Boundcanary's unbound thoughs

Hey everyone

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:18:45 GMT

So, yesterday I did write and publish a post that I deleted later about the good news I'm holding back, because, it could leak some details the publisher wouldn't like. I mean, people in Brazil would need only to add 1+1.

So, shorter version, I'll be doing a test photoshoot for a food magazine in January :) The shoot was to take place yesterday, but they delayed till January to have a bit more of elbow room so the editors could be present ( most magazines are being finished this week, which makes everyone in the business work like crazy ).

So, thanks for all my friends who are keeping their fingers crossed for me :) This is hugely important for my career right now, and I will just give it all my best :)

Will give more news when I have it :)

Restaurant Review: La Vecchia Cucina

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:47:09 GMT

By my loved one Suzana, on our food blog Vedere & Mangiare.

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Do you remember when you were just a kid, and your parents mentioned going, or wishing to go, to some posh restaurant?

Well, La Vecchia Cucina is one such place. One of those which intimidate anyone between 20 and 40 years old, raised on video games, dungeon and dragons and computers, because it feels like a place our parents (or any posh grown up) would go to. Let's face it, we're eternal teenagers in comparison to “the older guys”, and most of us just don't go to such places ( and from what we saw the day we went... most of us really don't ).

So, there we went, to venture into this unknown place, the “grown up restaurant”. And we found out not only the food is great, but the place as a whole is very welcoming. The price isn't unreal, the waiters and Maitre won't judge you from above, you don't have to keep whispering, and they even have promotions and affiliated parking lot.

Well, here's the deal: the 10th of October is our multi-anniversary. It's the day we met, fell in love, got engaged and finally married ( not all in the same year, obviously ).

So, this anniversary, we were in then middle of remodeling our bedroom, and we were in a pure do it yourself style ( more Jessica's than mine, since my arms are no good for harsh work anymore ); during that week ( and most of the next one ) we were refuges in our office space / guest room, deep in drying paint fumes and dust from sanding plaster.

We were kind of making our minds about going somewhere else, but at 6pm, we decided to check a restaurant guide instead and shoot for somewhere we had never been; and being too tired for great culinary adventures, we picked La Vecchia Cucina because:

1 – We love Italian food

and

2 – The menu called our attention

There's no going wrong with reasoning like that.

We dressed up and hit the road. Here go some tips:

Tip number one: the restaurant is on the ground floor of a flat with parking service. Don't leave your car in the first spot down the street you come across, or you'll have to go back and get it, feeling the almighty donkey ears growing in your head ( yes, we did that... ).

Tip number two: don't forget to tell the valet that you're going to the restaurant, so that he can give you the proper ticket.

Walking in, the deco is exactly the way it shows on the site: somber but light. Don't be scared, the service is incredibly nice and nobody will stare in horror to you wearing running shoes.

Tip number three: to hell with the couvert. Couvert is something I have only seen here in Brazil. In the rest of the world, you get bread with your food, but that won't cost as much as a main dish. A couvert does.

That is because in a proper restaurant ( except fast food joints ) you're usually having three courses: starters ( which may, or may not be, a salad), the main course and dessert. There may be places that still serve full four course meals, like in grandma's time, but I'm still to see one. In those, you get soup before the starter.

So, tip number four: now that you passed on the couvert, it's time to order your starter. Unless you're starving to death and can manage a really huge meal, ask for a half portion. That's what we did and it worked out fine.

Starters ( half portion ):

Jessica asked for a rocket salad with sundried tomatoes, asparagus, parmesan and balsamic vinegar; I went for finely sliced smoked salmon, topped by thinly sliced fresh scallops and lemon vinaigrette.

They were both great. The salmon comes with toast, and it begs for the company of a nice wine. Too bad I was driving, so, I kept to water.

Main course ( whole portions ):

Jessica ordered a cassava and parsnip gnocci with beef jerky ragú and coalho cheese. It was proper, tasty, but not impressing, maybe because we're too used to the tastes involved.

I ordered a guinea fowl ravioli with with taleggio cheese fonduta. This was truly delicious, balancing the gamy flavor of the guinea fowl ( which is stronger than chicken and partridge, but lighter than duck ) with the strong flavor and character of the taleggio cheese.

Dessert:

As usual, my wifey didn't order anything ( for her, dessert is usually white Minas cheese with traditional brazilian creamy milk candy, or once an year, my strawberry pie or blueberry muffins ).

Me, on the other hand, ordered a white chocolate semifreddo with mint syrup and limoncello scent.

It was the most interesting dessert on the menu. It was good, but I would rather stick to bread pudding or a simple cream milk panacotta, instead of a semifreddo. I can understand why a semifreddo, after all, syrups do ask for a subtle tasting base, but the ice cream itself was a bit too delicate.

Coffe:

Tip number five: you may skip dessert, because the coffee comes sided by a plate of several little sweets for you to taste it with, and with dessert, I had too much of a full stomach to sample it all.

From chocolate covered grapes to amaretto biscuits, chocolate truffles, and a chocolate and waffle creation that I could not identify, but was just heavenly good. To be honest, it was way better than the dessert I ordered, despite my deep love for citric flavors.

Check Please!

In it you'll find: your normal consumption, the usual 10% service tax, and R$10 that we could not put our fingers on it, but Jessica assumed it was the parking fee.

A nice deal:

Once you pay your bill, you receive a booklet and some stamps to stick to it. What's that for? It's the Sergio Arno happiness passport, to each 10 stamps collected ( the whole booklet takes R$500,00 spent there to fill up ) you get R$50,00 discount on the next meal. It's only valid after 7pm and only one discount per table. So, if you're used to going with your friends to the restaurant chain, it's well worth it to bundle all tickets into a single passport to save on the collective bill. Valid until 31/01/2010.

Summing up:

It's a nice place, and well worth a visit. Service is very friendly and welcoming, and the restaurant has a perfect atmosphere. Get rid of your fear of ordering something too “grown up” and have fun making your own combination of plates to taste ( next time, I'm ordering the scalop and fungi soup, sounds really good ) and bon apetit!

La Vecchia Cucina

Rua Pedroso Alvarenga, 1088 - Itaim Bibi
São Paulo - SP / Brazil
Fone: [11] 3079-4042 e 3079-7115 - gerencia@lavecchiacucina.com.br
www.sergioarno.com.br

Maybe some good news pretty soon :D

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:47:43 GMT

Keep your fingers crossed :)

Photographic experiments

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:15:18 GMT

It's easy to notice when the sunday comes in early in the week

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:08:51 GMT

From our food blog, Vedere & Mangiare :) ============================================================

This week was not your ordinary week. I could say everything that could go wrong, went wrong, but that would be completely wrong and unfair to life. Let's say most of what could go wrong, went wrong, but the things that do matter, were kind enough to us to just stay calm and without creating problems.

About a month ago ( time flies when you stop posting and life gets all complicated ) we asked a repair shop to come fix our air conditioner. It needed some cleaning, and was really dirty and maybe needed a recharge of gas. Well, what the guys did, I don't know, but they broke it. They just took our money, the crooks, and broke the air conditioner big time. Yes, it's still under warranty, but took us two weeks to get it back from them ( broken ) and I wonder if we called them again, they would just finish the job and juice the two suckers here for more money.

So, we phoned in an authorized Electrolux repair service. And they pretty much said that the old air conditioner is dead, whoever took it simply destroyed it, and buying a new one would be much simpler and cheaper than trying to repair the old one.

Last week, feeling that would be the case, we got a brand new one for our bedroom, air conditioners are something you don't live without in the Brazilian summer, and we're in November already ( we're upside down to folks in the states, we're going towards summer as you come to winter ), and I kind of felt we needed one working air conditioner, and if we fixed the old one, we would have one for the guest room. If not, we would just have one, and be very sad.

Well, so, picture our day, some money out of savings to buy an air conditioner and we were basically told we were screwed for the last one, giving us a really good dent in our savings. Another one, adding up to vet bills, medicine bills for the dog, car repair and other stuff that shouldn't have happened at this time of the year, but did anyway, and as you know, bad things have a way of not waiting.

And Susie, my dearest loved one, wanted some cigarettes badly. So, I could honestly go buy some cigarettes and ruin two years of effort of her quitting smoking, or, I could go to the kitchen and make something up to kill that stress.

Roaming the fridge I came up with some frozen passion fruit, and started creating this which was a very refreshing, not so strong, pure relaxation, which I called Sunshine Love. If there is another drink with the name, sorry, I had no idea and apologize.

But here it goes:

Jessica's Sunshine Love

1 litre of fresh mineral water
200g of peeled passion fruit
80ml of coconut milk
3 Tablespoons of sugar
200ml vodka

Throw in the water in the blender with the passion fruit and start blending. Add the coconut milk, the sugar, and just before finishing, pour in the vodka.

Take a perfectly clean and chilled glass, with much ice in it, and throw in the mix. It's ready to serve.

That portion would serve 3 adults nicely in a hot summer day. The idea is to have the taste of the passion fruit up the front, but balanced well by the coconut milk, which should be a background nuance. The vodka should be mild enough to allow for someone to drink the whole litre without going funny. If the passion fruit or the coconut milk you have available are either too mild or too concentrated, you should be able to adjust portions to fit that description, the passion fruit present and marked, with a discernible nuance of coconut milk coming on the back, and greatly refreshing. The sugar comes in just to even out things and leave a not-so-sweet drink.

I hope you like it, we loved it here. Have a great weekend everyone :)

Oh, Come On!!!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:20:46 GMT

Was talking to an australian friend this morning, when I heard Mistress screaming on our bedroom, to the TV. It was about a new piece of law that will be ruled this week, and if it passes, it just means another step towards the bucket in our opinion.

After years fighting drugs and drug users, and both the number of users and drug lords growing, it seems our lawmakers are looking to solve the whole violence and increasing drug use the simplest way. They're going to make it legal.

If this piece of law passes, not only users cannot be stopped by policemen, but drug dealers cannot be questioned about selling "small quantities of drugs". What's a small quantity is to be ruled by the judge ruling the case, and is subjective. ALL drugs will be allowed, from Crack and LSD to Heroin passing trough Pot, which is believed to be used by around 50% of the Rio de Janeiro population in some way.

In Rio, the white richer elite in the better areas of town already buy their drugs from equally white middle class people, who go purchase it directly from the drug lords and resell in the premium areas of town, so that the richer white elite doesn't have to roam into the slums looking for their fix. This is an old formula and everyone knows it.

What this law does, is making this LEGAL. So, from the rich, white, elite point of the market, it's all good. They won't be in trouble for having drugs at home, nor will be in trouble from purchasing their drugs from these smaller carriers. And now, these carriers will be able to live in peace and even have the names of clients, deal with checks and so on. So, like it's said, police won't be able to fight the drugs in the asphalt anymore.

It doesn't change the situation in the slums. They'll still be visited by these carriers to acquire drugs for their clients, and the drug lords will still exist there. If anything, now more people may be encouraged for using drugs.

