Let's Go Green!

Who knows how many weekends we have left in Brazil? Seriously, who? It would be great to know. This uncertainty has added some haste and commitment to the sightseeing cause. We recently spent a weekend going to the Parque Lage and then the Jardim Botanical – two major green areas of Rio de Janeiro. Everyone goes to Parque Lage for breakfast and we woke up nice and early to get there.

And then the unthinkable happened. The restaurant cafe was closed and was staying closed for two weeks until they sorted out their refurbishment. Those who know me well will agree that keeping me fed is essential to keeping me happy. A hungry Dave is an irritated Dave. My goal for the next couple of hours (before we picked up some sandwiches) was to maintain a modicum of human civility. A difficult task when you haven’t eaten for nearly 12 hours. In a way I understand Jeremy Clarkson’s anger as I often feel like punching someone when hungry. However I have always refrained from doing so and this day was no exception, therefore I still have a job and I am not a complete tool.

Marilyn Monpascoe

This is the breakfast area. Isn't it beautiful?

There was a small aquarium with screaming kids (I don’t think they are a permanent exhibit) and a man made cave. It was a beautiful place to (nearly) have breakfast and go for a little stroll.

Parque Lage was lovely but really it was a warm-up act to the Jardim Botanical. These beautiful botanical gardens are situated in the heart of Rio de Janeiro and are home to some fascinating wildlife. We’ll start with the trees, shall we? We saw the smoothest trunks I have ever seen / remembered. One was absolutely huge and put Katie in her place.

A lot of roots!

This was smoother than cadbury's chocolate (pre-Kraft)

Smoother than a baby's bum that has been wiped using sand paper.

Palm Island

The most laid back trees in the world

One of the largest trees in the world.

I just wanted to push this tree over.
I imagined it bouncing back like a punch bag.

My best tree impression.

Interesting pine trunk skin

This was a branch and not rope.
It was something out of Tarzan.

The Twisty Cactus

The most evil Christmas Tree in the world. A Hellmas Tree if you will.

With all these trees and stuff, there was also this other kind of nature. You know what I mean? It’s the moving kind that eats and poos, otherwise known as animals. We finally (2 months in) got to see a bird we were both very excited about: a toucan. It was very beautiful and colourful.

Ariel Toucan

Marmoset! Known in Portuguese as a Mico

There were some beautiful views to be had as well.

In fact these views were so beautiful that they attracted a new type of animal to the gardens. This bloated and easily irritable creature was to be found posing in front of such views with its overly protective mate.

Yes, pregnant women. This is slowly becoming a theme in Brazil... When there are beautiful places, there are pregnant women and the apparent fathers. They normally come with a photographer who is happy to snap away at their protruding bellies. These unusual photos are eventually used to embarrass the children decades later during their weddings.

Even Thiago dreams of having a baby one day.

The day ended with lunch at the lagoon, which Katie will talk about in an upcoming food blog. And then a drive back to Barra where we got stuck in traffic by Rocinha, the largest favela in Brazil. A little reminder of the poverty and another sight that puts your life on a more adjusted scale.

Rochina - Brazil's Largest Favela

A Little & Large Market

Every Sunday there is a farmers' market in Barra that sells everything from fruit and veg to paintings and pastels (a kind of Brazilian pasty). A few weeks ago we took a lovely little stroll down the beach to the market, and a harder one back home again due to the heat and the physical exertion of walking on wet sand. In Brazil a lot of food shopping is done on Sundays, at markets across the country. It results in these bustling hives of activity, which are a great place to people watch... and chilli watch.

I took these photos on my phone so please excuse the poor quality. I still don’t feel 100% secure taking a £300 camera out and about with me without fear of being robbed. There is certainly crime in Rio de Janeiro although so far we have been untouched by it. I think carrying an object worth more than the average monthly salary in a country with a lot of poverty is just asking for trouble though. It's still difficult to know whether we are being overly cautious or rightfully wary.

Anyway we ended our Barra market trip with a pastel. When I took this photo I didn’t notice the partially naked man in the background, as this sight is so common place in Rio.

