Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira

The Thrill of the Middle of Brazil, The Braziddle.

Its that Beautiful Horizon that everyone is talking about.


Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, or Comida Mineira may not be well known outside of Brazil. The most I've heard about Belo Horizonte is from when the occasional UFC event takes place here and the really intense announcer reads off "We're in Belo HoriZONCHHHHHHH Brazil....."

The state of Minas Gerais is the agricultural region in the interior of Brazil that forms a food heartland of the country. The state was the first part of the Brazilian interior to be settled, and its food developed in an environment where seafood or imports from other regions was not available. Comida Mineira is found in all parts of Brazil, often in buffet style restaurants with the banner words on full display. I saw One Review! of a place serving comida mineira on this board. Minas Gerais is a land of hills and valleys, providing a bounty of cheese and pork and coffee and other produce that makes a unique identity for its food and people.

Important words to remember when discussing Comida Mineira:
Boteco: small low key bar that sells food, Belo Horizonte has an estimated 8,000 botecos. Also known as butequim, they are found throughout Brazil but most associated with Belo.
Minas, Mineira, Mineiro, Mineirinho: derivation of the word Minas, short for Minas Gerais.


Part One: O Mercado


The easiest way to find something tasty is to go to the central market of any town and look at the snack shops and try to find what is good. The Mercado Central is right in the middle of Belo Horizonte, taking up an entire city block. The area inside was very cramped and intense florescent lights made the pictures of the stalls difficult. There is an information booth with a helpful map at the entrance to the Mercado.



I had to start my morning with some espresso, and Café Dois Irmãos was serving it in a small shop with zero seats.



The Espresso


The pride of Minas Gerais is its cheese, with three types of cheese recognized by the United Nations and strict rules regarding which part of Minas Gerais they come from.



Provolone wrapped salami


There are at least ten Queijarias, cheese shops selling Queijo de Canastra.


Pimentas, peppers.



Manioca, they had guys shaving the bark off the side of the stems.


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Jellies, for spreading on bread.



Walnuts from state of Para



The ceiling is Bananas


Bacalhau, lots of salted cod.



Araticum, fruit from the interior of Brazil.



Very strong tobacco.


Smiling Arab face at checkout box.



They really like the smiling arab logo, as their delivery truck attests.



Pet Ducks? There are cages filled with baby chickens packed so tight it was ugly, and a large section of pets with dogs barking and cats meowing for freedom.


Herbs from the Amazon region, there were a couple shops selling herbal remedies and medecines.



The Market was once an open air meeting place with stalls for vendors. Over time its been enclosed with a roof, but with parking above the market level. This means the market has the squealing of car brakes and engine noises while you shop or eat.



Emporio Arabe Coisas D'Hana appeared to have been operated by a Palestinian woman for a long time, according to the newspaper articles framed to the wall.



Esfiha de Carne e Esfiha de Zataar. Esfihas were heated up in a toaster oven, they also have pita bread filled with tabouli or hummus to order. Once again, no seats or chairs.


The boteco O Rei do Torresmo serves beer and portions of torresmo or fried pig skin. They also serve the markets specialty figado com jilo, or eggplant with liver. They were open and serving beer and fried pig at nine in the morning.

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The R5.00 serving of torresmo

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Limonada Mercado Central was a straightforward store with an accurate name. It sells lemonade and other drinks.


Limonada Lemonade.


Just outside the Mercado was a lanchonette, or snack spot, with a big spinning cone of meat and the confusing label of "Churrasco Griego", or Greek Churrasco to describe a gyro style sandwich.



This "Griego Burguer" was less than R5.00 with a vinegar salad underneath the meat.


Mercado Central
Av. Augusto de Lima, 744 (Av. Amazonas)
Belo Horizonte
http://www.mercadocentral.com.br/

Café Dois Irmãos
Loja 30
Mercado Central

EMPÓRIO ARÁBE E DELICATESSEN D'HANA
Loja 33

Limonada Mercado Central
Loja 45

Rei do Torresmo
Loja 166

Lanches no Ponto
Avenida Amazonas, 885

Coming up: The recent devaluation of the Brazilian Real has taken a bite out of the infamous "Custo Brasil" or high cost of everything in Brazil. That means I could eat at some nicer places, or eat even more cheap junk, or do what the Latin Playboys do and go to the Outback Steakhouse and order every appetizer on the menu.

Awesome! I can't wait for the next piece.

Agreed. Like I'm there. More to come, hopefully!

Tyrgyzistan,

Do you speak/read Portuguese? if not, how goes it with English in the inlands?

I think your pix look just fine, and there's lots of good things to eat, for sure! What are the cheeses like?

Geo

Terrific post! I appreciate the introduction to the setting and the lexicon. Great detail! I seem to remember seeing tobacco braided the same way in Yunnan. Is that perhaps the traditional approach everywhere? I've no idea, not being a fan.

More, please.

Great stuff. Definitely not a place that many tourists have on the itinerary. I really enjoy posts from the less-known interior towns of vast countries like Brazil, China and Russia. Who knows if one day I'll make it to the Wichita of Brazil. If so, I'll be in good shape.

Always wondered what Brazil nuts were called in Brazil and your photo reminded me to look it up. I believe the most common usage translates directly to "Para' chestnut."

Speaking of such randomness, rope tobacco supposedly goes back to European sailors applying their rope-making skill to the herb as it's not something indigenous folks were doing. So it's perhaps not surprising to see those twists in the same vicinity as the salt cod.

Geo wrote:Tyrgyzistan,

Do you speak/read Portuguese? if not, how goes it with English in the inlands?

I think your pix look just fine, and there's lots of good things to eat, for sure! What are the cheeses like?

Geo

I speak a limited amount of Portuguese from lessons on the internet. The spoken language has a rhythm that swings back and forth and up and down that I have yet to master.

The main cheese of Minas Gerais is Queijo Minas, which is soft and mild and served with breakfast, lunch, and dinner and dessert with fruit or melted on meat or by itself. The authorities on the stuff divide the state into four major regions: Cerrado, Araxá, Canastra and Serro. These are further divided and I think they have some kind of makers mark.

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle).


Belo Horizonte landmarks Igreja São Francisco de Assis and the Mineirão Stadium, home of historic "7-1" soccer game.




Part Two: Os Originais some Beagá Originals



I was able to track down a few places that have been open for a long time that hadn't had any crazy rebranding or renovations that change the character of places. These are places with old tiles on the walls, covered with decades old photos and newspaper articles. The big noisy Brazilian fans nailed to the walls blow the city air inside.



Have you ever wanted a trip report to just cut to the chase and tell you the one place in Belo Horizonte that you must eat before you die? Because that place is pretty clearly a hole in the wall just north of the Mercado Central known as Nonô "Rei Do Caldo De Mocotó". Nonô the king of the bowl of cow feet soup. There are no chairs, and only a couple tables, just two counters from entrances on two streets. They open at six on Monday morning and don't close until midnight on saturday, selling a constant flow of yellow soup.


Caldo de mocotó is a soup made out of cow feet that developed from Portuguese and Spanish recipes with cheap ingredients. Its best suited for filling people up during cold weather, and it gets pretty chilly in the middle of Brazil if not very cold. For less than R9.00 including two quail eggs, its a bargain. The soup is a deeply yellow concoction with strips of sinewy and chewy beef bits near the bottom. I do not recommend getting the quail eggs because the stuff just falls to the bottom.