The new law doesn't address issues such "where do this small dealer gets his drugs from?" or "so, he can't be arrested, nor pay taxes". In essence, it's legal crime, best business in the world. Also, doesn't address the issue that it creates a safe logistics for drug users and drug lords.

Of course, drug users everywhere in Brazil are cheering. Our government didn't suggest this law, but is pushing towards it being approved, because they claim it will reduce the amount of money spent on fighting the drug lords. Another point mentioned, was that since more people die from the drug wars than from drug use directly, it makes sense. And the last point, not mentioned by anyone, is that it's a bloody quick way to pacify the drug wars to be able to host the olympics and the world cup.

The Brazilian way, sweep it under the rug. If no one sees, it's not a problem.

Sorry, I had to take it off my chest.

News and Updates

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:58:54 GMT

Hey everyone,

Been so silent on these last two weeks for the simple reason we were doing our spring cleaning. Now we have some 4 bags of old clothing and shoes up for donation, as well as an old PII notebook. Also, our bedroom, even if not completely finished, looks much nicer with a new coat of painting and with no cracks on the walls. The cracks were caused by our neighbor incessant drive to build his own home wall with ours, and since this is rental, there was little we could do, except save and move to our own home someday. This is a brick wall, so, what we could do, is patch up the looks of the wall, even if I still think it's integrity is bogus now, we don't seem to see reason for the house to do the same, it has strong foundations after all. But, we don't plan on staying here much longer. Idea is to save for SRS and then jump away to a place of our own.

So, have you all seen the Rio Police helicopter being shot down? In case you didn't, here's a link. I never exaggerated when I said those things about the olympics, and this was an odd occurrence. Now that a helicopter was shot down, the police is reconsider their former strategy of using Platoon-style armored helicopters to patrol the city and shoot down on criminals ( since, said criminals are known to have anti-aircraft weaponry ). New strategy will be, no helicopters. I guess that suits Rio's political elite. The problem wasn't the violence, that goes on in a daily basis and never makes it to international headlines, because, violence in Rio is old news. The problem was a helicopter being shot down, so, take away the helicopter and we won't be on the headlines again. So, next, druglords will stop buying anti-aircraft weaponry and start buying anti-tank ones, to blow up the police's armored vehicles. This is a puzzling thing, really, on local news, we saw Anti-Aircraft guns and missiles being shown as apprehended from criminals on a weekly basis for the past few years. I'm not sure why they waited this long to take the game to the next level they knew they would anyway.

On a brighter side, now that the house is more on a normal order of things, we're going back to writing our food blog. Mistress is giving the finishing touches on the article on our wedding birthday dinner at "La Veccia Cuccina", a great italian here in São Paulo. I enjoyed reading the first draft of the article, I'm sure you all will love it. Since we're back to two languages, the english version may take a while to be finished and posted.

Our dog is much better, almost done with her recovery, and we're happy. Life is getting better. Now all that is left is the Honda dealer finish working on our car, fixing the problem, and being something covered by our extended warranty. My only fear, is that, if it's the worst problem possible, and they don't cover the costs, we're up with a US$8000 bill that would just fuck our chances of SRS and hitting Australia in 2010. But let's see. We're honest people, we take good care of our car, shouldn't come to that.

Hope you all have a great week!

Sprint Cleaning

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:23:30 GMT

From our blog, Vedere & Mangiare
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Yes, yes, I know I haven't posted anything new recently. But as usual, I have a very good reason. We're doing our spring cleaning here. And what started as me moving some old furniture away into the ( very very small ) backyard we have, is turning into a major renovation project.

Our aim, as you can guess, is to have a new home, a prettier more interesting one. And we're starting with our bedroom. Oh, should I mention our bedroom is a mess and we moved the bed into the office? Tomorrow at around 10am, the air conditioner repair guy should arrive and clean it, while we pay attention to the hole in the wall and try to fix some installation problems.

The biggest issue, is that our house as it is, is pretty small. We have two small rooms, around 16m2 each, and then a living room, kitchen and bathroom, and if we empty one of those, the remaining spaces become single clutter. With the exception of the kitchen, because we still need to move there. And even if the idea is to come to a better looking, more designed house in the end, trying to figure out which spaces we have free and how to better use them, the transition from A to B is kind of horrible.

I will spare you the photographs. Let alone say yesterday I had to climb on the roof to fix some broken ceramic roof tiles. And then to buy the replacement ones with just a backpack. I am broken, tired, and to add up, a can of AB foam bust in my face, making me loose my reading glasses.

I cam down from the roof to my loved one laughing herself like I haven't seen in ages, to me, covered from head to toe in a yellow foamy substance. It was horrible and funny at the same time, something she will keep in her mind for quite some time, I assure you.

So, that's why, in a short, we haven't given any life-signs this far. We will keep posting, and visiting the places we want to be as soon as we can. But right now, I just want a new, clean, nice looking bedroom to sleep into.

Love and kisses,

Jessica

Rio 2016 - City under Siege

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:14:05 GMT

You guys know I was born in Rio, and would love to live there, if not for the general mentality of the population. And the political class that was created as a consequence. Now, I have to witness my own home town made hostage by those same politicians on everyday announcements, and very, VERY few people are noticing it, and even less being outraged.

So you get the picture, you can't turn on your TV here on any news program, and not hear that tomorrow, friday, the Olympics committee will vote which city will host the 2016 Olympics. Amongst the contestants, Madrid is my favorite, for three single reasons, the city is pretty much ready for it, the population wants it, and Spain hosted a pretty good Barcelona event. Tokyo and Chicago have the problem the local population doesn't want it ( and they're right about it, I'll tell why pretty soon ), and Rio is the worst case, is the city that will be the one most destroyed and whose election would be the most unfair one.

First, because the event is being planned mostly by the local political class, with some very rich people involved who look forward for the city reshaping that is in the plan. Have you seen "City of God", the movie? The favela (poor suburb, Shantytown) on the movie is close by one of the main hubs planned, and most likely, the whole population will be tossed away, far far away, by the skyrocketing real estate prices that will follow. Possibly the government will move the whole population away for creating the Olympic City, paying very little for their property, that right after, will be turned into one of the hottest pieces of real estate on the city, for the profit of the richest part of the population. That's mostly why Tokyo and Chicago don't want it, they're pretty much educated and saw what is happening in London, what happens in EVERY event. It's normal and natural, but the population must have a say on this, and if the social levels are as poor as in Rio, it just becomes terribly unfair.

The other reason, is that my home city was made hostage by the political class. Every single time a politician involved in the project ( be it our president, Rio's Mayor or Rio's Governor ) talks about it on the local TV stations, it goes as a masqueraded threat to the population. Here it goes:

"The Rio Olympics is the last chance of us fixing this city"

"Without the Olympics, we won't have the much needed financial resources to invest in the much needed changes in the areas of public education, health care, police and public transportation"

And so on.

Come on...

COME ON!!!!

The thing I like about the Madrid proposal, is that the city is ready. It's a blooming city with much history, and their population is an educated, well employed, self supporting population that has access to good levels of public security, education, health care and public transportation. They'll build stadiums, the investment in some areas of the city will make some people move away, but not to build shantytowns far far away, they'll just rent a less expensive apartment. But the life quality of the population is not linked at all to the event.

In Rio, they're linking things the government is required to do by law,and which they have not done over the years, and are normal investments of any serious government, to the event. Any normal government would invest in police, education, health care and public transportation anyway. But Rio, like São Paulo and other cities here, see a corruption rate of around 40%, and much of the public money diverted. The money for the world cup is already under investigation, and the government complained publicly that, with so much investigations on the immense amounts of cash directed to rebuilding the airports, stadiums and so on for the cup, it won't be ready in time. How about NOT STEALING FOR A CHANGE? That would speed things a lot. But instead, they blame the investigators. Making it look like those doing their jobs ( investigating... not easy in Brazil where people ARE killed over those things ) are not good sporting chums, and they're getting in the way of the population having fun, they're bad, evil and ugly and smell foul :|

I support the world cup simply because we had one, we lost here in our own home, and the average joe here is REALLY into football. And for that, every single new stadium will have a good use, since the ones we have now are really a joke, some people died a couple of years ago simply because the seats they were standing in the stadium collapsed and they fell 90 feet to their deaths.

But Olympics? The population will get to see the same way they always have, from TV sets at home. When they bother, because, almost nobody here likes Olympics. During the Pan American games hosted in Rio, many events were a joke, the "baseball" field, muddy and improvised on the last minute, and so windy people couldn't throw a ball in a straight line, was reason for many talks. Many blogs were censored and many blog writers are answering to lawsuits this day, simply for letting out what was happening on the backstage. That's the Rio Pan American games.

I really don't want to see an Olympic event hosted this way here. Not now, not like this. And meanwhile, while all local TV stations make 20 to 20 minute transmissions about it, everyone forgets our government, trying to please Mr. Chavez and the other left-wing politicians in the area, teletransported without explanation the Honduras deposed President ( let's remember, a guy who tried to re-write the constitution of his own country to allow re-elections much like Chavez did in Venezuela, regardless of the congress ) into our embassy. And now, they're moving that country into the brink of civil war. The Brazilian tradition have always been to talk and not push towards these situations.

And on top of that, with 1.3 Million Signatures, our population presented a law proposition that states that no one can take part in any election if they were charged and convicted by Murder, Manslaughter, corruption, slavery and a few other serious offenses. As soon as it arrived in Congress, the Congress president announced they'll have to make serious changes to soften it, otherwise "it's gonna be complicated to hold elections using such restrictive limitations".

Is that a joke or what?

The law makes clear, it's only valid for those already tried and convicted. And, in actions moved by our public attorneys, not by normal people. And, it's only regarding serious offenses, that already are forbidden to any normal public servant, it just extends that into the elected politicians. And that's too restrictive a limitation to hold elections? We're talking Manslaughter and slavery here.

Oh, wait, now I remember! Some 12 years ago, one of our congressman was found guilty of chopping a guy with a chainsaw and sending the body to his family. And if memory serves me right, several congressman are not only in jail, because they can't be arrested during their mandates (a nice thing they added to our constitution, to make sure there won't be any political arrests, they made sure no politician can ever be arrested during the term), but hey, every now and then, there are slaves found working in their farms!

This country is a joke. A bad taste one. And they want to hold the Olympics?

Write down my words, if Rio wins, it's gonna be a so-so event, preceded by impossible promises on how grand and impressive it will be, but unlike China, they'll steal so much money, most of the promises will die in land, and they'll settle in the end for "considering we're such a poor country, it's already grand by our standards", and after it's done and people forget, it will be praised as "an example of how Brazil can host huge events". The stadiums won't be used by the general public, except the football ones, and will be dismantled as the Pan American ones were. The investments in public safety won't be the start of change, but rather, just to make sure tourists don't get killed or kidnapped. And when it's over, it will be "same old, same old" and it will be like if it never happened before, except for a few T shirts people will have in their closets.