On a different day we went to Feira de São Cristóvão, or Saint Cristovao Market depending on your openness to the foreign tongue. We met up with a work colleague of mine, Cris, who showed us around this big market. It was a lovely way to spend a day and all three of us had a great time. We saw a couple of shops dedicated to Cachaça.

These bottles had various fruits floating around in them to impart flavour...and one of them had garlic in!

Meat on stick! Oh how I missed thee.

The market had a lot of tat for sale. However unlike the majority of Asian markets we have been to, there wasn't any hassle or pressure coming from the store owners. There was no physical forcing into stores and no immediate bartering attempt at every product you looked at or touched. People just let you wander in and out as you pleased. It meant that it felt more like a shopping centre than a market and in the hot weather it was much appreciated and created a very pleasant atmosphere. We bought a couple of trinkets to homely up our flat a little bit but generally there wasn’t too much that we were interested in.

However we were not really there to consume with our increased purchasing power, we were there to experience and enjoy the atmosphere. There were two big stages that hosted live music throughout the day and people came and danced the hours away. There was a great family atmosphere with many young families here who had come to seemingly just enjoy the music and the entertainment and have some of the delicious Brazilian cuisine that Katie spoke about here.

The restaurant kindly offered props for some really authentic photo opportunities!

As well as the big stages, there were a few smaller ones nestled between the stalls. This couple were loving it!

Just a short one today... Tchau.

UFC Octagon Side in Rio!

For me, a big reason for coming to Brazil was the UFC. Mixed martial arts or cage fighting is a sport like no other. It is a modern version of the gladiators except they are not slaves or Russell Crowe - they are expertly trained athletes. I was fortunate enough to get tickets (premium Octagon side) to see an event in Rio. For those who don't know, UFC is huge in Brazil – perhaps the second or third biggest sport. Basically Brazilians love whichever sport they are good at and they are great at MMA.

The Maracanazinho!

There are many brilliant Brazilian fighters and I got to see the new lightweight champion displaying his belt. I also saw a host of UFC celebrities and grabbed some selfies with them.

Mario Yamasaki - one of the best refs

Dana White: UFC President who
enjoyed being referred to as "Mr President"

Jhenny Andrade - My Fave UFC girl

Stealing a selfie from someone else
with Shogun Rua - former UFC light
heavyweight champion 

The fights were awesome and a more detailed information is available on my other website, which I am not linking here but which you can find from my facebook page.

One amusing thing about the night was that I was surrounded by children of around twelve years old. I don’t know about you but I think this sport is a little too violent for kids so young. By a little too violent, what I really mean is that it can be horrendous at times and is definitely not suitable for those that are so young. But in Brazil, it is part of their culture.

I also found out that during decision victories, the announcer tells the ref who has won before they enter the Octagon, presumably so the ref knows which hand to put up when the call is made. This is interesting and only something I noticed late on as so many fights ended in submissions.

The tallest man in the arena sat in front of me before (thankfully) changing seats with his partner.

I want this man’s job!

The size of this drink does not make sense compared to the size of the man.

I also had an (several) official beer(s) of the Octagon.

The fanfare over Dana White was a little OTT.

I also felt that the Premium Octagon seats should have had some freebies. A program would have been perfect. All in all I had a great night and am looking forward to the next event. Here are a couple of my favourite photos...

Brazil In My Mouth - February & March

Are you as excited about this as I am?! It's our first food post from Brazil! Below are some of the most memorable things we have eaten in February and March.

Picanha

Picanha is a cut of beef that is popular in Brazil but not well known back home. The dish pictured below is a very typical meal here in Rio. It is often referred to as picanha, although the cut of beef can vary. You can state how you want the meat cooked (rare, medium etc) or it sometimes comes on a hotplate so you can cook it yourself, Korea style! Whatever the cut or cooking method, this delicious, juicy steak always comes with the same sides - chips, rice, a salsa of onion, pepper and tomatoes, and farofa. Farofa (bottom right) is toasted cassava flour. In this picture it is plain, but it often comes mixed with onions or scrambled egg. It has a nutty flavour and the texture of sand. It's really odd and I'm not sure what it adds to the meal but it is quite nice.