O Nono, the original owner. His sons run the shop now. Nono claims to sell over a thousand cups of this yellow stuff every day, cooking 900 cow feet every week. Nono sells a beer, Caracú, and has a drink where they mix this beer with raw quail eggs and other ingredients like "toddy" in a blender. they proudly display a plaque for being the top seller for Caracú beer.


Since 1964, serving a simple menu with things like a bread bun or a hunk of bacon to go with the soup. The cash box has a history of the restaurant for purchase.









Since 1938, a small cafe with a PF or "prato feito" or a cheap midday dish served for people in a hurry. This is the home of Kaol, a dish served only here at Café Palhares. I think the basic version was about R14.00


The letter K is for cachaca, along with arroz, ovo, e linguica or rice, eggs, and sausage. In the seventies farofa and kale were added, and later torresmo or pork skin. You can order the Kaol with a better meat like pork loin or beef filet, but why mess with the original even if its cheap linguica sausage.


The cafe has a u-shaped counter layout and some very old fixtures. The menu has sandwiches and they create new dishes for local competitions like "Comida de Boteco" and to keep up with the times.



To be Mineiro is to eat a Kaol.






People have been serving little cups of coffee, cafezinhos, since 1939 at a small cafe with the simple name of Café Nice. Cafezinhos are coffee with water, served at places for people in a hurry. You pay at the cash box and give a ticket to the lady behind the counter. The interior here was filled with old photos of former president Juscelino Kubitschek, a former customer.



Cafe com leite with pão de queijo. This was just coffee with milk, and the cheese bread wasn't that good. They also serve some breakfest food like omelets, and have juices or other drinks.





Belo Horizonte in its center is dominated by a street grid with wide avanues and many diagonal streets. It leaves some triangle shaped spaces at the edge of blocks, like this one where an ice cream shop that has been serving scoops of sorvete since 1929. Sorveteria São Domingos claims to be the oldest ice cream shop in Belo Horizonte, and this is a place families have been coming for generations.



The menu literally is Brazil, with over fifty flavors to choose from. R6.00 for a cup of ice cream.




I always choose Milho Verde, sweet corn flavor first.



Sorvete de pistache, pistachio ice cream



Cereja, Brazilian cherry ice cream.



The walls are decorated with old mosaics. Seating is on benches along the sidewalk.


Musical suggestion for this post: Milton Nascimento - Para Lennon e McCartney
When a handful or musicians in the Santa Tereza neighborhood of Belo Horizonte heard that the Beattles broke up they wrote about their disappointment that, among other things, the group would never visit Belo Horizonte or Minas Gerais.

Coming up: Street market food, one crazy art institute, cheese bread crawl, and finally escaping the hectic city of Belo Horizonte.

Nonô "Rei Do Caldo De Mocotó"
Av. Amazonas, 840 - centro
Belo Horizonte, MG
http://www.nonooreidomocoto.com.br/

Café Palhares
R. dos Tupinambás, 638 (Av. Afonso Pena)
Belo Horizonte, MG
http://cafepalhares.com.br/site/

Café Nice
Av. Afonso Pena, 727
Belo Horizonte, MG

Sorveteria São Domingos
Av. Getúlio Vargas, 800
Belo Horizonte, MG

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle).






Part Three: Looking for some Pão de Queijo

Pão de Queijo are found everywhere, and Minas Gerais is the land of cheese and might be some kind of mythical origin place for the pdq. These are often kept in was display cases in the front of a lanchonette or snack spot. These come in many ways, and many are just heated up in toasted ovens in the morning and kept out all day.



Just a few blocks from the Mercado Central was a hole in the wall with a banner reading Pão de Queijo da Roça. The PDQ was R1.35 and comes in combinations with cups of coffee.



This was the very basic pdq.







Inside the Mercado was a stall specializing in Salgados, or warm salty snacks kept ready for quick purchase. The side of the stand was covered with Best of BH awards from the local magazines, but the sign at the top of the stall seemed to have fallen apart. The name is Dona Diva Café e Quitandas.


This was their Pão de Queijo, and I think it was R3.00, and has just more consistent and less tough on the outside. The description in English said this was made with manioc flour and cheese. Most recipes I see use flour, butter, salt and cheese.






I was walking in the Savassi neighborhood and decided to stop at Quitand'arte because they had a good outside seating. A Quitanda is a small grocer, and many sell snacks and baked good as well.



Good, but not exactly worth writing home about.




Back at the Mercado Central is a place that specializes in sandwiches and niche soda pop drinks from around Brazil known as Sabores & Ideias, or Flavors and Ideas.




This sandwich was named the Mineirim, and had sliced tomato with queijo minas and some high quality linguiça. The queijo minas gets real soft and melts well and oozes between the bun and the sausage. This was a good small sandwich. The menu claims this won an award in a competition between Mercado vendors a few years ago.



I washed it down with Cajuína Nordestina, flavored with the cajuizinho or cashew apple fruit.



They had another pdq sandwich on the menu, but could never serve it because they didn't have the ingredients. That was frustrating.





Back in the Savassi neighborhood is a new cafe that features creations that start with Pão de Queijo, A Pão de Queijaria with means the pdq store. They have an English version of the menu, and you have pdqs made with Gruyere or Queijo salitre or special combinations of cheese.




I had to try their hamburger made with beef and pork and topped with onions. This was very juicy with meat dripping and cheese oozing. The polenta fries and house ketchup were nothing special.


I had to try their version of the ham sandwich, what Brazilians refer to as pernil. This also had cheese and some cabbage on top. Not juicy like the burger, but deeply tasty. I don't know why I ordered the polenta fries a second times. Its just one of those things.



Their very informative placemat had some useful facts about the cafe. The pdq buns are 30% cheese, formed by hand and baked each morning. Its a secret family recipe to get so much cheese into the pdqs. A Pão de Queijaria is a favorite of the local entertainment magazines and news blogs.





Coming up: Savassi is a trendy neighborhood with lots of eating spots detailed in the magazines and guide books. I might have to come back.



Pão de Queijo da Roça
R. dos Guajajaras, 739 (Rua Rio de Janeiro),
Belo Horizonte, MG

Dona Diva Café e Quitandas
Mercado Central, Loja 163
Belo Horizonte, MG

Quitand'arte
Rua Antönio de Albuquerque, 369
Belo Hotizonte, MG
https://pt-br.facebook.com/quitandarte

Sabores & Idéias
Mercado Central, Loja 237
Belo Horizonte, MG


A Pão de Queijaria
R. Antônio de Albuquerque, 856
Belo Horizonte, MG,
https://www.facebook.com/APaoDeQueijaria

Man, you've brought it all back -- I miss pão de queijo.

Santiago, Chile has very little in the way of Brazilian food, except for a few very good churrascarias (Fogo de Chao-type restaurants). And come to think of it, more oddly, very few Argentinian restaurants (except for one great high-end steakhouse I remember). More Peruvian places. And plenty of Uruguayan beef in the grocery stores, and that's good stuff.

But I remember a little anomaly: a pão de queijo stand inside the Pedro de Valdivia metro stop that I passed every day on my way to the office. I didn't stop there often enough; I guess I was afraid I'd wind up shaped like a pão de queijo. But I'd love to be there right now to buy a few. I can't remember if I ever saw a pão de queijo shop in other metro stations in Santiago, but there are probably some.