Cooking and Food Photography

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:47:04 GMT

You know what's one of the worst things on being a food photographer, married and in much love to your Mistress who is also a good cook and also much in love with food and photography? The worst thing is never having the perfect gold spot to shoot the things that you make, or she makes in the kitchen.

It's because you always see gorgeous stuff coming off the kitchen, but you're just too busy eating, loving and cooking, to go fetch your camera. You don't want to leave roquefort smeared fingerprints on your lenses and camera. You don't want to have to wash up at every second, just to be able to cook and shoot and cook and shoot. And you sometimes know you don't have the golden moment, perfect lighting and perfect styling to go with your food, so, you don't wanna shoot unless things are spotless perfect.

I have been struggling and trying to shoot less formal pics, I'm a photographer, there is some degree of perfection you strive for in each pics. But it's hard to remember, candid weekend pics are just meant to be candid weekend pics. Not every photo has to be perfect. But once I grab the camera, I know I won't like the photo unless it makes me proud, and it's really hard to give that away in order to have candid photos just like everyone else.

And there's also StockFood. About StockFood, I have this problem, if they accept a photo, I can't post on my blog or here, because it's a breach in our contract. I guess I just have to shoot everything, and the worst in the block come here and the best for StockFood. I wanna sell pics, but hey, I love it here and on Vedere & Mangiare. I wanna put my best everywhere. I'm very happy as a StockFood photographer, but it's a constant issue that roams shooting for the blog.

Well, that's it. Just a few things I wanted to say, and have been wanting to say for a while. Mistress is doing some nice tomato dips for dinner now. Lunch was BBQ, with some fish on it. Dinner will be something less fancy.

Cookbook

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:37:41 GMT

I got the official request for a pricing on my work! :D YAY!!!

L'appareil-photo!!!

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:18:24 GMT

Hey, just heard from a friend that my name was mentioned to shoot a cookbook! :) Even if I don't get paid, sometimes I don't, I'm always happy to work on such projects. I'd rather have a day shooting food for free, than a day at home watching TV :)

Keep your fingers crossed! :)

PS: Some more good news. People with my IM contact, IM me for details if you want ;)

Mentos and Mementos

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:44:15 GMT

Waking up drinking organic coffee is something you all should try someday. It's really tasty for a start, and you can definitely feel the roast and all the flavors. People who know me personally, know my taste buds are awful, even if my loved one, Owner, Mistress and reason to be alive, Suzana, is doing intensive cleaning and re-education ( I'm eating more fish to start with ).

I'm here writing, drinking coffee and Susie's package of Mentos is here on the desk. She loves this stuff, I can't figure out why. From all minty stuff she could love, she does dig Mentos. Alongside with some credit card printouts ( those small coupons the machine tives ) from our trip to Paraty, we have to go out more. We have a few trips scheduled, nothing we have to sleep over, just to reduce cost, we have a planned trip to Thailand and Australia next year, paired with a very important surgery. If we can come up with the money in time.

Talking about which, some friends felt it could be a good idea if I got my portfolio alongside me while traveling to Australia. Of course I won't be hired, it would be silly, but just present myself, my work, to new people across the globe. Because, Brazil is getting to a limit, and we may eventually want to move, and if we love the place as much as everyone says we will, and being a familiar faces to editors may be a good point to move my career as well. I suspect I may have a little help, which is always nice, but if I learned something on these 34 years of life on this planet, is that if you want something, you must go get it.

My rants about Brazil are somehow reminding me about Fuzzy's rants about Denmark. Just, here there are big issues to back up the small issues I have. I have always felt kind of alien here, not conforming to how people usually think. We were discussing some things, like mandatory bribery, the amount of ceremony that goes into public affairs and the judicial system. To change my name, I'm spending months collecting evidence that a male name does not suit me properly. And, written statements from friends that as representatives of the society I live in, they do not oppose my name change. There is an inherent power leverage thing working in Brazilian society that doesn't allow it to function as it should. If I were friends with a judge, or had a politician in the family, or were rich, this lawsuit would be much less of a burden, because I would be amongst those whose asses are to be kissed. But since I am nobody, in the sense of being just a normal citizen ( which here means, nobody ), I'm the one who have to bend over and leave lipstick marks on others.

Has always been like that. Huge farmers also collected political power. And their employees owned no land, lived on paying rent for their boss and also kissing his ass. Any favor he would ask would be simply seen by the workers and lower casts as a favor being asked by the boss, a very important man, and if you did that favor, you'd be scoring points with him, and maybe gaining more favors than your other fellow workers, and being put in a position of advantage. But on the boss's point of view, he didn't ask for favors, he just simply stated his wishes, and as such, being who he is, it's normal that everyone will move heaven and earth to have it done. And indeed, it's true. So, the worker gains no favors for doing something his or her boss thinks is only a normal natural part of things.

This kind of thinking... that who's below kisses the ass of who's above, and the person above thinks his ass ought to be kissed, no matter what, created the whole mechanics of modern Brazilian society, derived from it's rural origins, and if you think of Brazil as being industrial and so on, let me remind you, Brazil was a rural power in 1910. The only real serious industrialization came in as a rush in the 1940's and 1950's. And if affected nothing more than maybe 20% of our territory. Meaning, this is a rural country, who elect rural representatives, who sometimes the press finds out still hold slave labor camps in their farms today. And the Brazilian rural worker was never, and still isn't, a land owner. There is a title for huge land owners whose farms include even towns inside of them, and who are elected mayor every year without much formal ado or real competition, and that title is "Colonel".

In the 1800's, the emperor ( yes, while France was cutting out the heads of their kings, we were getting ourselves one... Brazil became independent from Portugal in the 1800's - where the Portuguese prince and heir to the Portuguese throne, Pedro I, decided he would make Brazil independent and rule it as a reward, while his father ruled Portugal... that's independence for you ) use to give to land owners the army title "Colonel", so that they were also a presence of the state on the huge landmasses they owned, and to the population they controlled. That also gave them some sort of army-like loyalty structure ( think Sicilian mob - you know the word Capo is derived from Captain, don't you? ). They had, and still have, an army of hit men and thugs to make sure things went accordingly to their plans.

So, is it much surprising that in the verge of 2010, Brazil has the social makeup that we see today? Travel 100km from any major city, and you're back into the rural areas. And even in the big cities, we don't have as of today, a true cosmopolitan reasoning, but instead, one derived from the rural way of thinking. Most of our people still don't own land, that including, any small apartment. We pay the highest bank and loan fees in the world. We're double and triple taxed summing up to 45% of the yearly whole GDP ( Gross Domestic Product ) and growing. And, even if we pay 15% taxes on income that go to healthcare, the public healthcare system, regardless of it's gigantic resources, is broken down from too much people stealing from it, and a joke. So, we pay taxes like in Sweden, but live like in Bolivia. We have to pay for private health care, private education and private security ( the police doesn't patrol our street, so, we pay a private contractor to patrol it for us ), and still have problems.

I don't think I'm going to see much change in my lifetime here. I don't honestly believe, during my lifespan this time, I'll see honest politicians, the dismantling of the rural mindset, and the increase on basic education for the gross of our populations, so at least we could say 100% of our people know how to read or write, or that at least, 100% of the children that finish high school know how to read and write ( shocking? Yes, but also true - Government approved some form of automatic promotion in schools because the fail rate was just too high... that solved the impossibly high fail rates problem, and now is creating the good-fake-numbers problem ) which are crucial for change.

If I were rich, like Antony Bourdain said when he came over to São Paulo, I would be much less bothered by these affairs. First of all, my ass would be the one in the lineup for kissing. Secondly, anytime I got bothered, I'd just take a couple of weeks in Paris ( I did photo school in a rich people school... I never believed it until I saw everyone there just "took two weeks in Paris to clear up their minds" whenever they decided... or London... or NYC... or taking a US$10.000 diamond covered slipper to class for a product photoshoot when you brought a can of coke ). Bourdain at least was decent enough to see the glass wall, notice not everybody had friends who could take him on helicopter rides across town to avoid traffic jams. He made some effort to show the real deal society here, but a very watered down version of reality.

Mistress tends to say "São Paulo is what would happen if LA thew up in NYC".

I think a city is made by it's people. A country is made by it's people, and no matter how much I try, it seems I can't manage to leave a lasting effect here to at least influence the area we live in. The rural Kiss Ass mentality means everyone expects things to come top to bottom. That the Colonel will do something. And whatever he decided will be fine. It's common to see how politicians can steal and get away, because, the normal Joe just says "If I were in his position, I would do the same". Maybe if Joe didn't, Joe would be outraged, and understand the money is his. Maybe, we could hope for some critical mass someday that would change the mindset.

And the truth of what is a banana republic and why it's so, sinks deep down. And you come to understand why all Brazilian authors you like say the same, and most live outside Brazil.

There are two ways out of this mess Brazil put itself into.

GRU and GIG

São Paulo International and Rio International if you're wondering.

Coming back here will be a huge sacrifice if we love Australia, and to be honest, it will be a temporary one.

PS: The dog is better now, have a new site online (http://www.jessicaluchesi.com/) now with two language options and no fashion pics. Time to let it go, I didn't put much effort in it anyway.

You think people lack ethics?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:57:57 GMT

We sold our old MacBook to the same store we got our new one. It was over a week ago, I felt that sale was well cemented and done deal, well, today I got an Email, just informing me, they won't pay as much as they promised, they found out there was a piece that needs replacing, and they're gonna take it out of my pockets from paying less than agreed.

The notebook spent the whole 72hour test they asked for it, and after that test, they said nothing. They waited until I had paid the first payment on the new notebook, so, I was lassoed, to inform me they would pay less.

Ok, they already lost me as a client, that much is a done deal now, and I won't as much step in that store again. The cost of the replacement isn't huge, we can take it. But, what if it was? And they did the evaluation, and we agreed on a price, that's the whole reason I got a new one. Now they move back in the deal, and instead of doing what any serious company would do in a moment like this, meaning "Replace it, and try to make the best of the loss" since the sale had already been done, no, they pass it on to me. Was a US$70 loss, if you're wondering why I accepted it. But could have been a US$700 one. Which would make me NOT buy a new notebook if that was the case. I even had to remind her the profit I would bring over the years as a client would surpass this cost for replacing the case, which, would make business sense NOT to loose me as a client. But their ethics is a "no loss" one, thinking on the now, and I don't want to have anything to do with them anymore.

I'm just angry, I feel people are tossing ethics off the window, and it hurts me deeper than I can express on mere words. It's not the money, it's the attitude. Please, someone tell me it's not like this where you live. I don't wanna live in a world even a company such as an Apple Computers representative acts this way.

What's new?

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:54:16 GMT

Hey, just some quick bits.

Sunday had to take our dog back for another blood test. The rain was intense here, I ended up with a cold, so did Mistress, but hey, our dog is getting better. She's still shaken, but eating and small improvements everyday.

