle of deep red Brazilian Merlot helped matters. 

          
           We went to another place recently that specializes in pasta. The thing that we quickly discovered about restaurants in Brazil is that almost every item on the menu is for 2 or more people. The number of times we have had waiters look at us with mouths open when we have asked for 3 of something was getting to be a bit of a joke. The pasta at this place arrived in a 2 handled earthen ware dish that you could have bathed a small child in; almost overflowing with the stuff. We managed 2 platefuls each, that was all, and the waiter looked genuinely upset that were leaving so much. 
             
             People eat really late here; around 9pm during the week and anytime up to about 11pm at weekends. As we get hungry early we usually have restaurants to ourselves, and of course, more waiters than you can fight off with a stick. All meals seem to be about sharing and ‘beer nibbles’ are no exception. A popular one in the place we have adopted as our ‘second home’ is a huge boiled onion the size of a melon that’s been scored vertically around the outside then dipped in batter and deep fried. This gives you long strips of onion ring type stuff that you tear off and dip in spicy sauce and devour with a care in the world for your arteries. Another is ‘pasties’  which are little parcels of cheese   

or meat or spiced veg that’s has been deep fried. You never know what’s in them till you bite into them. Another evening we ate in a Brazilian burger joint: this place had real meaty, crumbly, chewy burgers, not the gelatinous and indigestible abattoir floor-sweeping objects you get in well-know places with a misleadingly Scottish name. As we sat enlarging our waistlines, we saw numerous Brasilieros out exercising in the standard expensive trainers and figure-hugging Lycra ( not always well-advised), presumably working off the excesses of the weekend. This seems to be a common thing on Monday & Tuesday nights. 
            The canteen at Emerson is really good with always a wide selection of strange and colorful things to try. Most people will polish off a side plate of salad, a main plat of rice and beans with a lump of steak on it, sausage and/or a omelet or a couple of fried eggs. This is washed down with a couple of cups of fruit juice and either a ‘jelly ‘type pudding or a plate of fruit. As if this isn’t enough we now get a tray of fresh, warm cheese dough balls, coffee, biscuits and fruit juice delivered to the office at 10am each day and potato 
croquettes filled with cheese or meat at around 3 in the afternoon. Its all too much really.