Your thread also reminds me of the Brazilian way of pronouncing Bello Horizonte and Minas Gerais, and of a colleague, since passed away, who took enormous pride in being from Minas Gerais and in the distinctive food from that region. Other Brazilians (in São Paolo and Rio) would tell me that's how all people from Minas Gerais (couldn't remember the adjective form, so I looked it up: Mineiros) are about food.

Tyrgyzistan wrote:

Geo wrote:Tyrgyzistan,

Do you speak/read Portuguese? if not, how goes it with English in the inlands?

I think your pix look just fine, and there's lots of good things to eat, for sure! What are the cheeses like?

Geo

I speak a limited amount of Portuguese from lessons on the internet. The spoken language has a rhythm that swings back and forth and up and down that I have yet to master.

The main cheese of Minas Gerais is Queijo Minas, which is soft and mild and served with breakfast, lunch, and dinner and dessert with fruit or melted on meat or by itself. The authorities on the stuff divide the state into four major regions: Cerrado, Araxá, Canastra and Serro. These are further divided and I think they have some kind of makers mark.

Love this post: excellent pix and info about foods I don't know much about.

Re: the cheese. Would you say that the cheese you had in Brazil was good stuff (nuanced, dimensions of flavor, etc.) or just kind of functional? There is no doubt a lot of cheese there, and much you probably didn't have a chance to try, but in a very general sense, was it in any way exceptional?

David Hammond wrote:

Tyrgyzistan wrote:

Geo wrote:Tyrgyzistan,

Do you speak/read Portuguese? if not, how goes it with English in the inlands?

I think your pix look just fine, and there's lots of good things to eat, for sure! What are the cheeses like?

Geo

Re: the cheese. Would you say that the cheese you had in Brazil was good stuff (nuanced, dimensions of flavor, etc.) or just kind of functional? There is no doubt a lot of cheese there, and much you probably didn't have a chance to try, but in a very general sense, was it in any way exceptional?

Most of the cheese in the photos I took is a generic cheese known as Queijo Minas, which is used on nearly everything. Its very mild and soft and doesn't turn liquid but oozes when warm. Minas Gerais is a land hills dotted with cows and there is a state identity with the cheese.

There are queijarias or cheese shops in abundance even in smaller towns, and some have free samples which are a rarity for food shops in Brazil. The higher end places had "big wheel" cheeses cut open with slices for sampling. I didn't want to try any when I knew I wouldn't buy anything, and cheese isn't my specialty. Carrying a giant wheel of cheese while traveling isn't efficient.

The facebook pages of a couple of high end grocery shops I visited seem to get excited when a new artisanal cheese comes in:
one high end grocery

another high end grocery

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle).




Part Four: Open Air Grazing At The Markets of BH

Belo Horizonte has one big open air street market and several small ones. These are not farmers markets with fresh produce, but more like arts and crafts and prepared food. These markets have some kind of super power where the clock hits a certain hour and the street cleaners come out and trucks pull up and stands are taken apart in almost no time.


I was walking along Rua Salinas in the Santa Tereza neighborhood and the place I was trying to reach was closed on a Thursday evening. Normally this would be frustrating, but I passed by a public square with a bunch of barracas (stands) serving food and drinks. The most common of these found on the street markets is the churrasquinho, or little grill. The market in Santa Tereza was just about six vendors, and it was just prepared food to be eaten at the plastic tables.


Espetino de mussarela. This was a spiral of mozzarella before halfway melting on the grill and picking up some oil in the process. This was just a big warm hunk of cheese.




The big one is the Feira Hippie, or hippie market, held on the main boulevard in front of the Municipal Park. This one has hundreds of stands, and three different food areas. There are baianas de acaraje, churrasquinhos, hot dogs, beer and soft drinks, and two thirds of the market is non food like clothes or artwork. There were even street performers dressed up as robots.


They are making potato chips fresh.



Finished product, topped with cheese that did not melt.



Chicken wrapped in bacon from a churrasquinho.



The best thing to get from the churrasquinhos was the espetinho de corações, chicken hearts loaded up on a skewer.




There were several stands selling pamonhas and corn products but Cia do Milho Tata looked like the most organized.


Pamonhas and milho verde warming up.


This was pudding made from corn, topped with a bit of cinnamon after opening the container.



Saturdays in the Santa Efigênia neighborhood are home to the Feira Tom Jobim with over a dozen food venders and a few dozen arts and crafts tents.


Comida Indiana, food from exotic land of Indiana.


Piajo, lentil and onion fritter. The guy running the stand really wanted to speak English from me. I guess its because he is from Indiana or something.



When I saw the big pots, my hopes for real Comida Mineira were high. This was a comida porquilo, or food sold by weight stand.


This was some chicken slow cooked with some onions and seasonings, along with Angu de milho or corn polenta pudding stuff, and some kale.




Feira Do Santa Tereza
Thursday evenings from six to ten.
Praça Coronel José Persilva
Santa Tereza, Belo Horizonte, MG

Feira Hippie
Sundays Six am to two pm
Avenida Afonso Pena in front of the public park
Centro, Belo Horizonte, MG.

Feira Tom Jobim
Saturdays ten to six.
Avenida Carandaí between Rua Ceará and Av. Brasil
Santa Efigênia, Belo Horizonte, MG.

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Hills in the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle).






Part Five: Diamantina

Diamantina is an old town north of Belo Horizonte that was home to a handful of famous Brazilians. These include the legendary Xica Da Silva who left a complicated racial legacy, and the former president Juscelino Kubitschek. Architect Oscar Niemeyer and musician João Gilberto also passed through here on their way to bigger and better things.

Minas Gerais was originally settled as a series of mining towns connected by mule trails whose wealth was important to the Portuguese Empire. Diamantina was the end of the line, the diamond mining town furthest inland and a three month journey from the coast during colonial times. Food developed that could be stored and carried by the tropeiros, mule men who traded between the towns.



Pickled onions and carrots.



Pingados, little bottles of liquor with scenes of the town drawn on the outside.

Former president of Brazil Juscelino Kubitschek was raised in a small house in Diamantina that has been converted into a museum and library. JK is a well remembered president in a country where some former presidents are remembered like dead mafia dons.


The kitchen of Casa Kubitschek with its classic Brazilian wood burning stove, and recipe for Xico Angu written by the former president. Xico Angu looks similar to a common dish known as Frango com Quiabo, or chicken with okra.




Cafe Mineiro looked like a nice little cafezinho and they had a good cake selection when I stopped in the morning.



Cafe com leite e bolo de milho, milk and coffee with cornbread cake.



I can't just walk past a sign with a big smiling pastel staring at me. Pastel e Cia translates to pastel and company, cia being short for campanhia.


Pastelinhos, little pastels filled with queijo minas.




Café Abaiuca has a spot right at the corner of the main square in the center of town with seats outside on the old street.


This was carne de sol com mandioca frita, or dried meat with fried manioc. This dish is common at bars throughout Brazil and the meat is dried before cooking with onions and tomatoes and the manioc picks up a little flavor on the grill. This needed hot sauce.


I thought I had ordered a common plate of Linguiça with fries but the waiter brought out this plate of boiled potatoes with sausage. Sometimes I just don't know.