Got a new notebook ( MacBook Pro 13" 2.53 ). This baby flies, but the best part, much brighter and clearer screen than the previous one. I'm really digging the LED screen tech. If you're thinking HD TV, think about a LED one, I can vouch the advantages over LCD ones.

Food wise, not much happening. The dog problem and being sick on top is taking away all my creative juices. I would order takeout everyday if we could afford it. Just suck to feel dizzy and sick all day long :( But will be over it soon I hope.

We also had a ton of rain today, nonstop for some hours, alongside some ice falling from the sky today. Had to run with some blankets to cushion the car, during the heavy rain, and it didn't help my cold at all. Keep in mind, this photo is from São Paulo, taken a few hours ago. Today was a day to stay home and look from our window seeing the havock outside, wondering about moving away again.

Solving problems

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:27:07 GMT

Hey, here is a piece of two good news :)

First, fofa, our siberian husky on the avatar photo, is back home and very happy :) For those who don't know, she's been in a veterinarian facility ( hospital ) for the better part of last week, in order to get blood transfusions and then be watched over.

Yesterday, she showed signs of improvement, and was discharged, and now is home with us. Peeing all around the house, because of the meds she's taking, but alert and assertive. Tomorrow we take her for new exams, and it's not going to be an easy recovery, but it is going to be a recovery.

Also yesterday, we faced some 4 hours of traffic jams to get my new notebook. When I sent my old apple notebook for repairs, the shop made me a really good offer. They brought their price down to the lowest in Brazil today, and, on top of that, payment during the next four months instead of one big chunk, and offered me US$800 on my old white macbook. Yes, a white macbook costs over U$2000 here, but I guess you already knew that much ;)) It's a really decent price for a trade up, and now I have a new MacBook Pro 13". I'm loving it, and hope it will last the next few years just as it's predecessor did.

Notebook down! Notebook down!

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:19:43 GMT

Yes, once again. This time, the font seems to be able to load the battery, but, somehow, the notebook can't work plugged to the wall, just on battery power, AND the font doesn't load the battery while the notebook is on.

So, another long weekend.

Hey everyone

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:29:20 GMT

Well, this gorgeous lady on the pic is our siberian husky, Fofa. She's been ill since last week, and now she's in a vet hospital for blood transfusions and IV antibiotics. We hope to get her back home today, but we're dead worried. So, don't worry if I am offline, this is the reason.

Am posting more on twitter, pretty useful when you're on the road with nothing but a cell phone.

http://twitter.com/boundcanary

This is also restaurant week here in São Paulo, where some major restaurants prepare tasting menus at more affordable costs for the common joe to have a first take on gastronomy. You can see it's also great for poor foodies to feast for less bucks. We were planning on hitting two places that caught Susie's eyes over the last years, but we have to get Fofa home and well first.

Anyway, that's it. Sorry for the short post. Hope you're all well.

A nice bed and dirty towels

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:19:32 GMT

The last review from our trip to Paraty. It's a negative one, so, I tried to keep it short. From our food blog, Vedere & Mangiare.

=============================

When we stayed in Paraty, we stayed at the Pousada Morro do Forte, one of several to pick from the web. It was really appealing for two main reasons. The first, it wasn't amongst the top priced ones. The second, the view from the bedroom veranda was gorgeous. Both turned out to be true: from the hotels we saw, it's really the prettiest.

What we didn't count on was the fact those were pretty much the only good things about this inn.

If you read my review about Paraty, I sure don't have to go over the road mishap again. And honestly, I don't think it was a problem of the hotel, it's all up to the mayor and local authorities, and the city as a whole, in my way of seeing it. Of course, a note on their website, or a warning over phone when I called prior to hitting the road, would have been nice.
But having a security guard actually laugh at my face in the phone, without any kind of formal or informal apology, was horrible. And it's the actual service that is the Aquiles heel of this whole hotel. The lack of sheer respect for the guests started on this phone call, but it didn't end here.

The first thing I have to mention, because it's really a serious drawback, is that the hotel owner thought it was a great idea to follow the “17th Century stone pavement” theme. Sure, irregular stone paving is great for pictures, but in reality you have to move the same way you have to walk around really carefully around the city, for the sake of your ankles, teeth and neck. Specially down the slope from the pool area to the bedrooms, and going upstairs if you get a room with a veranda, cause there's no hand rail on the staircase.

When we arrived, I didn't have a chance to photoshoot the room, because it was 04:00 am, and we just wanted to hit bed. I was under the impression that, after spending the next day out, we would return to a cleaned, tied up room I could shoot, so I didn't worry. The cleanup didn't happen. So, the fault for the lack of any photos of the actual room we stayed in falls in the hotel staff. Which is a pity, as it's a really nice room for the price we paid.

What can I say? We had a nice bed, where we could really sleep well. Enough pillows and blankets to face the chilly night (it's still winter in Brazil in August), which is not usual in most hotels we stayed at.
Cable TV, not usual at all in many hotels in Brazil, and also, air conditioning, while most hotels in Paraty offer fans, which in a hot Rio de Janeiro day (or night) isn't enough.
The shower was hot enough and the water pressure was decent for a great shower.
Our friends in another room though, only got hot water, regardless of complaints, a couple of days later, on the morning of the day we left, and had to shower in our room.

Breakfast consists of 2 different kinds of bread, cold and hot milk, granola, assorted fruit, coffee, 2 kinds of cake, ham and cheese, and eggs made to order: sunny side up, scrambled, or boiled. It's served from 07:00 am to 10:00 am. There are also 2 different juices, orange and passionfruit. There is no refill on those, only one jar of each for all the hotel guests, so, if you like orange juice, you better get up early, because it finishes first.

The hotel has wireless internet, the router being visible at the reception, but, talking to the owner, she made it clear she doesn't want to extend the range so that you could access it from your own laptop, in your room. Considering she charges for access in one slow, old computer (which by the way is right next to the reception's computer, so you'll most likely than not be checking your emails while the owner or an employee works beside you), by the hour, you can see why. I guessed asking for a password, to use my own laptop there, was out of the question.

There is no room service.

There is a written request on the bathroom door to discard used towels on the floor, so the staff could know which ones to replace and which ones to leave ( ridiculous if you ask me, to have to toss towels in the floor... they could have provided a better place to discard old, used towels ). Well, we went out for lunch and sightseeing, and when we returned, in the evening, we had the same pile of wet, dirty towels on the floor, and just a couple of clean ones that we hadn't used, to shower.
Also, the room was exactly how we left it. Nothing was done, not even the bed.

The hotel also doesn't have any form of internal phone network. You can't phone out of your bedroom, unless you have a cell phone with you. And there is no way to get anything from the reception, unless you want to walk there. Even then, nothing will be brought to your room.
If you want to have breakfast in your room, you'll have to go get it, and the dishes to eat it in, yourself, and balance the tray back down the stony slope to your room.

Also, the hotel closes the reception, and “kitchen” service - that isn't a real kitchen service, either: they just order stuff out from a local pizzeria, whose phone number they don't disclose even if asked for (I did), or fry up pre-processed appetizers (think turkey twizzlers and fries) – at 08:00 pm. After that, the only hotel employee to be seen is the security guard. Who, let's be fair, gave us some cutlery to eat the pizza we went out to get at Saturday night.

Oh, and another highlight: even though the place has no parking lot, and we had to leave our car in the street, near the hotel, it wasn't stolen. Hooray.

Coming to some sense

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:35:36 GMT

After some years in the trade, I am redoing my site and portfolio, removing the fashion bits. Having come of some age, you have to realize that you must stick to what you love, and for me, that is, food, people and my personal work. Fashion, with all it's ups and downs, drama and incessant need for networking in the worst way, is not for me. I'm never happy looking forward to a fashion photoshoot as I am looking towards a food photoshoot, or a portrait of normal, real people.

So, get ready for some redoing in the future, I won't change anything right now, but changes will come on the following days.

Childhood Mementos, Different Flavors and weird Soft drinks

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:38:15 GMT

The new chick hip place in São Paulo, at least the one every reviewer is talking about, that can be found in the central area of the city, in the Lower Augusta area, is Tubaína. We went there for my birthday, and I invited some select friends to join us. As usual, some came, some didn't, but it didn't affect the experience at all, because, even if I didn't fall in love with the place, I surely liked it, and would love to come back for a second time.

If you're not familiar with the theme, Tubaínas are a popular designation for cheap, poor man's sodas here in Brazil. For most of us, when we were kids, drinking actual Coca-Cola was a stuff for weekends, or maybe just very special occasions as your birthday. Back then, we would be very lucky to have my parents buy a 1 liter glass bottle for a weekend lunch or dinner. Most of us, on a normal saturday or sunday lunch or dinner, would instead have a tubaína, usually a local manufactured soda, sold in re-used beer bottles with badly designed and very colorful labels. And those were the drinks that stick to our memories. The bar deco is set around this imagery of the usual middle-class family dinning room of the 1960's to the 1980's. You sit and eat on vintage tables and chairs, the toilet washroom reminds you of old public school wash basins, and even the lamps over the bar have iconic images of Atari joysticks and other kids toys kids today may have to hit a museum to see with their own eyes.

Being from Rio, my favorite tubaína is Mineirinho, curiously, not from Minas Gerais, but Niterói ( a region in Rio de Janeiro ), and it's not really well known here in São Paulo, so, they don't sell it in the bar ( most tubaínas are local brands, almost indigenous, and it would be hard to have any bar actually have in their stock every possible single brand available for every possible childhood memory ), but they did have around 6 flavors of tubaínas and sodas, that, not counting the usual Coca-Cola / Brahma / Antarctica major brands you'd normally find in any good bar or restaurant in Brazil. Also, they didn't have Guaraná Mantiqueira, a delicious, maybe the best indigenous Guaraná soda me and Susie have ever had, ever. The waitress said they're still building and taking in suggestions to grow their stocks, so, who knows? Maybe in six months we won't have much to complain anymore.

Note to people who like ginger ale: There's two different brands of gengibirra in the menu. Gengibirra was supposed to be the Portuguese/Brazilian version of ginger ale; however, those we found on the menu were NOT made from ginger, they were just ordinary lemon sodas. Why do they sport themselves as ginger ales when there's no ginger in them, specially with ginger being cheap? Beats me. Why don't they sell Cini Gengibirra, which actually DOES contain ginger, and counts as Tubaína? Dunno either, probably cause it's from Paraná, not São Paulo.

But, when you leave that behind, and focus on the appetizer menu, you're in for a treat. A warning here, the chef was adventurous, and these are not amuse-bouches, they're big appetizers, themed around childhood memories as well as adventuring in deeply rooted brazilian flavors often unknown on major cities. Another warning here, this is not a light menu. It's bold, good and fat, tasty and strong, with a lot of character. A sheer contrast to the usual appetizer you see in many bars today where calorie counting seems to supersede flavor.

