Saturday Night In SP
After our light lunch we strolled around Paulista Avenue a bit and, in true Gringo fashion, stopped in a Starbucks to re-caffeinate. Oddly enough, despite Brazil being the largest coffee producer in the world and also having a total coffee drinking culture there just simply aren’t that many coffee shops on Paulista; in other cities there are lots of places but for some reason (perhaps the cost of the rent) not here. So Starbucks it was and, for the record, they make their latte drinks here a lot sweeter than back in the US.
Dinner that night was at Tordesilhas, named for the treaty in which the Pope divided up the world solely between the Spanish and the Portuguese.
How’d that work out, by the way?
Anywho, the neat thing about this restaurant is they have food from all the regions of Brazil, from the Amazon down south, so you can taste flavors and techniques that you might not find elsewhere.
I, for one, could not resist a white wine called “Utopia”
but sadly, as has always been the case, what has been advertized as Utopia turns out to be, well, somewhat less, shall we say. But hey, it was alcoholic and cold…
We had some various appetizers, including some delicious fried manioc balls with parmesan
and some pastels that had ground beef and some that had cheese
to enliven the flavor they provided various peppers in adorable little Jars of Doom
having previously (and quite humorously as far as my Bride and Daughter were concerned) discovered that my tolerance for spice was not quite as high as I imagined it to be I wisely limited myself to leeeetle drops of the oil on the pastels; very tasty drops to be sure but also very delicately placed ones.
All washed down with some very tasty caipirinhas
Quite tasty indeed.
For the entree itself both my Bride and I decided that after 10 days of seafood and beef we sort of had a hankering for…chicken. One of the oddest, funkiest trees I have ever seen is a native Brazilian tree called the Jabuticaba. The fruit is delicious but it grows…out of the trunk. It is the strangest looking thing, and it also happened to be ‘in season’ so the menu had “chicken in Jabuticaba sauce with parsnip puree and peas”
The jabuticaba has a concentrated sweet/tart grapey flavor, it was an interesting and unique combination. The parsnip puree was wonderfully smooth and creamy and the snow peas were sweet and crisp.
For dessert I had three types of sorbets made from Amazonian fruits: acai, cupuacu and tapioca
and probably another caipirinha.
Life, Swill Food and Grog | Mr. Bingley | 
February 6, 2013 8:17 am
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Fabulous!!
Oink. That looks GOOD.
And I think I could probably handle a bit more spice. I’m quite fond of Thai Som Tam – with lots of chili peppers.
Confounded a bunch of Thais who thought they’d catch the naive foreigner with an invite to lunch. I munched down, informed them that was QUITE delicious. They were waiting for me to burst into tears, or run off screaming. 😛 (Close, but no cigar – it was ALMOST hot enough to make my eyes water, but not quite. Cleared my sinuses up nicely, though.)
I like habaneros too.
BTW, if you lot are still down there, stay a while. (See NE weather reports – NJ won’t get all that much mess – but they’ll get the edges.) Enjoy your tropical paradise. 🙂
We’ve been back since the 14th, Kathy. Got a gallon of gas for the snowblower tonight!
And another case of wine, just in case.