Restaurante Caipirão has a buffet line with the magical words "fogão a lenha" which translates to wood fired oven. This style of buffet is the real thing that people look for when they want comida mineira, its a style that resembles a bucolic vision of life on a farm in rural Minas Gerais.






This was carne de panela, meat in a panel heated in the oven. Very simple stuff, all you can eat for R26.oo



One last picture of what I found here was a picole de milho verde, sweet corn popsicle. There is a small hamlet nearby named Milho Verde.

Diamantina is on the tourist trail, but its not really touristy. The center of the historic town has a couple restaurants between the ancient churches, but it also has hardware stores and beauty salons. The streets are filled with school kids and people walking to work. I had wanted to get a tour of the nearby town of Biribiri, the state park, or the cheese region of Serro to the south, or the nearly abandoned mule trail known as the Caminho dos Escravos, but nobody could take me there for anything less than a king's ransom.


Musical suggestion from this post: João Gilberto - Chega De Saudade. João Gilberto spent eight months at his sister's house in Diamatina in 1956. During this time he was rarely seen in town, and rarely left his sisters bathroom or couldn't be bothered to get out of his pajamas all day. He spent hours at a time locked away in an acoustic tiled bathroom stretching and deforming his fingers to reach difficult chords and develop his signature guitar stroke known as the "batida". The nah-nyah nah-nah-nyah sound he developed would not be unleashed upon the world in 1959.



Café Mineiro
Beco da Tecla, 16
Diamantina, MG

Pastel e Cia
Rua Quitanda, 44
Diamantina, MG

Café Abaiuca
Rua Quitanda, 13
Diamantinha, MG

Restaurante Caipirão
Rua Campos Carvalho, 15
Diamantina, MG

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Hills in the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle), Going Broke in the Brazilian Baroque.


Part Six: Snacking in Ouro Preto

Did you know that many visitors to Belo Horizonte just skip the big city and head straight to the bus station to get out? The destination for nearly all of them is the UNESCO World Heritage site, the historic town of Ouro Preto, about two hours away by car. Founded in 1711, the old city displays all the marks of being a colonial capital with the wealth of the mines and the all powerful Catholic Church leaving their stamp on the steep hills. As the capital city of the mining region, and place where all the wealth moved through, quite a bit actually happened here. The most notable event was the Inconfidência Mineira where a handful of intellectuals and important people conspired to separate Minas Gerais from the Portuguese Empire. The most famous of the conspirators was known as Tiradentes, or tooth puller, and his tooth pulling devices are in the Museu Inconfidência in the big building at the center of Ouro Preto.




My first stop was on the main square Praça Tiradentes where an old building destroyed by a fire in 2003 has been restored into a tourist information center with a book store, coffee shop, and museum exhibition space. This is Café e Livraria Cultural and the coffee shop actually opens up relatively early in the morning.



Espresso Duplo com chantilly, double espresso with whipped cream.


Espresso Canela, espresso with cinnamon with candied fruit.


I can't remember what this was, just that it had a little cookie next to it.



Cerveja Ouropretana and Café Cultural IPA, local brews in the gift shop area.



What can I say, it was a very good tourist information center coffee shop.






Walking down the street from Café Cultural brings you past one ancient church after another. At the bottom of the hill is Marília & Dirceu - Culinária e Arte with a selection of empadas or little pies.


This is the Brigadeiro Empadinha, or little pie filled with chocolate cherry pudding and topped with chocolate sprinkles like a brigadeiro.


I think any place with any attention to interior decoration will add the words "e arte" for "and art" to its name.




On the other side of town on Rua Getúlio Vargas is one location of Chocolate Ouro Preto, and its menu had a dessert I had been looking for.


This is the Broa de Milho, cornmeal cake, served with cinnamon on top and with a green sugary sauce underneath.



Back at Praça Tiradentes, on the corner by the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Carmo, is a sorveteria in the old bus station of Ouro Preto. Frutos de Goiás is a franchise chain that identifies with the bounty of fruits from the state of Goiás just west of Minas Gerais.



Sorvete de Pequi, this tastes like a peach.



Sorvete de Buriti, from the Moriche Palm fruit.



Another picole de Milho Verde, sweet corn flavored popsicle.








One last snack stop, later in the evenings some street vendors appeared at Praça Tiradentes including a guy selling pamonhas and milho verde.



Café e Livraria Cultural
Rua Claudio Manoel, 15
Ouro Preto, MG
http://cafeculturalop.com.br/

Marília & Dirceu - Culinária e Arte
Largo Marília de Dirceu, 7
Ouro Preto, MG
https://www.facebook.com/mariliaedirceu

Chocolate Ouro Preto
Rua Getúlio Vargas, 66
Ouro Preto, MG
http://www.chocolatesouropreto.com.br/index/

Frutos de Goiás
Praça Tiradentes, 140
Ouro Preto, MG
https://www.facebook.com/frutosdegoiasouropreto

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Hills in the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle), Going Broke in the Brazilian Baroque.

Part Seven: More in Ouro Preto


Pico do Itacolomi and the Igreja de São Francisco de Assis, one of the "Wonders of the Portuguese World". The work of master sculptor and architect Aleijadinho, an artist who may never have really existed. Visiting Ouro Preto is ultimately and experience of walking up and down steep stone roads on hills that separate ancient churches. You can work up quite an appetite through all this, and there are a ton of restaurants aimed at tourists. A couple will have buffets with prices over R50.00 for all you can eat, about twice what others want. I was able to make progress on my attempt to try all the classic dishes of Comida Mineira.

I was in a sandwich place and I saw someone get a big bowl of soup with pork rinds on top, I decided I had to have one myself. This was a basic place known as Sanduiche Ouro Preto just off Praça Tiradentes.


This is a lanchonette, or snack place, classic known as caldo de feijão or bowl of bean soup. The beans are a little runnier and liquid than the refried beans from a mexican place. This had bits of bacon that sunk to the bottom, and came with little bits of pork skin along with toast.




I was walking along the main commercial street known as Rua conde de Bobadella and saw a creperia that looked nice. I just wanted to try the crepe culture of Brazil one more time at Parada do Conde.


This was a crepe filled with beef and cheese and some green sauce. I still don't understand the fascination and proliferation of crepe places here. People seem to like these enough, and there are dessert crepes at all these places.





I had a craving for pizza and one specific place was highly recommended in the guide books and online reviews. O Passo Pizza e Jazz has a huge Italian menu with pastas and desserts and jazz radio playing in the background.


This was the Juazeiro Pizza, named for a town in the north of Brazil that is home to a famous Brazilian jazz musician, with carne de sol and catupiry cheese with green onions.


O Passo Pizza e Jazz probably has the best location in all of Ouro Preto, with a large patio right above a public park with a stream running through it. They even had heaters in the patio for when it gets cold at night.



Just up Rua Teixera Amaral, on another steep street leading to another old church was Restaurante Adega and its tempting buffet lunch.



Frango ao molho pardo, chicken in a brown sauce. I also grabbed a casserole of french fried potatoes in cheese. Adega was R25.00 for all you can eat, a good bargain in the heavily touristed town like Ouro Preto.



Right beside the ancient Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos on the west end of Ouro Preto was a hotel restaurant that had some of the local dishes at reasonable prices and looked like a good place to step inside.


Frango com quiabo, chicken with okra, another example of comida mineira. Here served with polenta and white rice.