To start with, Susie and Monica went for a portion of Mandiopã, something out of their childhood.

(This is the reason for 80% of childhood burns in Brazil, back in the 70's and early 80's)

Mandiopã was usually bought in boxes, and deep fried. Susie mentioned this is something of many memories of delicious afternoons and serious oil burns, as they were never to keen on waiting for mom to fry those, and more than once tried to do it themselves ( after all, looks so easy ) and ended up with a few marks, and mouthfuls of Mandiopã. Marcio joked about the name, simply saying it could have been an Astec God for all he knows. But regardless, the taste is supreme. Mandiopã at the Tubaína Bar, is simple, clean, light and perfect. Not any different from what a childhood memory should be. And here's the tricky part many don't get. We often embezzle our childhood memories, making them sweet spots, and usually, a childhood memory, once gone, is hard to be recovered, because even the real thing won't be as good as it's own memory. It's common to just hear “Oh, it used to be better when I was a kid” and so on. So, it's quite a feat for two people who have this as deep, cherished childhood memories, to just pop them in their mouths, and yum, roll and say it's EXACTLY as they expected. This is a Ratatouille moment guys.

I hate to say this, but I loved the thing. It's highly addictive. The chef actually brought the small complimentary portion to our table herself, after we had ordered, which made me think that she knows her game, and how good this is. It comes in a medium sized portion you could mistake for chips, but it's much much lighter. The mix has some spices, and has a very light taste of fresh onions in the end, that is just over your head.

Alongside, we ordered what they call, coxinha de feijão. There has been some time that feijoada dumplings have been sold in bars in Brazil. Last couple of times we were in Rio, we tried to hit the bar where this delicacy was born, to no avail. It simply seems to run out before we get there, so, it must be good. This is a revisit, mixing with the concept of a coxinha de galinha. The original coxinha de galinha is a deep fried dumpling made out of chicken, and shaped as something that reminds you of a small thigh, hence, coxinha ( coxa = thigh, coxinha = small chicken thigh ), a chicken broth and flour dough, shaped by hand, and filled in the middle with chicken meat, and sometimes, some sort of cream or cheese to melt and mix. This is the same, done with black beans. You can already see where the concept becomes very heavy and very fatty and very delicious in a perverted way. The cooked beans are mashed with a bit of manioc flour, shaped by hand into small thigh shapes, filled in with bacon, sausage and cooked jerky, rolled in breadcrumbs, and then deep fried.
You eat one, is knock out delicious. Two, you've been greedy. Three, you better have a very resilient stomach. The serving comes with 5, served in a cute salt box, just like the one my mom had on the wall of her own kitchen. Some people will say this place is starting to delve into the dark realm of kitsch, but I say, it works.

I am a food shooter, and this is something I'd ask the chef for a re-styling for photos. Do one set her way, one set my way, and later on, decide in the light table what worked better.
But to be honest, I think I'd like more to work their styling, trying to capture the whole ambience, because everything together is really kitsch, but it works in a weird way. Possibly it wouldn't be published, or make a magazine cover, but it would be in my portfolio for sure.
Anyway, I wasn't there as a pro photographer that night, so, I took some crappy photos with a snapshot camera, just so you don't have to take my words for it.

Next, Susie ordered something she have always wondered about, Inca Kola, a tubaína from Peru. Well, I have to say, people always said it's horrible and you just can't drink it. But, to be honest, to my taste it's fine. I think it's tutti-frutti flavored, just like bubble gums. You do get the taste you'd have, that brutally artificial taste of bubble-gum, in a soda.
Susie, on the other hand, firmly believes it's undrinkable, and that it's taste is, for lack of a better word, unique to it. She'd also like to note:

"I have never had such a hard time drinking a soda in my life. Couldn't do it by myself, too. Not an experience I'm ever going to repeat."

And we also asked for something I saw on the menu, that made me a bit frightened, because that mix of flavors would be really new for me; if it worked, wow, if it didn't, it would risk being inedible. Toasted coalho cheese with coconut and sugar cane syrup.

The coalho cheese has a property of getting toasted without loosing much of it's shape, making it a favorite for barbecues. There are other cheeses you could think with similar texture and qualities, but you could imagine it being a cousin to feta cheese. This was diced in small cubes, toasted, and topped with flaked coconut. A dip dish was served with sugar cane syrup, which is a little thinner than molasses, but with a very mild burnt caramelized taste to it, which I love. Like I said, this is something that could have not worked in a bar menu, but a mouthful proves it does. However, I was drinking cachaça with this (Dona Fulô at room temperature), and it didn't clean the palate enough to allow for really feasting on it. Remember, cachaça is also a product from the sugar cane industry, so, pretty much, I was having the full sugar cane circle here.
Maybe sodas would have cleaned my palate faster out of the thick syrup, allowing for new bites, but since I was always left with an aftertaste, it became a bit too much for me quite fast. This is not as addictive as the Mandiopã, and you can't just gulp portions all night without dealing with the strong sweet flavor, and I'm definitely not a sweet tooth.

To close up, we ordered some pastéis ( deep fried pastries with fillings; imagine spring rolls, but with cheese, or sautéed mince meat, instead of the original filling; and the pastry isn't rolled, it's just one layer folded over the filling ), some with cheese, others with meat. These are also childhood mementos, we grow up eating these in street markets while buying vegetables and fruits every week with our parents. Each city has their own culture to this as well, and here in São Paulo, they're often sold in stands sided by a garapa stand ( garapa is just the juice right out of the sugar cane, served with lots of ice, and sometimes lime or pineapple juice ). I think a nice bottle of fresh garapa would have been a nice touch to make us go “Oh, come on!” all night in smiles and cheers, because then they would have hit all the right spots.
But, to be honest, pressing your own sugar cane juices in a restaurant or bar is really too much to ask. And the option would have been frozen or pre-pressed stuff, which is not good, and everyone would have noticed it was off, and would have ruined the experience.

I guess they didn't even think about the childhood theme on the pastéis, because many bars serve them these days in all kinds of formats and fillings. But, as far as pastéis go, they were really good. I'd bet they do their own pastry, because it was a taste apart from normal street market variety, and also from other bars we went to recently.

Note, they serve the cachaça shots cold; first time I saw a bar do that. I prefer cachaça at room temperature, and for seconds, I asked for it. My favorite brand ever (Magia de Mulher) was not in their menu, and my second favorite ( Salinas ) was not available at room temperature, just frosted, which was a pity.

All in all, this place is all thumbs up. Service was so good, I didn't even need to mention here, and I love when service is so good that you only remember you should evaluate it, after you have finished writing and there's not so much room for it anymore. Everything is spot on. The place is not, and doesn't advertise itself as, five star dining. We didn't even pay attention if the menu actually had dinner options or not, because I went straight to appetizers and then, drinks, but I should come back to check that sometime in the future. I have already the friend to be taken there in mind.
But it's a really nice bar, in which you won't regret spending a night at and venturing on the menu, which was designed to inspire and make you go yum.
All in all, if you think everything is too adventurous and you like staying on the safe side of the road, order the Mandiopã and you won't regret. Cross my heart!

Restaurant Review: Restaurante da Matriz - Paraty,RJ

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:41:29 GMT

From our Food Blog, Vedere & Mangiare:

===================================================

In the main square of Paraty, lies a really interesting and cozy place, named actually after a main hotel that, I believe, closed down ( simply because it either closed down, or it was closed when we visited ), the Restaurante Matriz ( Matriz Restaurant, I'm referring to it was simply Matriz from now on, ok? ). The Matriz lies on the Da Matriz street in Paraty, which sides the ( you guessed ) Matriz Church's square, which is the main square in the historical block of Paraty City.

The place mixes in a very nice way, classical tables and dressings, in a portuguese colonial style building, with some funny furnishings, such as a 1970's tape recorder, or a 1940's refrigerator in a corner, with a penguin on top. The classical glass and bronze rotating candy display adds to the childhood touch some of us may feel, bringing some nostalgia to add to the atmosphere.

We actually went to eat there in two separate occasions, but two lunch servings. I'm gonna talk about each in separate, because they were two very distinct experiences. Actually, the Matriz was part of a list I assembled over the internet, looking for nice and interesting spots to eat, the same day we hit the road, and you can read all about how it was on another post. Being on the original list, and famed for serving great fish dishes ( Susie's all time favorites, to be honest, maybe because I don't eat fish, and so, she gets little chance to eat it at home ), we went there.

Our first visit was on saturday, after browsing the cachaça festival. It was a bit late, around 4pm, and the place was pretty empty, with only another table being served but us, but considering the late hour, we were left with the impression it was just late service, and we were pretty lucky to still be sited and served.

The festival description, mentioned there would be special dishes to be tasted alongside the city's premium cachaça brands, but the waiter, helpful as he was, didn't bring it up. I didn't ask either, as it honestly felt the place strives for fancy being in a place that, by all means, doesn't allow for that, and so, wines are more in order than cachaça. To be fair, this is an outdated view of Brazil's only typical spirit, and the current trend, one I value and support, is to cherish the best brands and best produces we have here. If you have a five star cachaça brewed around the corner, at cost price, and can use it, by all means, do, very few restaurants will have that chance. But here the message was to praise the menu of wines that had to be flown in from over 1200Km away. And trust me, I tasted one of the local brands, they do good cachaça. Not GREAT, but all in all, I was surprised to see none offered during the actual festival where everyone in that city was there for the drink. Felt like eating frozen shrimp in a seaside restaurant... but I'll get there.

After browsing the wine menu, Susie ordered a Miolo Rosé sparkling wine, delicious, refreshing, not too heavy, perfect to go with the amuse-bouche. Talking about appetizers, we wanted to taste their bacalhau dumpling. It's a common seaside appetizer, deep fried dumpling made out of potatoes, four and bacalhau, which is basically salted, dried cod. It's usually served in fish places, because, when you cut down the big servings of bacalhau, there are some left overs used to make the dumplings, and often, the dumplings sell better than the bacalhoada and other bacalhau dishes. But not here, they had run out. It was about 4pm, and we felt it was yes, late lunch service and we were pretty lucky the place was still open and serving, so, we traded the order for tomato bruschettas.

The bruschettas were delicious, some garlic and parmesan cheese grated over toast, and many, many fresh tomatoes finely diced over that. It went perfectly with the wine, even if our friend Marcio, either because he's more a fan of fine beers, or isn't a huge fan of garlic ( or like I found out cooking at home, strong spices ), felt it was a bit heavy on the garlic. I love garlic, even more when it's fresh, so, it was delicious for my taste.

For the main course that first day, we had two samples, and I'm here summing up the afterwards comments of four people. Suzana and Monica ordered a robalo moqueca with banana moquequinha, a typical brazilian stew made with robalo ( common snook, it's a fish common in the Brazilian shore ), several spices, coconut milk, and most noticeable, dende palm oil. The banana was done as a side dish, in a similar fashion and was really good. As side dishes, it was presented with white rice, farofa and pirão, typical manioc flour based dishes.

