A Measly 96 hours in Brazil….
Going to Brazil means being dazzled by food!
Hashtag us at #96hoursinbrazil
“We have been planning this pop-up restaurant event for more than two month now”, says Chef Ricardo Passarelli the owner of 170 Bistro in Itajuba, Brazil. Itajuba is a budding international (business) city a few hours outside the financial capital of Brazil.
Chef Ricardo Passarelli owner of 170 Bistro in Itajuba, Brazil invited cookbook author and Miami chef Michael Bennett here because we knew his latest cookbooks were exactly what we wanted to feature at our restaurant to ensure our grasp as the best restaurant in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
The first culinary expo in Itajuba, Brazil held at #170Bistro
Before all this can happen….
Getting into Brazil usually means journeying to the booming affluence that anchors the country — São Paulo.
Our 96 hours in Brazil (#96hoursinbrazil) starts in the the city that is the powerhouse in Brazil that pays the tab for the rest of the Brazil’s material comfort. The São Paulo (Sampa) failings — of incredibly high prices and most prolifically your non-stop awareness that you could end up being a statistic of street crime; even when added together, are still not enough to deter the millions of noteworthy vagabonds seeking out São Paulo’s artistic and business energy snarled mutually together with a relentless and, stimulating 24 hour a day joie de vivre.
#96hoursinbrazil
Where to Start Your Travels in SamPa (São Paulo - as locals call it) – Brazil…
- A São Paulo suburb – Brooklin, is an area just a stone’s throw from São Paulo’s Wall Street (Paulista Avenue) is being celebrated for its rise among the ranks of São Paulo’s best neighborhoods to experience South American culture and it’s food.
If you are here on Sunday you’re in luck if you are visiting Sampa than that means one thing Pizza. You should never leave this city without trying your closest pizza palace. São Paulo has become home to over five million folks from Italy and, they brought their food heritage – that has delivered to the tune of more than 5000 pizzerias, strewn across this mega-metropolis of 15 million South Americans. This city’s favorite is a New York City stylized restaurant called Braz. When you go, bring a heavy wallet and the empty stomach because São Paulo’s best will tempt your tastebuds with the revelation that Brazil is a damn good place to find a (Brazilian) wood-fire pizza.
Sampa’s incessant compulsion for eclectic fare is reinforced with the pervading din of Brazil’s most significant Foodies. This single-minded contagious energy, that invigorates these frenzied metropolitan denizens, seemingly always has these perpetually tanned, wide-eyed smiles that always great you with an never-ending thumbs-up signs by everyone you stumble across.
My new Brazilian family
Brazil’s Table… it is a harmony of diversity
Brazil is a country that is unified by its indulging yet, it is regionally divided by the deficiency of the practice. It is if you deliberate the contradictions in food heritage; culture, accolades and antipathies of the people who live in Iowa to those who live in Florida. This dissimilar display of fluctuating regional preferences at times share our American dining habits, yet a pattern in Brazil illustrates a harmony that is a diverse as it is similar. How can a culture be so diverse and at the same time similar? Food brings the well-off and deprived together in common ways! Rice, beans, coffee and cake link all Brazilians as they sit down to a meal.
Chef Ricardo Passarelli owner of 170 Bistro and Chef Michael Bennett talk food.
If you are traveling in Brazil on a weekend, you will have to try the nationalized recipe called; feijoada – that can be found on any weekend dinner table and, seemingly has to be overindulged in to taste the heritage of Brazil, is the classic Brazilian recipe of blackbean stew brimming with every part of a pig and is as much as part of the National Brazilian past time, as it is a daily fiscal necessity for the Brazilian populace.
#96hoursinbrazil
Bolo: Brazilians love cake, which they call Bolo. In fact, it is one food that can be eaten at any time of the day. It is available at restaurants, corner shops, street vendors, gas stations, road stop intersections and generally any place that sells food. Bolo is often made with corn flour (like polenta) instead of wheat flour and is sometimes made with a combination of the two, giving it a different texture than what you expect in the USA.
Brazil has always been recognized as being the world’s best source of great coffee. It is part of the Brazilian culture andyou should never refuse a cup of coffee when one is offered to you at a restaurant or, by a new S.A. friend. So, downplay your state of consciousness and simply enjoy the rich roasted flavors of the humble coffee bean.
Every where coffee sends a welcoming note
Shopping in the Centro Market in São Paulo – is where we started our Pop-Up restaurant mission.
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Located in São Paulo’s Centro district, our culinary journey starts with more than just a starling acknowledgement that this is a city the screams FOOD! São Paulo’s Marketplace is where we start our culinary excursion…..
The Sao Paulo Centro market place is where everyone shops for dinner.
Shopping for Salted Codfish at Sao Paulo’s Centro market
Chef and author Michael Bennett in Brazil shopping at the Cento market in Sao Paulo #96hoursinbrazil
Food at the #SaoPaulo #centro #market #96hoursinbrazil
Wine selection for #Miaminights
Chef Ricardo Passarelli (left) and Chef Michael Bennett shopping at Centro Market
Love #Spanish #proscuitto ? Here we have Serrano Jamon a great selection ranging from $300.00 to $800.00
#NYTIMESTRAVEL
Fruit selection in Brazil @nytcooking
Chef Michael shopping in #SaoPaulo @NYTdining
Tasting the tropical treasures on display in #brazil
#96hoursinbrazil
Cheese is so important to Brazil’s dinner table we had to add it to the #MiamiNights menu #NYTdining
Shopping in Brazil #nytimestravel
Get here early – before 12 PM.