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Restaurante Senhora do Rosario, inside the Solar do Rosario, had a really beautiful interior.




I had one last meal on my list of things to try, and I found it on the menu at Casa do Ouvidor on Rua Direita.



Tutu à mineira, a dish of mashed beans with rice, pork skin, kale, an egg, pork sausage, and a bit of pork loin too. This was only half the dish, the other half is in a serving bowl, the server scooped it out in front of me even though I would have eaten it from the bowl.


Sanduiche Ouro Preto
R. Cláudio Manoel
Ouro Preto, MG

Parada Do Conde
Rua Conde de Bobadela, 135
Ouro Preto, MG

O Passo Pizza e Jazz
R. São José, 56
Ouro Preto, MG
http://www.opassopizzajazz.com/

Adega Restaurante
Rua Teixeira Amaral, 24
Ouro Preto, MG

Restaurante Senhora do Rosario
Av Getulio Vargas 270
Ouro Preto, MG
http://www.hotelsolardorosario.com/site ... o-rosario/

Restaurante Casa do Ouvidor
R. Direita, 42 (Rua Senador Rocha Lagoa)
Ouro Preto, MG
http://www.casadoouvidor.com.br/

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Hills in the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle), Going Broke in the Brazilian Baroque.


Part Eight: Half a day in Mariana


Praça Minas Gerais and its two churches which may seem redundant at first glance but the Roman Catholic Church built several more all over the old town and up the side of the hill and even had a palace for a local church official inside one of them. Mariana is the next town on the bus line from Ouro Preto, and its like a smaller version.



I could not just walk past a suco, or juice place, with a sign clearly advertizing suco de milho verde, or juice from sweet corn. This place was called Da Frutta, and there just aren't many sucos in this area of Brazil.


This was not fresh, as they just grabbed a block of corn pulp stuff from the freezer and popped this into a blender. This was very cold, and foamy at the top, like a frozen verson of the atol de elote that local Mexican places serve.




There aren't as many good looking places to sit down and eat in Mariana, but one buffet had those magical words "fogão à lenha" and only charged R27.00 for everything I could eat.


The wood burning buffet loaded with the good stuff.



More carne de panela, this time with feijão tropeiro or the local mashup of beans with farofa and meat and pork skin and green stuff mixed in to the back of my plate.




One last stop inside a chocolate and dessert shop for an "artisinal popsicle", in a special "mineirinho" flavor of Goiabada com queijo. The classic dessert combination of guava with minas cheese in frozen form on a stick.



Then when I returned to Ouro Preto I saw a poster for a Goiabada festival with live theatre and music. Too bad it will happen long after I am gone.

Musical suggestion for this post: Wagner Tiso - Os Pássaros something about this eighties groove record just reminds me of taking the bus up and down the bumpy roads and speed bumps of the hills of Minas Gerais. This sounds like one of those old records that hip hop producers dig out from the bins for sample sources.

Da Frutta
R. Padre Gonçalves Lopes, 34
Mariana, MG

Rancho Restaurante
Praça Gomes Freire, 108
Mariana, MG

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle), Going Back to Belo.


Part Nine: Savouring Savassi

Savassi is the higher end part of the downtown area in Belo Horizonte. It has wide boulevards meeting and an intersection with big fountains. There are open air seating areas where multiple restaurants set up tables and serve beer into the night. The malls and high end boutiques bring people out from other parts of Belo Horizonte.



I like to start out my days with a good shot of espresso, and I take and share these photos because some parts of Brazil have hardly any espresso machines. Quixote also had a good selection of books about art or architecture or history to browse through. Savassi has a bunch of book stores including used books that look really old.



Espresso from Quixote, with sparkling water.




At the southern edge of Savassi is a grocery store with a prepared foods counter named Empório Vila Árabe. Arabic grocers will have snacks like kibe beef balls or esfihas served open faced or folded up.


Esfiha de carne e queijo, cheese and meat esfihas. These flatbreads are heated up in a toaster oven and the bread here was nice and soft and warm and the toppings were simple.


Walking along Avenida do Contorno brought me past a window filled with meat on sticks and a big graphic of a smiling cartoon character named Obelix, from a French cartoon strip. This was a brick and mortar churrasquinho known as Tudo no Espeto or everything on a stick. They have sticks of chicken hearts, corn on the cob, and mozzarella cheese.


This is picanha, the prime cut of beef with a cap of fat left on. This is great if you like big hunks of beef and biting into the fat cap unleashes a burst of warm liquid beef fat.




I can't remember which street this was on but there was a little van with a guy inside selling cakes. This was Te Dei Um Bolo, I gave you a cake.



Bolo de churro com dulce de leite cake, this was a cake made to taste like a churro with very rich icing on top. There is a good churro culture here with people on the street selling filled churros.




Right next to A Pão de Queijaria is a dessert and coffee shop known as Doces de Portugal. This Portuguese confectionery has four shops in Belo Horizonte selling some good looking cakes and pastries.


Oh yeah, the Portuguese classic Pastel de Belém.


This was named the Dom Rodrigo, and I looked up some information to see that its a treat from the Algarve region of Portugal made from just sugar and eggs with almond flavor added at the end. I don't understand how Fios de ovos, or egg threads are made, but this a was tasty and good looking dessert.


The most successful food truck in Belo Horizonte is Cadê Meu Brigadeiro?, which translates to "where is my brigadeiro?" Brigadeiros are like balls of fudge, very sweet little balls of chocolatey chewy sweet sugary fudginess. This truck has more publicity than any other, countless mentions in the local food press and plenty of local blogger visits.



I stumbled through my Portuguese to order a box of nine brigadeiros and they put a selection inside. Each one was different but very sweet and soft inside. Dark chocolate with sprinkles, white chocolate with crunchy balls, milk chocolate, pistachio dusted, or nut covered.



Cadê Meu Brigadeiro? also has brigadeiros in cups that you can eat with a spoon. The tiny van has a tinny radio playing kitsch classic rock. They also have a bicycle selling brigadeiros in a mall on the north side of downtown Belo Horizonte.


Quixote - Livraria e Café
R. Fernandes Tourinho, 274 (btw Alagoas & Pernambuco)
Belo Horizonte, MG
http://cafenovomundo.com.br/quixote.htm


Empório Vila Árabe
R. Espirito Santo, 2772 (Av. do Contorno)
Belo Horizonte, MG

Tudo No Espeto
Av. Getúlio Vargas, 1681 (Av. do Contorno)
Belo Horizonte, MG
http://www.tudonoespeto.com.br/

Te De Um Bolo
http://www.tedeiumbolo.com.br/

Doces de Portugal
R. Antônio de Albuquerque, 862
Belo Horizonte, MG
http://www.docesdeportugal.com.br/

Cadê Meu Brigadeiro?
Sobre Rodas
http://www.cademeubrigadeiro.com/

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle), Going Back to Belo.


Part Ten: Its a Fiesta in Savassi.


Savassi has a bunch of places to eat, and a lot of them are the current trendy stuff in Brazil that appeal to the upwardly mobile people with money to spend. There is a multinational churrasco franchise, some Bahian places, some expensive Comida Mineira buffets, and churrasquinhos that serve beer late into the night,





My fist stop was a place named Takos Cocina Mexicana, and the menu wanted me to buy two tacos at once according to their idea of what a good taco is.