The moqueca was light, in spices and taste, and the fish was fresh, but it's basically a tuned down version of traditional bahian moqueca, made more palatable to the tourist. If you never tasted dende palm oil, it's pretty hard to describe to you, but it's a world apart from regular olive, or other vegetable oils. Dendê is a small coconut from an african palm tree, introduced in Brazil by african slaves, mostly, for religious reasons. But since religion and food often mix in ancient cultures, I'm personally grateful for it. It's deep reddish color is pretty dominant in any dish graced with it's presence, and this muqueca was no exception, served in a clay pot. The Farofa also displayed a deep reddish yellow tone, there was some dende palm oil in it.

The Banana Moquequinha, was a simple banana mix with the same stuff that went into the main dish, but replacing fish for banana. It was interesting, good, but not great. Susie mentioned she was thinking the banana would be mixed in the main moqueca, but it was presented as a side dish. The farofa was a much nicer complement to the mild taste of the robalo fish. And the pirão was also a mild take on the traditional dish, much lighter. In the end, it made for quite a light dish, that allows you to eat it and go walk the narrow and tricky lanes of Paraty, while a proper traditional moqueca would requite a nap right afterwards.

Me and Marcio went down for steaks. To be honest, when you walk into a fish restaurant, and order steak, you're digging into the kid's menu. Let's face it, since I was a kid, going to a fish place and eating something else, meant eating a single dish, steak with fries. Meant going to the last item in the menu, and ordering the one single non-fish item, steak with fries. Here, it meant a bit more, since the restaurant goes to the dangerous position of having at least three items of each section available. This means, a kind of thick, six page menu, I haven't seen in a while. Also, this meant the menu hasn't seen any reformulation in a few months. Maybe years. But, like I said, we had three options of each, meaning, they have three steaks to choose from, against the singled out one lone ranger I had to order when I was a kid.

This time, we went for the parmegianna steak. For those unfamiliar, in Brazil ( I crave the day I will be able to eat it in Italy, or at leash, check if this is really an italian dish ) a parmegianna steak is a mignon steak, breaded and deep fried, and then dunk in thick, greasy tomato sauce and topped with melted mozzarella cheese, usually, a cheap pizza grade one. In this case, just, the deep fried crust was not as greasy as usual, and the tomato sauce was the canned type, pretty acidic, but edible. It was an OK dish from the kid's menu, sided with french fries. Not the best fries, they could have done a better job using freezer-grade fries you buy in supermarkets, but they did them themselves, and what was served was edible, but soggy. But, since I went in the kids menu, I knew I was gonna get punished from not being a fish eater, and that's part of the game.

Of course, if you know me this far, you know this steak was tasted with a delicious glass of Coca-Cola traditional 2009, cooled to icy temperature, and a slice of lime in the glass. No, I'm serious, this is a dish worth a coca-cola. But again, I'm taking this dish lightly on the review, because, first, this is not an italian restaurant, and secondly, it's a fish based menu, and the place is famed for it's fish, so, anything non-fish is entitled to be expected to be just ok. Anything above edible is beyond the call of duty. In this case, it's better than bad, it's good.

Before we left, we didn't order any deserts, but Marcio asked for a beer, and here it comes, the coldest glass of beer I have ever seen. In Brazil, it's common practice in bars and restaurants to pre-cool the glasses, and serve it at the same temperature as the beer, but I have never seen one this frosted, to the point you could trick yourself to imagine it was made of ice. Susie and I asked for coffee, and it was just ok, well brewed, but nothing fancy to it. The nice point about the coffee, was the fact it was served alongside a mini chocolate pavet and cinnamon stick to stir it.

What else can I say? The service was spot on, no complaints about it, everything was so perfect, so dreamy, we left thinking it was a great place at all times, despite the late lunch service, and the empty place. If this was the only, single review of this restaurant, it would have left with a much better rating than it deserves, and that helped me see that any place needs at least two visits to be properly and fairly evaluated, for the good and the bad. Ok, the work of a critic is fairly personal, even more when you're simply a food blogger. You have to write what you think, be honest, and above all fair, to see what comes from your own prejudice and bias, and what comes from fact, and stick to the fact and try your best to wave away your bias. But everyone has bad days, or exceptionally bright days, and having more than one single visit to judge, helps you get a better average. This time, unfortunately, we saw a fall in quality rather than an improvement, and we also have to talk about it.

On the Sunday, the skies went clear and we were looking for another place to eat. To be honest, first day was really nice, but we wanted a more diverse experience. But if you read my memories of Paraty, you'll see we were cut short on options, and went back to Matriz as a trusted place to have a nice lunch before taking the road, and boy, I learned a lesson.

We arrived much earlier, at actual lunch time, and it was deserted. I mean, we were the only single table being served, and the service dropped. We noticed one of the waiters, the best one of the duo, a young gentleman, was not present; instead, we had one of the waiters from the previous day, and a more senior waiter which was a perfect nightmare on service.

Marcio started with a beer, a big tall bottle for us four, and the serving was again, on a incredibly cold glass. But the thing is, when we finished and asked for another one, the glasses weren't replaced, giving in to a WTF moment. I'd have preferred that they had served the first round in glasses at room temperature, than tease us with that great serving, just to forget about it when we asked for another round. I'm not sure if this is a sloppy waiter, a lazy one, or just, this is how they always do, but it was a disappointment. Me and Susie stopped drinking right there, because I was upset, and also, because Susie would take the wheel, and you can't drink and drive in Brazil, so, if she wanted to drive, she would have to stop drinking now.

Alongside, we asked for the bacalhau dumplings once more, just to hear, first service in the following day, that they have ran out. We asked if since yesterday, and the waiter said they simply didn't have any. A bit suspicious and out of options, we asked for another round of tomato bruschettas. But this time, they came in extra-loaded in garlic, to the point of becoming inedible unless you have a garlic fetish. From a plate of five, three were just left untouched. Actually, a bit more, as two took bites and were softly placed back to where they belonged. We didn't return them, because, to be honest, it could be worse. Meaning, we noticed the next round could be worse. So, some things are meant to be left alone, and this was one of those.

Monica feeling less adventurous, and me and Marcio feeling like digging the rest of the kid's menu, we all went for steaks. Leaving Susie to fetch something she spotted when we walked in. The Matriz, as other places, has the habit of placing a chalkboard right by the door, with Chef suggestions. In any, I mean, any respectable place in the planet, it means what's fresh, and which inspired the chef to try something different for once, that worked and usually, made the clientele pretty happy. Of course, in shady restaurants, that chalkboard means “I'm cleaning the freezer today and have to get rid of this:”. Considering the previous day experience, Susie felt this was a respectable place. So, she went for shrimp, coalho cheese and banana risotto. Oh boy, remember when I mentioned frozen shrimp in a seaside restaurant? Just give me a sec for a quick browse on the kid's menu of the day, because it's really quick and I don't want it getting in the way.

Me? I went for some steak with madeira sauce, asparagus and mashed potatoes, and Marcio went for something similar, just with no asparagus. Yeah, they are two different orders on the menu, but the exact same thing, with and without asparagus. What can I say? This is kid's menu. The steak was properly done, the sauce was very greasy, and the purée ( mashed potatoes ) was really mushy. And that's that. Really. Honestly. This is kid's menu, if it's better than bad, it's good. I have to say, I make better, way better, mashed potatoes on a bad day. But again, this is kid's menu.

Unaware of our failure the previous day, regardless of seeing what we were served, Monica ordered a Parmegianna steak. But, unlike me and Marcio, she loved it, maybe more than the fish dish she had, and what can I say? One man's misery is another's happiness.

Back to the risotto, ( remember that I said I'd get here? ) it was pretty disappointing, in many aspects. The only worthwhile comments Susie wants to make are these:

1 – eating frozen, pre-cooked, pre-seasoned, pre-processed shrimp while looking at the sea is really weird;

2 – there is such a thing as undercooked risotto. And I ain't kidding, it wasn't al-dente, it was undercooked.

Adding to what she doesn't want to say, she noticed that the risotto didn't seem to be cooked in any chicken, fish, shrimp or even vegetable stock or broth, it seemed like boiled in plain water. We have perfect, dreamy risotto in a local restaurant here in São Paulo, the owner and chef talks passionately for half an hour if you start talking about risotto and how to cook. We know good risotto. We know proper risotto. That was not that. So, what came to the table, was a stiff thing that looked like the mashed potato mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Just smaller. And with shrimp. And burnt cheese. After lunch, I noticed Susie wasn't happy, at all, and said afterwards it was also heavy. It's like eating an umbrella, it gets to your stomach and poof, it opens. And she only asked for risotto.

Needless to say, this time, we wanted to rush out of the place, but Marcio was up for another beer, and Susie now needed a coffee. The coffee came out as good as the day before, and the beer came in a perfectly chilled glass, as before. Just to show, they serve it only on the first round. Not really on refills.

After leaving, I was left with the impression either one of two things happened, actually, most likely, both: the chef took the sunday off, knowing it would be dead, and left the service to the sous-chef; being an empty day, they didn't care to impress someone on the leave, likely to not return, so, went sloppy on service. The bad waiter was actually chewing bubble gum while strolling on the empty room, uncaring for us there. Either way, even if this is not a bad restaurant, it's also not a five star service. You go there to eat the fish moqueca, and maybe, other fish stews. Forget the rest of the menu, it's just kid's menu. Don't take the chef's suggestions, stick to the stews and you're likely to leave very happy.

In the end, we have eaten in places the only possible review is “DON'T”, and this is not one of them. Far from this. It's a nice tourist-based restaurant, with a decent kid's menu, and trimmed down versions of brazilian fish dishes that the average tourist wouldn't be able to handle the heat and spices on it's grassroots versions anyway. Go there, but knowing what to expect and what to order, and you'll leave very happy. It's also on the less expensive side of the scale, so, considering what you pay for, it's not a great loss if you're not totally satisfied.

Things and Things

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:31:27 GMT

So, I am an year older, one year less to spend on this earth. Time to shake things in life once more, and get happy about life as a whole, and change what is wrong with it.

What else can I say?

I gave a bday party at a new bar downtown, themed around the 80's. Everything to remember those afternoons at grandma's home. Actually, the bar is themed around sodas ( it has drinks, don't worry, and beer, and everything ). The menu is stunning, even if pretty heavy. The feijoada dumplings are worth a meal each, so, the portion of 5 is really meant for 5 people. The stir fried cheese with molasses and coconut shavings is delicious, an unexpected combo, but also to be taken lightly. You leave the place full and belching if you're not careful. But the thing is, I invited over 30 people, and nobody showed up. The silence in my mailboxes was also pretty meaningful. Phone rang twice with Bday wishes. From over 30 people.

I guess I have less friends than I was fooling myself about.

Makes you think about a lot of things.

The Bday trip to Paraty as you can also see, was far from ideal.

