Eat Rio Blog - Page 37 of 106

Feira do Rio Antigo

31/08/2013/7 Comments/in Things to do

Every first Saturday of the month there is a street market called Feira do Rio Antigo in Lapa. The street itself is lined with second hand furniture shops and then the pavement/sidewalk is crammed with stalls selling all kinds of bric-a-brac, from antique dinner plates and cutlery to clothes and other bits and bobs. Mix in some bars with chairs and tables sprawling across the street and you have the makings a of lively afternoon/evening.

Browse the shops and stalls, enjoy a few drinks, soak up the atmosphere.

Later on you could head to everyone’s favourite nightspot, Rio Scenarium, which is on the same street. I would say “See you there next weekend”, but I’ll be in Peru…

Rio’s Invisible Army

30/08/2013/13 Comments/in Musings

There is an army on the streets of Rio right now. They have no formal organisation or structure but they’re doing their best to clean up Rio. No, I’m not referring to the protest groups in the continuing anti-corruption protests in Rio. I’m not even talking about that orange army of waste collectors, the garis. I’m talking about the huge numbers of people who roam the streets of Rio collecting unwanted items that still have some value.

These guys are known as Catadores or Catadores de lixo and more often than not, you see them pulling a hand cart like this.

Catador translates to something like ‘collector’ or ‘scavenger’ and that’s a pretty fair description of what they do. Wherever there is something of value that has been discarded, you can expect to find someone busily packing it up and taking it away.

You see catadores in many places across the city. If you spend any time on the beach you will almost certainly have someone come up and ask if they can take your empty beer/soda cans. On the streets you see people pushing trolleys or pulling handcarts, often piled high with cardboard or laden with huge bags full of empty plastic bottles.

These guys were roaming the streets in Glória, looking for plastic bottles.

The Joy of Farofa

28/08/2013/19 Comments/in Food and drink

One of the nicest things about cross-cultural relationships is that your partner can introduce you to all kinds of interesting new things. Since meeting Mrs Eat Rio I have expanded my knowledge and taste in music, films, books and, of course, food (to name a few). And it has been a two way exchange. Expanding your own horizons is great of course, but isn’t it also kind of thrilling to introduce someone to classics like Withnail and I or Rhubarb crumble and custard?

Rhubarb crumble with custard.

If we’re talking food introductions, custard has probably been the item that Mrs Eat Rio liked best. For my part I would be hard pressed to pick something to beat the everyday joys of farofa.

A crunchy, fluffy mound of goodness, just waiting to be sprinkled over something saucy.

Your City, Your Passion!

23/08/2013/4 Comments/in Food and drink, Musings

A couple of weeks ago I made a rather cryptic comment about a secret mission involving Eat Rio, communication and Indonesia. Well today I can finally reveal all!

Some months back, I was approached by someone from the Skype company who asked if I’d be interested in getting involved in a project they were working on. The title of the project was “Your City, Your Passion” and you might not be surprised to hear that I was a little cynical at first. There is a lot of talk about ‘passion’ nowadays: just skim through Twitter and you will find countless people who are “passionate about getting you the best deal on home insurance” or they’ll shout joyfully that “Shower curtain rings are our passion!”.

However, Skype’s proposal was irresistible: spend a day wandering around Rio, showcasing the best and most interesting food the city has to offer. Hmmm, ‘Rio’ and ‘food’ – I am (reluctantly) forced to admit that I am passionate about both of these subjects.

This is Jie! As I showed him Rio, he showed me Surabaya.

My partner for the day was Jie, a food blogger from the city of Surabaya on the Indonesian island of East Java. Here’s where Skype came in – they arranged for Jie and me to ‘meet up’ for the day over Skype on our mobile phones. Using the wonders of modern mobile technology we chatted, swapped photos and videos and compared the culinary highlights of our cities.

So, how did it go?

Queijo Minas

21/08/2013/39 Comments/in Food and drink

I love cheese. I suppose it’s a weakness of mine (if it weren’t for cheese I’d probably have the body of an Olympic swimmer), but when something tastes so creamy, delicious and interesting, how can it be a bad?

Growing up in England, I was rather spoiled when it came to cheese. Not only were there all those excellent British cheeses (Cheddar, Stilton, Blue Wensleydale, etc), but the great cheeses of France were easily available too.

One of my happiest cheese-memories! This is what happened when I was let loose in a cheese shop in the south of France.

What I found during my travels around this continent is that although people ate a lot of queso / queijo (Spanish / Portuguese) in empanadas, sandwiches, joelhos, arepas, etc, the type of cheese was rarely highlighted. It was just generic ‘cheese’. I’m sure more knowledgeable readers can tell me about all the fantastic South American cheeses that I’ve missed out on, but in my experience, cheese was mostly used as a tasty though unsophisticated filling alongside jamon / presunto (ham), rather than eaten for its own sake.

That being said, I’m happy to be able to report that Brazil has several excellent cheeses. My two favourites are both from the state of Minas Gerais.