These were listed on the menu as "taco supreme" or something like that. The tortillas were some kind of weird stiff Brazilian flatbread that felt dense, the whole thing was just kinda "off".




El Camino means the road, the route, the way in Spanish, in Portuguese its "O Caminho". The idea of choices and options being a metaphor for a route or path is clear on the menu. This is close to what people expect from fast casual Mexican spots, choosing a meat and salsa and topping for a taco or burrito.


I would describe these as slightly tasty. The corn salsa was underneath the beans and meat and there was a good crunch and juiciness but these were good at being bad tacos.


Those tacos above were a great experience and all, but I really wanted to go to a truck known as Tá com tudo for their catchy wordplay of the name but I was never anywhere close to where they were at and I didn't want to go across town to eat a taco.

On another note, in the past few years Brazil has been invaded by Mexican Paleterias, shops selling frozen fruit popsicles in Brazilian and classic Mexican flavors. Savassi had four within a couple blocks of each other, then I found some more on the internet after the fact. Many of these are fast growing franchises with flyers asking for new franchisees. I did not see any classic Paleteria La Michoacana locations. These are simple franchises with service as simple as handing you a paleta and peeling open the wrapper and putting a napkin around the bottom.



First up was El Mexico with its screaming Mexican guy sign.


Coconut with no added sugar, this was not too sweet but very tasty and good for a hot day.




Palecolé gets its name from the combination of the words paleta and picolé the Portuguese word for popsicle. The chihuahua in a sombrero graphic was a nice touch.


I think this was Cupuaçu, but I didn't take notes. I didn't take any notes on my whole trip, I just didn't want to. Cupuaçu is like a tropical pear.



Los Niños had a catchy Aztec inspired graphic.


Leite com maracujá, ice cream with passionfruit inside.


Divina Paleteria wins points for creativity for its paleta with angel wings and a sombrero.


Açaí paleta, with sombrero wearing cactus giving me the thumbs up.


This is only some of the paleterias in Savassi, there are more in the shopping malls and other parts of Belo Horizonte. These include names like Azteca Paletas, and Paleteca. More of these places open every day, and they show no sign of slowing down. The most successful is probably Helado Monterrey, I saw a crowded art show in a convention center with a stampede of people eager to fork over R10.00 for their luxurious paletas. Its clear that this is a paleta world and we are just living in it.

Takos | Cocina Mexicana
R. Antônio de Albuquerque, 448 (R. Paraíba)
Belo Horizonte, MG
http://www.takos.com.br/

El Camino
Rua Fernandes Tourinho, 61
Belo Horizonte, MG
https://www.facebook.com/elcaminomex

El México Paleteria
Fernandes Tourinho, 19, Belo Horizonte, MG

Los Niños
Av. Getúlio Vargas, 1405 (Av. Cristóvão Colombo)
Belo Horizonte, MG
http://losninospaleteria.com.br/

Palecolé Paletas Mexicanas
Rua Pernambuco, 1070 - Loja 110
Belo Horizonte, MG
http://palecole.com.br/

Divina Paleteria Mexicana
Rua Pernambuco 1303 loja 12
Belo Horizonte, MG

Your latest update is, of course, quite entertaining and informative! Thanks for going to the trouble to share all this with us.

This has been a fantastic read. Feels like I was there. Thanks for putting it together as I know its not done in 5 minutes and appreciate the time put into it and your willingness to share the trip. Sadly its something thats become a rarity over here so props are due. Good sh!t.

Da Beef wrote:This has been a fantastic read. Feels like I was there. Thanks for putting it together as I know its not done in 5 minutes and appreciate the time put into it and your willingness to share the trip. Sadly its something thats become a rarity over here so props are due. Good sh!t.

I'm late to the thread, and so have had the privilege of being inexorably drawn through all ten chapters. It's as difficult to convey my thanks to the OP as it surely must have been to record so much about a region that up until now, I had hardly ever heard of.

Not only heartiest tnx to you Tyrgyzistan, but heartiest congratulations as well--your reportage has ascended to the level of a Beef or a Josephine!! Trés bien fait!

Geo

Belo Horizonte, BH, Beagá, Minas Gerais e Comida Mineira The Thrill of the Middle of Brazil (The Braziddle), Going Back to Brumadinho.


Part Eleven: Eating in Inhotim


The hills of Minas Gerais, seen through tele-kaleidoscope known as Viewing Machine by Olafur Eliasson. This is Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim, better known just as Inhotim. In the hills just outside Belo Horizonte, a mining magnate has been slowly building one modern art institute and investing tens of millions into it every year for three decades now. Its attracted some of the big names of modern art from Brazil and around the world to have ther art housed in the galleries and grounds of the sprawling institute.



In the building underneath the Narcissus Garden by Yayoi Kusama Nagano is a theater and a coffee shop known as Café do Teatro.

Espresso with little unsweet crumbly cookie.

Inhotim is a massive place, with over 110 hectares of space and some works are 500 meters or more away from the others. The entrance area is meticulously manicured flora and landscaping, while beyond this is forest reserve where the jungle is almost free. There were four lanchonettes or snack spots, along with three restaurants in Inhotim. The restaurants did not look interesting, but walking between the galleries and installations takes tons of energy and I had to eat something. Imagine my relief to see a quiosque selling cachorro quentes, or Brazilian hot dogs.


Frying up bacon on the flat top, most street hot dogs don't do this. Inhotim had people cutting onions and tomatoes fresh too. Which makes me wonder, these art museums always reflect the opinions and tastes of the people who give them their money. Did the eccentric mining magnate who bankrolled this place insist on having a hot dog place here. Its a really good hot dog place. While it may look like a convenient place for families to eat something that kids would want, I have to wonder if its really a reflection of the eccentric wealthy benefactor of Inhotim.



The Brasileiro, brazilian street hot dog. Shredded carrots, potato chip sticks, pepper sauce, pepper sauce, melted cheese at the bottom. Housed in official Inhotim paper bag that fell apart immediately. This was so much like a street dog on a cheap bun that was overwhelmed by the weight and the liquids. They also had an Americano hot dog on the menu.


Café do Teatro
Inside theater building with water garden with shiny silver balls floating on top.

Cachorro Quente
In between Galeria Adriana Varejão and Galeria Rivane Neuenschwander

Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim
Brumadinho - MG
https://www.inhotim.org.br/


Sepcial thanks to the online resources that made the trip easier.

Veja magazine has affiliates in every major city with detailed guides to local restaurants. I would not read anything else the whole Veja group publishes, its aimed at a high end audience.
http://vejabh.abril.com.br/comidinhas

Destemperados is a blog site where people all over Brazil contribute, they have strict rules about not editing photos, and for a Belo Horizonte they had tons of entries.
http://www.destemperados.com.br/experiencias?regiao=17

I looked at several blogs, there were some good ones but I visited several places featured in Baixa Gastronomia


I also used the news from an entertainment site named Diverta-Se
http://divirta-se.uai.com.br/canal/gastronomia/

I was planning on visiting more of the botecos that take the food seriously, but most are only open at night and I didn't make it to many. The Comida Di Buteco competition was going on and I didn't get around to trying any of the places competing
http://www.comidadibuteco.com.br/belo-h ... e/botecos/





Coming up: If you thought this was over, they you would be wrong. This is just the end of Minas Gerais. Im off to the next town, a city celebrating its 55th anniversary, the home of the Candangos, a whole town of superblocks or superquadras built in midcentury modern architecture, the home of the wild and wacky theater known as Brazilian politics.