Makes you think about a lot of things.

Mommy, is this really it?

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:57:47 GMT

From our food blog, Vedere&Mangiare:

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Paraty is, on the least assumption, a very confusing city for any tourist on a first ride. Because, it's completely diferent than what the general media sells. The owner of the hotel we stayed in identified it as “Paraty for the Media”. Sure, today, any generally informed person knows the brazilian critics are in their majority, bougth out, but, in this case, the media does sell Paraty as a city on it's own, diferent from the rest of the carioca shore, where you're up for an experience diverse from the ordinary, involved in culture, gastronomy, history and beaches, or in other words, all that is true and good in the world. Well, like my better half says, the “5th Avenue” of brazilian tourism.

But, you're really still in Mangaratiba, twenty years or so ago. Gray sand beaches, of muddy dark waters, sewers open to the sky, and very treacherous walkways. And I don't mean the original century old streets of the old historical center, where broken ankles may be a real possibility for the more distracted tourist. Just, it's Mangaratiba with a historical downtown, which is really charming, but impractical for big festivals. Maybe the schooner trips allow you to hit better beaches on private islands, where enjoying the sea is possible, but the actual city itself, has nothing more to it.

I was kind of sad for not liking it so much, because the place is gorgeous. The coastline is simply stunning from the hostel balcony, on top of a hill. But the city itself is ugly and not properly taken care of. The lack of structure is shocking. And above that, I admit, we went in the wrong weekend.

Well, our trip started friday the 21st. Right before jumping in the road, I called the hotel about two in the afternoon ( Pousada Morro do Forte ), and confirmed our reservations, check-in times and everything. But nobody on the hostel mentioned a VERY important tact in this trip. Very important indeed, as you'll be able to see.

We loaded the car, set the GPS, and two hours later, after fetching a friend at her job, we were already on our way. Leaving São Paulo, SP 070 ( Carvalho Pinto ), Dutra, and right after, following the GPS, in Guaratinguetá, we entered the SP 171 headed to Cunha and Paraty, being Paraty, in the end of the road. In Cunha, the road signs told us of the road being closed. Meaning, just 70km inland after leaving the main road, any mention that our trip to Paraty using that path would be impossible. But the signs were handwritten, placed in a sloppy manner outside the road, and we had faced similar signs on the road to that moment ( the road is indeed horrible, with dirty patches and steep unsigned curves ), and decided to move on; after all, we had past half of the way, and considering the past signs, seemed something we could face, and to be honest, we couldn't believe the traffic authority would allow any traveler to cruise 70km before letting anyone know the road is closed.

Well, as mentioned, the road is horrible, and gets worse from that point on, and we had to proceed in very slow speeds, and the remaining 20km were transformed in over an hour. And when we reached the Rio de Janeiro – São Paulo state limit, the road simply ended in a mud slide, with a now, much more official and clear sign of “closed road”. We, and several other tourists, brought there by their GPS and Google Maps. All, some from abroad, as pissed off as we were, and equally unable to believe what just happened. Or, like our friend Marcio said, it's like Nelson from “The Simpsons” were pointing at us and saying “HA-HA!”.

With all the roadside inns closed, and no cell phone signal, we came back to the Dutra Road, to try and find some way in Paraty. We stopped at a gas station, where finally, I managed to phone the Hotel. I, I don't think I need to say it, was really pissed off, because nobody at the hotel warned us that the path we took, and all GPS and Google Maps driven people, for that matter, is unviable. I called to warn we were arriving late, having to take a 200km detour, and the person who took the phone, laughed at my face. Yes, laughed, saying it was obviously the wrong path, the one we took, and everyone was well aware of that.

Everyone who lives there, right? I live in São Paulo. Talking to the gas station clerk, she told us the road had been closed since January, and never repaired ever since, due to local politicians struggling about it, and so, it didn't come out, eight months later. I simply hung up the phone with the hotel, and erased the SP 171 from the GPS. I should know, 171 is always a sign of trouble ( in Brazil, 171 became a slang for sleazy people, related to the legal code article 171 – deception and embezzlement ). At least, the TomTom GPS allows you to fix road problems by blocking a road yourself, and doing that, it found the way trough Ubatuba. A mere 200Km detour we didn't anticipate, thanks to the local administration, and the hotel people who could not remember that tourists don't know everything that happened in the last few months on a place they seldom go to. Mostly, first timer ones like us.

That was the subject of two chats with the hotel owner, who, also informed us that, even before being closed, the road was only viable to 4x4 trucks, because it's a very bad dirt road, and will remain being. I'm not sure that complaining would make any effect. The hotel site didn't have any information regarding that. I received promises that the hotel site will now sport a warning about that road and write down the preferable paths, and they'll warn over phone during reservations, but by the time this article was written, nothing has been altered yet.

Driving down the Taubaté-Ubatuba is tricky, it's a tortuous, one lane road on each direction, that requites low speed, and that's that. It's a short mountain road, with fogs and U turns, and most of it has to be done around 20Km/h. The problem lies on the fact, most people there were on the way to Paraty as well, and being previously thrown in the muddy SP 171, were as pissed off and as anxious to get there as we were, but trying to do the road faster than possible or safe, to the point of making it a very dangerous road; we escaped serious accidents at least some three times only because we were cautious and slow and could hit the breaks in time. One particular time, a car at at least 60km/h tried to go past us, in a U turn, not only invading the opposite road, but also, almost crashing on us. It was night and foggy, a moment lacking attention and you'll go down the hill.

By 4AM, we finally arrived at the hotel, almost blanking out in sheer sleep. Between locking the garage door and arriving at the hotel, it was 12 hours on the road, thanks to the detour in Cunha. Arriving, I asked the one and only clerk at the hotel, a security guy, if the laughter at the phone was his. I guess he was betting we would give up. He tried to divert the talk, and pass the guilt on the receptionist, who didn't warn us.

Note, Paraty is a very car unfriendly city. The city is crowded with suspension breakers ( a silly device in which you place an obstacle on the road to force the driver to break and cross in slow speed... we call them Quebra-Molas, Spring-Breakers, for a reason, these were non-standard, most, higher than needed and would crash against the bottom of your car, damaging your chassis and any unprotected engine part. It helps to face them slightly driving to the side, but some will crash against the bottom of your car anyway ), and the streets themselves, even outside the historical downtown, is much irregular. On top of that, we didn't see any signs of the police arresting drunk drivers or stopping them on getting behind wheels ( in Brazil, you're not allowed to drink and drive, the meter limit is 0, not 0.2 like in most places, so, don't drink if you're driving ), and cars speeding up with drunk drivers putting their heads out and driving dangerously in the night were no exception.

Finally, most hotels and hostels don't hold their own parking lots; and cars are parked on both sides of the narrow streets. The end result is that it's common to have two cars come in at the same street in opposing sides, and one having to back down and leave the street to allow the other one to pass before trying again, possibly making a 10 minute drive into a half-hour adventure.

The best strategy is to look for a hotel or hostel close to the historical downtown, but outside of it, or with a parking lot, and forget you have a car until it's time to leave. The city structure is pretty confusing, and not fully GPS mapped, but the street signs actually are acurate and help you walk around, specially, for the major hotels and hostels, which helped a lot. This is one of the best features in this city, not common in most touristic places here in Brazil.

But that's, unfortunately, the only positive comment about the streets of Paraty. The city is split in two by a canal, and, from the three bridges, only one allow for the passage of cars, something that is not clear on the city maps; one of the bridges for pedestrians was closed, and replaced by a temp army built metal bridge. We drove a little bit, asking around, before we could make it to the only bridge that allowed car passages.

At least, our bedroom had warm water and a great bed, and after unloading everything, we could take a shower and go to sleep. We slept badly, late, extremelly tired, and my lived one Suzana, in much pain from driving 12 hours nonstop.

Saturday started with a cloudy sky, cold, and many people in the hotel trying to recover from hangovers. I went to fetch breakfast for her, and bring it to the room in a tray. Be warned, this particular hotel has no room service. No phones in the room to ask for anything. I asked the manager to order us some medicines we needed, and she was ready to order them from the local farmacy, but I had to walk to the reception myself to know if they had arrived, and they had, but no one bother taking them to the room. Our room, was only 4m from the reception. If it took me only 20 steps to get it in the reception, would also cost a clerk only 20 steps to take it to me, while I was concerned with my loved one being in such pain and waiting for it.

Later on, Suzana was already feeling better, and we could leave to have lunch in the city, after our friends Marcio and Monica had their shower in our bedroom, simply because theirs had no hot water ( regardless of promises that they would have hot water in a few hours, the problem was only solved over 36 hours after we arrived, in the morning of the following day ). Lunch was the best moment in our trip.

The historical downtown is pretty charming. We went on the wrong time of the year, in the middle of the Pinga Festival ( pinga is a popular term for Cachaça ). Summing it up, the city brands put on tents to sell liquor, while other tents sell food of dubious origins and tons of mystery meat, and the amounts of drunken people is immense. I scheduled at this time of the year, because it's my birthday, but I though the festival would be some kind of Gastronomical event, where, according to the media, the good restaurants make special menus using pinga as an ingredient, where the visitors can have a experience on tasting the local brands and comparing to international brands. In practice, we went into one of the best restaurants in town, and no local brand of cachaça was offered to us for tasting by the waiters, on the contrary to what was advertised in some media critics we saw about the festival.

I personally liked the historical downtown, but we almost fell down some six times, having to support in one another, even sober, since a thin rain made the old stonework extremely slippery and the shape of the rocks makes it very hard to go around. Got really likes the fool and the drunk, because we saw no one bleeding...

You know, when you think about a historical downtown having still it's original stone pavement, you think Sabará. Sabará is a historical city up to the north, where the streets are still paved with the same river rocks and moderate sized pebbles, with sidewalks even elders can walk without any risk of injuries. I, for one, imagined Paraty would be like that. Walking in Paraty is like walking on stones in a rocky beach. The streets have no sidewalks at all, or walkways. The city is completely inviable for anyone on a wheelchair or with any mobility restrictions, such as a pregnant woman or elders. In a rainy day such as the saturday we faced, the stonework becomes slippery, and one single distraction can cause a great fall or even an ankle twist.

It would be great for the mayor of this city to keep this in mind, and think on a solution, even if it's a suspended acrylic walkway, where you can still see the original stonework ( which would also help preserving this historical asset ), and walk looking also to the stores and architecture, instead of having to constantly look to the floor.

Another thing, the sea crawls into the city by night; Paraty is actually at sea level. A bizarre high tide can even flood the parking lots of the historical downtown hotel, because all parking lots we saw, were on street level. In mid afternoon, beyond the irregular streets in the historical downtown, you also have to handle puddles of water from the previous night. I think this “invasion” of the sea to be quite charming, if not to the fact you would be stranded in the bar you're at, until the tide comes down, if you're distracted and loose track of time. A solution would be welcome to make this city more tourist friendly.

