Food, Glorious Food!

The time has come. The world must know about the delicious dining options that await here in Southern Brazil. Here are some things to be aware of before ordering from anywhere: 1. When you order a dish, in most cases you are ordering for 2 people. (Entrees are usually at least twice the size of those in American restaurants.) 2. There are no refills on drinks, and most places do not have fountain drinks either. If you order soda, it will come in a bottle or can. If you try to be cheap (like our family often does) and order water, it will come in a bottle also. Sure you can order additional bottles/cans throughout the meal if needed, but you will be charged for each. 3. (This makes up for #2.) There ARE free refills on side dishes in most places. These often include french fries, rice, various pastas, polenta, salad, and so forth. 4. You will have to look pretty hard to find spicy food here. Brazilian food is well-seasoned and very yummy, but most people here do not like hot peppers or other spicy foods. (You can tease Tiago about how he used to think beef jerky and barbecue sauce were “too hot,” if you like. :)) Now, let me tell you about our “Top Ten” places to go:

#1 – Galeto Feltrin.

This is the chicken place, unlike any I have had in the US. You have two choices when you walk in the door: “per kilo” buffet or chicken meal (I'm not actually sure what the meal itself is called as Tiago does all the ordering).  If you decide to eat from the buffet, there are about 50+ different dishes to choose from, from all different food groups and cooking types. Fresh fruits, vegetables, quail eggs, pickles, olives, salads, and other lighter foods on one side. Then there are the hot food choices – feijao (beans), rice, stroganoff (which varies between chicken and beef), bife milanesa, chicken parmigiana, several types of pasta and sauces, chicken (which I cannot remember if it is grilled or fried, but it is their specialty dish), and lasagna. There is also a dessert buffet with about 10-15 different options – fresh strawberries and cream, mousse, pudim, ice cream, jello, sagu, and other creations whose names I cannot recall. Of course the buffet is nice for several reasons, which you have probably already figured out. Lots of options, get as much as you want, and you can always return and get more if you are still hungry. It is called “per kilo” because you charged by the weight of the food you eat. You can fill up your plate as much as you choose, as long as you are prepared to pay for it afterward. I can't remember the exact cost per kilo, but I do know that I can get a full plate of food for about the same price I would pay for a Big Mac meal at McDonald's in the US. So, high quality, fresh, somewhat healthy food for the cost of fast food. Galeto Feltrin is probably the busiest restaurant in town at lunch time every day, for this reason.

Now remember the other option I mentioned before: the chicken meal. If you order this way, you are seated at a table and your food is served to you fresh and in several courses. First there is a pate of some sort, which we usually don't eat. Then there is the Italian soup and bread, which we do eat. The soup is a broth with dumpling-like filled pasta which I can't remember the name of. The bread is freshly made white bread, soft in the middle with a crunchy crust, the way people like it here. Then the salad tray and maionese is brought: two or three types of lettuce, sliced tomatoes, pickles, and cabbage (I think). Each person takes which ever veggies they choose, as many as they choose, and if the plate becomes too empty, the waiter will appear and bring a refill. The maionese is Brazilian potato salad – boiled potatoes cut up and mixed with what amounts to a home-made mayonnaise mixture. (This is almost a staple food here and is served by nearly every restaurant with every meal. Some put in peas or carrots or corn. My favorite is with green olives or dill pickles.)

Okay, now we get to the good part: the galeto! I know my description of the chicken will not do it justice, but I will try anyway. (Warning: If you are an animal right activist, please skip over the next few lines. :)) The meat is from a young chicken, so the pieces are smaller and more tender than what you would get at KFC, for example. They are deep-fried with some sort of batter or mixture on the outside, so that the outside is nice and crispy, and the inside is tender and juicy. And with the chicken comes the polenta frita. Polenta is a type of corn meal mush, which we were not successful at being able to recreate while in the US. Polental frita is when the cooked polenta is cut into rectangular pieces and deep-fried. (Kinda like when mom used to fry yesterday's grits on the griddle for breakfast, I guess. :)) Sprinkle some grated parmesan cheese on top and it's a very tasty snack! But the waiters aren't finished yet! Two or three dishes of pasta are also brought out and served. These have varied from day to day, but all of them are very tasty. :) And the last item, which is served along with everything else, is the white chocolate pastelinhos. Imagine filling an egg-roll wrapper with chocolate, and deep-frying it. That's about what a chocolate pastel is, only with a slightly thicker dough. There is also the option to order a dessert, for a little more, but usually by the time we get to that part of the meal, dessert is very unnecessary.

You know, I think I've used the term “deep-fried” so many times already that I'm gaining weight just thinking about it... On to the next dining experience!

#2 – Rodizio de Pizza

Okay, so this is not the actual name of the restaurants we eat at, but the style of restaurant. There are about 4 or 5 different places we have tried so far who serve pizza in this style, and honestly I am not sure which is my favorite. Rodizio means that its almost the opposite of a US all-you-can-eat buffet, in that the waiters bring out one or two pizzas at a time and go from table to table serving whoever wants some. There are probably 20-30 different types of pizzas served. The crust is very thin, almost like a tortilla, and the slices are fairly small so you don't fill up too quickly. To give you an idea, I like to think I eat relatively normal amounts of food, not like a competitive eater or anything. I can probably eat about 10-12 slices and be comfortably full. Oh, and usually there are side dishes served as well, again refilled whenever they are emptied – salads, french fries, etc.

Now, toppings: There is no tomato sauce on pizza in Brazil. Some of our favorites are Portuguesa – ham, boiled egg slices, mozzarella cheese, olives, peas, and onions; Estrogonofe (not sure on the spelling) – either beef or chicken Brazilian stroganoff, and french fried potato sticks; Palmito – chopped or sliced palm hearts, tomato, and cheese; and any number of cheese pizza combinations - “4-Cheese/5-Cheese/8-Cheese”, etc. There is usually a corn pizza, and sometimes one with chicken hearts, but those I pass on. When you have had enough of the regular dinner pizzas, then you get to try to best ones! Sweet pizzas like Strawberries & milk chocolate, banana & cinnamon, white chocolate & doce de leite, M & M pizza, and several others. They also often add a scoop of ice cream to any of these sweet pizzas, and voila! Ice cream pizza! Mmmmmmmm... Sometimes I am tempted just to skip the dinner part and go straight to the sweet pizzas. :)

(Due to the lengthiness of this entry thus far, and the wakefulness of my child from her nap at this time, I will have to continue this topic at another date.)

TO BE CONTINUED . . .