Brasília, Distrito Federal, and the Retro Future Spaceport Sixty Four.



Part Twelve: Welcome to the Future


Brazil has been calling itself "The Country of the Future" for reasons including its natural resources and large population and economic potential. Its been going on ever since Austrian Stefan Zweig wrote a book in German titled "Brazil, A Land of the Future". Its meant different things to different people since then. It took a new form when modernizing Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek ordered the construction of a new capital in the middle of the country. Entirely built from barren and empty high plains savannah known as the planalto or an environment known as the Cerrrado. A city entirely in midcentury modern architecture, from the monumental buildings to the curves of the landscaping in the lake area and bridges and highways. Incorporating ideals of the Athens Charter and other urban ideals. This was the new, modern planned Brazil that leave the chaos, corruption and decadence of the old capital behind. Its like how Dippin Dots has marketed itself as the ice cream of the future. Ice Cream made with liquid nitrogen and its in little balls. Its been marketing itself that way for years, at a certain point the future has arrived or already passed. Brazil has been calling itself the Country of the Future much longer than Dippin Dots has been calling itself the Ice Cream of the Future. The phrase pops up in any article about the ups and downs of Brazil's economy. In Brasilia he modern buildings have gone from being modern and new, to being old but still modern, and now they have a retro futurist and kitschy appeal. Thus we have a capital city that is like the Dippin Dots of capital cities. I can't figure out of the previous paragraph made any sense.



The first place in every guide book and online resource in Bar Beirute at its location in Asa Sul near the 109 Sul Metro stop. Open since 1966, it may be the oldest bar or restaurant in the city. The menu compares Bar Beirute to Café Procope in Paris, and includes testimonials from local journalists about the meaning of Bar Beirute. This is the places where the people go, its history doesn't include one or two soccer stars or telenovela actresses, they claim every soccer star and every entertainer as a customer. At different times the bar claims to be a meeting spot for the Direitas Ja movement and the LGBT community. The patio space is massive with street vendors selling candies and dvds in between the sportcoat wearing wait staff.


Mexuê à Parmegiana, kebab meat breaded like milanesa and topped with cheese and tomato sauce with bread on the side. I can't say I've ever had a breaded kebab like this, but the milanesas here seem to be popular. The "Syrian bread" just felt pointless and was a little stale. The menu is huge and has tons to read, and it has helpful recommendations with pictures. Beirute even has its own brand of bottled beer.






Asa Sul is the better off end of Brasília, and Brasília is a well off town by Brazilian standards. Its selection of places to eat can get decadent. There is a lot of places to choose from, and some range from pricey to expensice to super luxurious. In the commercial area of Superquadra 115 South is a coffee shop with a smiling little kid in the sign known as Ernesto Cafés Especiais. Inside they had a bunch of Best of Brasília plaques and guides to coffee shops that claim this place is one of the best in all of Brazil.



Espresso com bolo de Aipim, this was the long espresso with a little more water in it. Served with sparkling water and some chocolate covered candy somethings.



Espresso com brioche, french bread filled with cheese. This was the shorter espresso and the French bread was decadent.


This was a decadent and high quality coffee shop.




Something about Asa Sul means there are lots of fast casual places. I went past one named Spring Now that was dedicated entirely to spring rolls.


The vegetarian spring roll with a stamp for identification. This was not expensive, and Spring Now delivers.


Here it is always Spring.

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I decided to eat some more fast casual in Asa Norte at Überdog Amazing Hot Dogs.


The menu had themed hot dogs like the Americano, or Brasileiro or German or English hot dogs. I went with the middle eastern dog named Salamoleque. If the menu describes it as an oasis of flavor then it must be good.


This hot dog made me say As-salamu alaykum. The cheese was based on a Middle Eastern cheese known as shanklish in English, with caramelized onions and mint leaves. It was good but the sausage itself was very cheap and only slightly better than what is found on the streets and from people working out of vans.


I was doing some research to find the older original places in Brasília and Pastelaria Viçosa looked old. The problem is it had three location and I thought the one in Asa Norte was the original. When I got there I found a bunch of stylized drawings and newspaper clippings of the original location in the bus station. That location has been open for forty years, although this one isn't so old it does have pizza on the menu.


This was the pastel filled with beef strogonoff, with strogonoff being really popular in Brazil for some reason.


The bus station in the center of Brasília is an important part of the city, and a huge part of the original plan. I just did not want to eat anything in there, its between two layers of super wide avenues and there are dozens of buses moving in every direction.



One last stop in Asa Norte, in the same superquadra as the northern location of Bar Beirute was Sorvete Mesclatino


Sorvete de goiabada com queijo, guava with cheese flavor, the combination from Minas Gerais sometimes referred to as Romeo e Julieta.


Beirute
Cls 109 Bl A s/n LJ2
Asa Sul, Brasília - DF
https://www.facebook.com/barbeirute

Ernesto Cafés Especiais
SHC/Sul CL Qd 115, Bloco C, Loja 14
Asa Sul, Brasília - DF

Spring Now
SHCS 105 Bloco C Loja 12
Asa Sul, Brasília - DF
http://springnow.apetitar.com.br/

Überdog Amazing Hot Dogs
CLN 307, Bl. B, Lj. 69
Asa Norte, Brasília - DF
http://uberdog.apetitar.com.br/

Pastelaria Viçosa
SHCGN 704/705, Bloco D, Loja 02
Asa Norte, Brasília - DF
http://www.pastelariavicosa.com.br/

Sorvete Mesclattino
CLN 107, Bloco D - Lj 23
Asa Norte, Brasília - DF
https://pt-br.facebook.com/Mesclattino

Musical Suggestion for this post: Quarteto Em Cy e Tamba Trio - Água de Beber During the construction of Brasília, president Juscelino Kubitschek invited Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim to visit the new city where the buildings were popping up like musical notes. While staying at the Catetinho Palace, Vinicius asked a servant about the sound of a stream, and the servant fetched some water and exclaimed "Água de beber, camará", the songwriter promptly wrote the tune around the line over the weekend in Brasília.

Brasília, Distrito Federal, and Going Offworld from the Retro Future Spaceport Sixty Four.

Part Thirteen: Of Candangos and Sandwiches



The story of Brasília is not just about grand architectural visions and modern buildings bringing the capital of Brazil from the empty savannah into the modern world. Its a town built by internal immigrants and populated by internal immigrants. The statue above is Os Guerreiros by Bruno Giorgi, but its better known as Os Candangos. Its in the middle of the Praça dos Três Poderes, in between the edifices of the highest power in Brazilian government. The Candangos were the people who built Brasília, and the original grand plan didn't quite gel with the number of workers or the need for affordable housing or the inevitable urban growth of all new capital cities. The Candangos built their homes in satellite communities surrounding the city with names like Candangolândia, Sacolândia, and Guará. Sacolândia translates to City of Sacks, and the first Candango communities were built from sacks used to deliver construction materials for the new city.

What does this mean for food and dining in Brasília? It means a diverse selection of all cusines from Brazil can be found here, often in places that clearly state the geographic origin of the cuisine they prepare.