As you probably noticed, the beef comes with a lot of carbs. One portion of this dish is definitely enough to feed two, probably three if Dave isn't one of them! The chips vary in quality and the farofa, as mentioned, can be different. Often the mountain of rice is plain but sometimes, like here, it comes with veggies, ham and even little matchstick potato chips - even more carbs, yay!

Feijoada

This is possibly the most well known Brazilian dish. It is eaten a lot here, but only really at the weekends. It takes so long to cook that nobody has time to make it during the week! It is essentially a bean stew that gets its flavour from the smokey meats (sausage and beef) that are cooked with the beans. It is quite plain in flavour but good, hearty food. It is served with rice, shredded garlicky cabbage and slices of orange. Apparently the orange is to aid digestion.

After the hike in Tijuca National Park we ate the feijoada pictured above and this dish - steak, potato rosti and roquefort sauce. I have seen potato rostis on several menus here and am intrigued to know how they came to be so popular. I will say that this one tasted a little too much like oil for my liking, and I'm not a blue cheese fan so it wasn't my ideal dish but the steak was, of course, delicious. If there is one thing Brazilians know, it's how to cook beef!

Kilo Restaurants

Pretty straightforward concept really - you walk around the buffet tables, gradually adding yummy things to your plate. Once you're happy, you take the plate to the person at the till, who weighs it and charges you accordingly. Different restaurants charge different amounts per kilo and obviously the quality and variety of food differs from place to place but the process is the same. There is one next to where I have my Portuguese classes and the food is really good. I have eaten there once and it cost me R$13 (£2.70) which was a bargain! The plate below was one of Dave's, from a more expensive place. As you can imagine, he sees "Kilo Restaurant" as a suggestion, rather than nick-name...

Quiosques (kiosks) are beach-side huts offering a variety of drinks and snacks with a great view of the sea and sand. Each quiosque is different and some definitely have better food than others. The one opposite our flat is great for agua de coco, whereas the one next to it served us this amazing platter of grilled prawns, battered fish, garlic bread and cassava chips. I love the abundance of cassava here - a sweeter, more fibrous alternative to potato that I must learn how to cook!

Northeastern Food

We visited a market (to be blogged about soon) that sells a lot of tat and food from the northeastern region of Brazil. We ate at a restaurant called "Estação Baião de Dois" and sampled some nordeste (northeastern) delicacies: 

Acaraje is a popular street snack in the northeast, but is also very common in Nigeria and several other African countries. It is a bun made from a black-eyed pea dough, which is fried in palm oil and stuffed. This is the only acaraje we have tried so I don't know how authentic it was. The stuffing was a slightly bitter paste, probably made from some kind of green vegetable, with whole grilled prawns. It was tasty, although a bit too substantial for a starter. I'm keen to try these in their natural habitat.

Casquinha de Siri is, I think, a general term for a stuffed crab shell. This one had a very mild flavour that was almost like curry, and was really tasty with a squeeze of lime and a few drops of chili oil. I'm not a big seafood fan but to me this was just on the right side of my fishiness limit, and it was shredded so the texture was a bit like fish. This is the first crab that we have seen on a menu here, much to Dave's disappointment. I wonder what other seafood they eat up north...

After those two starters, we order the obligatory beef. It came, of course, with mountains of rice, farofa (with onion) and cassava chips. An interesting condiment on the table was manteiga de garrafa - basically a bottle of liquid ghee to pour on our chips! I'm starting to see how the brown influences up north have had a delicious impact on the food. We also got a side of beans, or feijão, and these have cemented "the northeast" as an essential foodie holiday destination for us. The flavour of these feijão was richer and deeper than anything we have eaten thus far in Rio and that green stuff is CORIANDER! I loved it so much that we got the waiter to put the leftovers in a doggiebag for me. I froze it and have been rationing it out for my lunch ever since.

