Trying Different Food And Drinks In Brazil
One of my favourite activities during travel is to try out different local foods especially new cuisine I haven’t tried before. I knew that bbq meat would be a big thing here in Brazil since that’s what Brazilian restaurants outside of Brazil focus on. Although I didn’t go to any restaurant in Brazil which had this main bbq theme, I did try some bbq meats at some comida por quilo restaurants which are like buffets where you pay by the weight of your food plate. These are really cheap meals that locals love.
One thing I did notice though is that Brazilians don’t seem to like eating much vegetables. At most restaurants they would serve a lot of rice and sometimes adding on potato fries which is way too much starchy carbs in my opinion. At the same time, there might be only a small amount of vegetables. Having said that, any meats they did serve whether chicken, beef or fish were very tender.
One of the meat highlights for my trip was at Sao Paulo’s municipal market where they have the famous Mortadella sandwich which is a giant of a meat sandwich. It reminded me of Montreal smoke meat but instead of beef, they use pork which is super tender. I certainly hit my meat quote for an entire week with just this one sandwich!
I also tried the national drink of Brazil which is called Caipirinha made from sugar cane. The one I ordered at one of the street side restaurants I went to was really strong. This drink can be found everywhere including right on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro where vendors are walking around carrying big aluminum containers ready to serve booze to beach goers.
My best food discovery in Brazil was acai which is a purple berry found in the Amazon. Brazilians use this in desserts which I got hooked on and since it is a healthy dessert packed with anti-oxidants, I had at least one acai in every city I visited in Brazil. I just couldn’t get enough of this acai as I was even lucky to get one last one right at the airport as I was waiting for my flight home to Canada!
Overall I found the food in Brazil to be quite decent and definitely better on average than the food I had in Central America and in Colombia. However, the best cuisine in Latin America for me is still in Peru.