In this weekend, the festival had a huge stage installed in the main city square, which prevented tourists to walking around it freely, and part of the best restaurants, bars and stores, just closed down for the whole weekend, and it was a problem for us.

Before taking the road there, I went online to get a list of the best restaurants and bars to visit. But from those, we could only find two open, both in the main city square in the historical downtown. Due to the huge stage and the dificulty to walk around ( folks, I mean it, walking 10 minutes here is something labor intensive and dangerous, was like crossing a river by stepping on the stones, always one step away from falling down ), we couldn't even find one of the most promising places for the visit, the bistro named Porto da Pinga, which is on the main city square, but seemed to be closed or blocked by the main stage. Saturday, and on the sunday as well, we saw many stores simply closed and the best restaurants simply empty, and even on bars, we saw little food being ordered and much drinks, mostly strong liquors and beer. Like I said, we went on the wrong weekend.

So, we settled for lunch at the Restaurante Matriz, at the Praça da Matriz, the city main square. The front is a very plain facade and kind of hard to find. Inside, classical decoration fuses with the colonial style building and some fun items, such as a 1940's freezer with a penguin on top.

The menu, is a blend of well behaved dishes with some nordestino inspired food. And for those who don't eat seafood or fish, there are some mignon dishes, to which I am grateful. But it's a sea food restaurant, and if you don't eat seafood, you walked in the wrong place to eat a steak, or you're with someone who loves seafood dearly, which is my case. In a restaurant like this, traditionally, I wouldn't put the steak dishes in the critic, because, come on, it's pretty much the kid's menu, for when a kid comes in, doesn't want to adventure in fish with banana, and says “mommy, I want a steak and fries” and that's what they serve, basically. All the riches of the seafood side, reflected in the boredom of looking into the meat and steak section of the menu.

But, since I don't eat fish, I ordered a Parmegiana steak, while Suzana ordered a Moqueca de Robalo, which came in a claw caiçara pot, sided by rice, pirão, moquequinha de banana and the best farofa I had in my life. The full description and critic of the restaurant will come in it's own here, soon. We also ordered a portion of Bruschetta, and a Miolo Rosé sparkling wine, in a total of R$60,00 ( as of today: US$ 32.27 / € 22.50 / A$ 38.50) per person, service included. The service on this first day was wonderful, as was all the fishes. The mignon, of course, had nothing much to it, or less to it, it was simply a good ordinary steak. But like I said, in a place like this, the steak is kid's menu, and doesn't count.

When we left the restaurant, the weather finally made it's mind and turned for the worse, rainy and cold, so, we decided to go back to the hotel. And to be honest, I'd pretty much like to stay there, just order some beers and food in the hotel room, which was of a good side and with a nice table, great view of the beach, but the hotel had no inside phone service or telephone in the rooms. Our friend Marcio took the gentleman's way and went to the reception for some beers, and had to bring those to the room, in cold and rain ( all rooms are outside, in a long wooden deck ), himself. There is absolutely no room service in this hotel, in any way. We also found out that our bed had not been done, and the wet towels, changed. The hotel insists, in signs inside the room, that you should throw the used towels on the floor, to indicate you want them replaced, so, when we came back to our room, we found out not only we didn't have clean, dry towels to take a long warm shower, but also, that we had soggy, dirty towels instead. Should I say how unhappy I was?

Later on, still cold and raining, I went with Marcio and Monica, our traveling buddies this time, to try get ourselves a pizza to eat. If the hotel simply left the pizza place phone number in our room, like other places we stayed over did, we would just use the cell phone and order some, solving the whole problem with a phone call. But, instead, the hotel offers to dial the pizza place themselves, through the receptionists ( their menu has pizza, which they admit they don't make, but order instead ), but only until 8. They didn't offer to leave the number with us either. After that, good luck, the reception is deserted. So, we had to walk, and after 10 minutes we crossed the ugly, poor neighborhood of Paraty, where we found the only single opened pizza place in the city. Saturday night, raining.

And saturday ended like that, watching TV in the room, eating bad pizza ( for the love of God, we live in São Paulo, here, we have real pizza, not like in Rio where pizza is pretty much a joke ) and watching an old SNL from Obama's election.

Sunday, everything changed. For real.

We woke up early, after a well slept night. After playing a bit in bed, we went to have breakfast, and we saw the sunshine. And what sunshine. I took my chance to make new photos, because the saturday ones wouldn't be used since the weather changed. And I have to say, both the city and the hotel and much more enjoyable in the warmth of a bright sunshine. Like I said, we went in the wrong weekend.

With sunshine outside, we went to have our breakfast in one of the swimming pool tables, and afterwards, talk to the hotel owner, who was pretty lovable, but didn't believe there would be any positive change. She knows the problems of the city, to which she said, the mayor doesn't pay much attention. She knows the touristic side can be vastly improved, and that Paraty is on the spotlight of the media for now, and can grow much. But she already lost hope in any change, which is a bad sign.

We went to have lunch one more time, now really trying to find the Bistrô Porto da Pinga, in the same street from the Restaurante Matriz, but at the 12 ( the Restaurante Matriz is located at the 6 ), but everything was closed. Nothing, no luck at all. We managed tof ind the Bartholomeu restaurant, but the Chef was sitting on the door, always a sign the place was deserted, something pretty common during this festival it seems. All hostels seem to close the stay period at noon, and at 1pm, many tourists had already hit the road, and we were left on an empty city to lunch. But, I don't like to eating in empty places, and the chef sitting on the door seemed like bed juju, looks like end of service, and we'll review the Bartholomeu next time.

The Matriz street, just like the whole historical downtown, with it's paving made of poorly connected and poorly matching large river stones, in a rainy day, is not encouraging for long strides searching for lost precious things, such as restaurants, so, we ended up eating at the Restaurante Matriz once more, for a much different experience. This is only to show how important it is to visit the same place twice, or more, for a fair review. Because, one single visit is highly unfair, for good or bad.

The first visit was dreamy, a real gastronomical dream, regarding food and service; everything was perfect with waiters rounding the table with precision and politeness. The second one was marked by an uncaring waiter, lost in the middle of a service with only one full table in the whole restaurant. Probably, after a slow saturday service, the Chef took the sunday off and left the kitchen in the hands of his sous-chef, which is not always a good idea for those eating there. Like Tony Bourdain would say “avoid the sunday brunch”. Just, this wasn't brunch, we ordered from the regular menu. And we didn't order any classic, but Suzana adventured on one of the chef's picks, written on white chalk on the board right by the door, which usually, on a beach side restaurant would mean, this is what we have of fresh good and tasty. In this case, it looked like he was trying to clean his freezer, and a shrimp risotto with frozen shrimp in a seaside restaurant. Not to forget, we're the only table being served in this restaurant at 1pm, which means the Bartholomeu wasn't alone on it's total lack of clients. The risotto was heavy, and the Bruschetta, so good the previous day, was so heavily loaded on garlic, it was close to toxic, and the plate was taken with three of the five served still untouched. Service dropped a lot in quality from one day to the other as well. I still think it's woth for eating fishes, but that's it.

So, you can see, a restaurant which would be highly praised in only one single visit, in a second visit, will receive a more fair, but realistic, review, to something a normal tourist can expect when walking hungry trough it's doors, can expect.

When we left, the idea was to enjoy the sun, and go see the city. Walk around the historical downtown streets and get on the road much later. See everything we couldn't on the saturday. But the weather changes easilly on the beach, and the sun went away fairly quickly, and soon, we were back in the car to hit the road.

A note for visitors coming from São Paulo, try to use the Rodobia Tamoios (SP 099) after leaving the Rio-Santos (BR 101), and finally, the Rodovia Carvalho Pinto (SP 070 ) to go to São Paulo. I advise the reverse path ( SP 070 -> SP099 -> BR 101) to go to Paraty. It's much safer, less tow booths, and a bit slower while crossing the coastline cities on the way to São Paulo, but avoiding the dangerous mountain road of the Taubaté-Ubatuba. And also, a much prettier sight while driving the coastline.

Paraty has many problems, many, typical of the cities on the Rio de Janeiro coastline. At the same time, unforgiving by any tourist that visits the place bringing in money to the local economy to generate business and jobs, to allow the city to live and grow. The respect and caring for the tourist in the tourism business is fundamental, but I was left with the impression Paraty doesn't want to grow, and so, like a tasty fish with too many spines to prevent a joyful savoring, it uses it's problems to be left alone. But, the chance the media is giving to Paraty won't leave forever, and other cities just as beautiful, with also such a rich history and great charm, are stepping up to steal events, and this hype about Paraty won't last forever. It's on the hands of it's citizens to decide what kind of city, and future, they want, regarding the tourism industry.

In the end, I'd like to come back. Give it another chance. Such a beautiful city can't leave such a bad impression all the time. The hotel sector has a lot to improve, but it's possible. And the restaurants are good, above average for such a city, where we ate, we had that clear impression. But the city fills the experience with several, unnecessary small obstacles, that you feel are designed to make you think if it's really worth it. Many people, facing a blocked road after several hours without warning, would have cancelled it and went back home. In the end, it was a trip to a beautiful city, with immense potential, but filled with small examples of total lack of respect for the tourist, in many levels.</p>

Notebook Blues, Food Blog Halt

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:21:59 GMT

You'd wonder if you got sick, and had to stay home, you'd have more time to the stuff you wanna write about. But the facts are, energy isn't just there, and you don't want to stay home. So, you stroll, and you get lazy and you feel like a bottomless pit of bad mojo when it comes to writing, updating, or creating stuff.

I even managed to get one photoshoot done, to the cost of our health declining fast after that. So, that's why the food blog is just halted hopeless.

Anyway, when you're down, you're down right?

My MacBook just joined the list of KIA. And it doesn't seem it will come back. It's coming to the end of it's lifespan, and I'm sad to see it go, but I'll squeeze a few more months out of it if I can. Tomorrow, am taking it to a repair shop here in São Paulo for some evaluation. I could have taken it yesterday, sure, but I would be with only one computer all weekend, and they would only start working early monday anyway. So, I go take it early monday, simple as that.

Problem is, it show signs of a short circuit, possibly caused by the white plastic shell giving in to use after two and a half years. Possibly fairly easy to fix, as it a problem that is not constant. It happened last morning, and then disappeared. But if I hold it on the wrong place, it will just reboot without notice.

But I have AppleCare, so, I should be covered. But, this notebook we got from someone who went to NYC, and got it there. Very cheap, 1/2 the price when compared to over here, but Apple may claim I wasn't the "original purchaser" and void it, since it's not my name on the original invoice.

If that's the case, we'll have to wait until it burns down completely, and then, go for a MacBook Pro 13", the cheapest model available with FireWire ( something I need for work ), and something we can buy here in Brazil. The other models are outrageously expensive, and we have SRS and savings for a house to consider, so, don't want to be set back more than a couple thousand dollars right now.

Well, that's the news, keep your fingers crossed for us :)

Jessica