Next up is an assortment of random dishes that don't have so much story behind them but were still worth writing home about:

Grilled octopus. We have seen octopus on quite a few menus here but this is the only time Dave has ordered it so far. He says it was a bit chewy and not the best octopus he has had. The pool of orange stuff on the plate is palm oil, which is a very popular cooking oil in the north of Brazil, where African influences are much stronger in the culture and cuisine.

This is a pretty standard piece of grilled white fish, but with the interesting addition of grapes in the oily vinaigrette. We have seen this a few times and while it isn't bad, I'm not too sure what it brings to the table. Generally we have found meals in Rio to be lacking in vegetables and with sauces that are neither here nor there. 

This salmon was extremely salty but with no sauce whatsoever. It did come with some interesting rice though - broccoli rice. I assume there was some broccoli blended up and mixed in with the rice but I couldn't really taste it. There was a slight hint of parsley, which was annoying but at least I could tell myself I'd eaten something green for dinner. 

Another piece of fish with a vaguely pestoey sauce. This time the carbs came in the form of mash, which was very creamy and tasted like it was at least 50% butter. Atop the mash were two slices of fried banana. They had a nice, soft texture and hardly any flavour so we suspect they were actually plantain rather than banana. Does that count as a vegetable? I don't suppose it does if it has been fried!

Seafood risotto with a huge prawn on top. There was fish, squid, some prawns and mussels in this, and I think maybe even a pea or two! Risotto seems to be very popular here, often cheesy and either as a main meal or a side dish. I don't know whether an Italian would be happy giving them the title of risotto, but they always look tasty to me!

I haven't eaten any sushi here yet but Dave got this platter from a place down the road from our flat. It cost about £12, so pretty similar to the UK. It's a very popular food here in Rio, with restaurants and snack-shacks all over the place. It is probably because it is healthy and people are so body conscious here in Rio.

This one is a bit boring but represents something new in our lives. It's a burger from a "healthy" cafe and juice bar down the road. The reason I'm mentioning it is because Dave has decided to try going gluten-free this year and this place does gluten-free bread. Next to the burger you can see a "salad"; shredded chicken in mayo, a bit of corn and a few raisins mixed in, and a load of those matchstick potato chips on top. There are seriously so few vegetables with Brazilian meals! Luckily we are getting a lot of our 5-a-day in the form of various fresh fruit juices. I'll be blogging about these sometimes weird but (almost) always wonderful juices once we have worked our way through all of the options!

And finally, something sweet...

Brigadeiros are truffles made from condensed milk and coco, cooked down, rolled up and coated in sprinkles. They are extremely popular for all celebrations here and are sometimes served with a spoon in a little pot, rather than rolled into balls. These ones were very kindly gifted to us by one of the men who works on reception in our building. He wrote me a wonderful letter to go with them, explaining the origin of the name. I won't type it here, you can just wiki it!

This dessert was from my new favourite restaurant, Guacamole! It's a Mexican restaurant that we went to for Dave's birthday and as part of the celebrations Dave got a free shot of tequila, we were serenaded by a mariachi band were given this wonderful chocolate brownie and ice cream wishing Dave "Parabens" (congratulations). Such fun!

So much fun, in fact, that we went back again a few weeks ago! It wasn't anyone's birthday so we had to pay for this dessert ourselves but boy was it worth it - a huge ball of ice cream and five doce de leite stuffed churros. Drool! Doce de leite and churros are both really popular here and you can buy a more basic version on this dessert from street vendors.

Last but not least, these were the desserts on offer at the northeastern restaurant. The yellow one in the middle is jack fruit, but most of them are shredded coconut with a variety of different flavourings: papaya, guava condensed milk...and doce de leite! Guess which one we picked? I think I might be a doce de leite addict before too long. It went so well with the coconut, which was fresher and tastier than the desiccated coconut we get back home. 

So, that about sums it up for our first two months here. Not bad going really, considering we just eat chicken salad for dinner during the week. Still, we have a lot more work to do! This weekend we are going to Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state Minas Gerais. It's just the next state up from Rio de Janeiro, but is much bigger and people keep telling me how good the food is there so I am very excited.