I had to get out of the planned city and visit one of the satellite communities built by Candangos, and the easiest to reach by public transportation was Guará and the Feira do Guará. This was not a food destination, about three quarters of the stalls were dedicated to clothing. It did have several restaurants, and an open air dining area just outside that was built to resemble a Brazilian beachfront dining area with beach barracas or shacks serving cheap food like fried fish at the ubiquitous plastic tables with beer logos of every beach in Brazil.


Queijo Minas, from one of the Comida Mineira stalls.


Beans, Brazilians love their beans.


While many may describe Universidade do Pastel as a diploma mill, they have several programs of filling and a dough stretching machine that looks like a pasta device, and you can see the employees folding your pastel and frying it to order.


Pastel de frango com milho, chicken and corn in a creamy sauce inside.


A different University.



On the edge of the market was a suco with the name Delícias do Pará, referring to the bounty of fruits and juices from the State of Pará in the north of Brazil.


The juice selection at Delícias do Pará


This is suco de açaí, when you get açaí in juice form you get the unadulterated raw uncut açaí. This means deep purple color with smooth texture and literally zero flavor. They had tapioca balls to put inside, but I wanted the juice by itself today.



I checked out several of the beachy themed places and only one looked good and was open when I was in. This was Restaurante Sabor do Pará, with more food from Pará and the State Flag in the logo.


Grilling up tambaqui fish from the Amazon, this was a little out of my range for the day, and the fish were huge.



Vatapá and Caruru, this was listed on the menu as Prato Sabor do Pará and had two classic foods from the Northeast of Brazil. The caruru had okra inside and the vatapá was flavored with coconut milk and peanuts inside.

So Feira do Guará was not some kind of destination food experience, but it was right beside the train stop and I could eat the food of Pará without the logistical difficutlies of visiting the state in 2015.



Back to Brasilia to grab some sandwiches. The lanchonettes here have a way of putting the name of a state right in the name and logo of the business. A couple sandwich places in Asa Norte had delicacies from Southern Brazil, and places I had never been.



The first stop for many people visiting Brazil is to get a mortadella sandwich made famous at the Mercadão or big market in São Paulo. I could find one at a Paulista (from São Paulo State) hangout in Asa Norte with a big sandwich selection. Sapori Paulista was waving the flag of the State of São Paulo.


This Mortadella was like a steamy bologna sandwich, and the bread held up to the steam for a while but the huge portion of steamy meat had its way. This is a tasty sandwich and a favorite almost everywhere in Brazil. This place had other Paulista sandwiches like the Bauru and the pernil.


Another spot in Asa Norte promised a sandwich from Rio Grande do Sul, Xis Gaúcho. Gaúcho refers to South American cowboys but more often in Brazil it means from the state of Rio Grande do Sul.


The Xis a pressed and toasted sandwich, this time with chicken hearts and sandwich fillings including lettuce, tomato, egg, ham, corn and peas. I think they sell more with just steak inside.



Universidade do Pastel
Box 349

Delícias do Pará
Box 601

Restaurante Sabor do Pará
In the beach dining area just outside the market

Feira do Guará
Área Especial do CAVE - Guará II
Brasília, DF
http://www.feiraguara.com.br/

Sapori Paulista
SCLN 113 Bloco B - Asa Norte
Brasília - DF

Xis Gaúcho
CLN 408 Bl. A, Lj. 10,
Brasília, DF
http://www.xisgaucho.com.br/

Coming up: The end is finally in sight, final post from Brasília and the Middle of Brazil is up next.

Brasília, Distrito Federal, and the Retro Future Analog Televsion Broadcast for the Cathode Ray Tube Viewers.

Part Fourteen: Feira da Torre and the Praça de Alimentação


This is the picture postcard view from the viewing deck of the Torre da TV, the giant analog television antenna and tower in the middle of everything in Brasília. Brasília was chosen as a new capital of Brazil because it was between the two major populated areas in the Southeast and the Northeast, and the vast empty interior. Thus its like the Torre da TV is in the middle of the middle of Brazil and Brasília. You can see the congress building, the rows of public buildings, the bus station, the museum and cathedral, and the JK bridge in the corner.



But when you walk to the other end of the Torre da TV you see a bunch of covered market stalls with green roofs. This is where locals have been meeting every weekend since the sixties to buy and sell just about anything. Feira de Artesanato da Torre de TV is the technical term for the marketplace officially inaugurated in 1970. But in the center of the green semicircles is the food court, the Praça de Alimentação where some of the vendors may have been here since the place was built.



Food Courts are popular in malls and markets in Brasil, and the Praça de Alimentação at Feira da Torre was busy from before noon to about four in the afternoon. The place was not exactly clean, and the birds seemed to be having their way with the leftover food before anyone would bother to clean things up.




I started off with an stick of fried shrimp, Camarão Empanado, from a pastel place that had a ton of fried food to choose from. This was not exactly good, a little too greasy and reheated after I ordered it.


Pastelaria Ásia Sabores was not the only pastel place with the word Asia or Chinese in the name that I saw in Brasília. They had spring rolls and pastels and fried balls of meat known as coxinhas, and other stuff but I had to move on.




There are gills on the street or hole-in-the-wall places serving tapioca all over the place in Brazil. The places that aren't proper restaurants are often dirt cheap and have a giant selection of fillings.


This was a tapioca with carne de sol and cheese with a tomato. Carne de sol is dried meat served in many different ways, and I think this was the northeastern cheese Queijo Coalho that melts well.




Delícias do Pará is a barraca owned by an old lady identified as Dona Jacirema and I get the idea that Dona Jacirema has been serving her food here for a long time. The sign reads "The best Tacacá in Brasília", so getting the weird Amazonian stew sounded like a good idea.


The Tacacá has a couple shrimp and two very strong flavors from the manioc roots and the jambu leaves. Jambu makes the soup numb you lips and mouth while eating, and the taste is very foreign. The special bowl is known as a Cuia.


On the opposite side of the Praça de Alimentação was Barraca Belém do Pará serving Pratos Tipicos, typical plates of the city of Belém.


This was Pato no tucupi, duck in the same jambu and manioc root stew known as tucupi. The duck had been cooked forever and had fallen off the bones leaving a big pile of bones and manioc roots in the center of the stew.



The last place I wanted to try was dedicated to the remote and obscure and deeply impoverished state of Maranhão. Suave Sabor do Maranhão translates to Smooth Flavor of Maranhão.


This was Sarapatel, a dish from Portugal that made its way to India to become very popular around Goa, and also common in the Northeast of Brazil. This was tripe cooked in some combination of spices served with rice and beans.


I washed it down with Guaraná Jesus, the official Guaraná flavored soda of the State of Maranhão which was bought out by Coca-Cola but only distributed in the Northeast.


Pastelaria Ásia Sabores
Bloco R. Box 589

Barraca da Tapioca
Bloco Q. Box 553

Delícias do Pará Dona Jacirema
Bloco R. Box 578

Belém do Pará
Bloco Q. Box 551

Barraca Suave Sabor Do Maranhão
Bloco Q. Box 543


Feira da Torre de TV
Zona Cívico-Administrativa
s/nº - Eixo Monumental -- Brasília
http://www.feiradatorredf.com.br/



Goodbye, Middle of Brazil, nobody loves you but me. There is no more, it took three weeks to sort through 1,500 photos and fit them into something resembling a narrative that was remotely readable. Now I need a vacation from writing about my vacation.