The place is almost empty after 4 pm and a lot of the vendors move their products out of the confines of the walled marketplace and set it out onto the surrounding streets for sale during the rest of the evening.
Once we completed our hunting and gathering for our pop-up restaurant event, we jumped in the SUV and headed out of the city. Depending on the time of day, it might take you as much time getting out of downtown at rush hour as it would crossing the entire state of São Paulo’s in the middle of the night. So my hint for you is to grab some pizza or, fuel up at a Churrascaria, before gassing up and starting off.
Itajuba, Brazil; a place that speaks to what it is like to live all of your life in the same village you grew up in.
City marker for Itajuba
Finding your way to this provincial town might be one that was a happy mistake by any adventurous Brazilian trekker. There are copious explanations yet unseen that will make you happy you found this animated village among the Minas Gerais highlands.
#96hoursinBrazil
Cities always grew up around the church
Driving through the coldest city in #Brazil
Home at the base of the mountain range that separates Sao Paulo and Rio de Jeniero
Small Villages spread across Brazilian countryside
Traveling Brazil, #96hoursinbrazil
Tiny villages across Brasil #96hoursinbrazil@nytimestravel
Mountain village in Brazil #96hoursinbrazil
Itajuba, Brazil is about half way between Rio De Janeiro and São Paulo’s on the north side of the Serra da Mantiqueira mountain range – that runs between the capital of Brazil and Brazil’s quasi capital (Rio). It is also the intersection of the other two cities that I came to love; Campos Do Jordao (the city that Switzerland lost during the continent drift) and Sao Lourenco (the water city) both are equally separated by Itajuba yet; seem similar because of the city’s welcoming residents.
Traveling across Brazil’s countryside #96hoursinbrazil
Traveling across Brazil’s countryside #96hoursinbrazil
Traveling across Brazil’s countryside #96hoursinbrazil
Traveling across Brazil’s countryside #96hoursinbrazil
Why we are here today…
Miami Nights is the pop-up restaurant that was the brain child of Chef Ricardo Passarelli, the owner of Itajuba’s 170 Bistro. Chef Passarelli wanted to make his restaurant the “Zero Point” for culinary awakenings in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. He decided that the menu had to reflect love of the city chef Passarelli once called home – Miami, Florida.
Above: Chef Passarrelli – Below: Sold out dining room at 170 Bistro for #MiamiNights #culinary expo in Itajuba, Brazil
Chef Michael brought to the Chef Passarelli’s Bistro 170 recipes that were conceived by mingling ideas from two of his four cookbooks. The Miami Nights menu was highlighted by the fact that some of the food enjoyed would never have been seen in Itajuba without Chef Michael Bennett packing them up in his suitcase and bringing them with him from Miami. It was not a specific ingredient that made this culinary expo unique, it was the cookery techniques and artistic food pairings that made taste-buds stand up and take notice.
Menu overview pictorial
The meal started with two choices of appetizers, continued with three entrees picks and finished with two options in dessert. A Miami favorite, an appetizer of Mahi Mahi ceviche was at times the most popular of the night. This recipe was paired with one of Chef Michael favorite recipe side dishes; baby greens en vase. This is where Chef Michael places baby greens – that are rolled into a bouquet (like a bouquet of wild flowers) – and squeezes them into a vase cut from a cucumber.
Mahi ceviche and Baby greens en vase #nytcooking
Close up of Mahi ceviche
Ceviche in Brazil from @michaelinmiami
The second appetizer selection was one of Chef Michael’s favorite cookbook recipes called Lucky 13 curry spiced shrimp. A sugarcane stalk is cut down to form a skewer and the shrimp is threaded onto this skewer. This sugarcane is not only the implement use to eat the shrimp with but it also becomes a taste altering, marinating and moisturizing maneuver to safeguard the texture of the shrimp while grilling. Because of the fragrant and honeyed flavor of the sugarcane shrimp, Chef Michael needed to place this atop an approachable taste-variance counterpoint of Kimchee made with green (under-ripe) papaya that he learned about in the Caribbean while living there (circa 2006-2009).
13 curry spiced Sugarcaned shrimp atop Caribbean Kimchee #96hoursinbrazil #nytimestravel #nytcooking
Entrees were a South Florida milieu consisting of a certified Angus NY strip steak, with an extraordinary three-day sprouted mustard seed~Robert (row-bair) sauce and Angry pommery-balsamic, pan-roasted potatoes.
NY strip Steak with a 3-day sprouted mustard seed Robert sauce.
Another of Chef Michael Bennett’s favorite cookbook recipes that became a bombshell best seller on the third night of this culinary exposition was a Caribbean sweet spiced Mahi Mahi with a Caribbean avocado and Italian scampi salad. Last but not least was the apogee of a true South Florida and Caribbean cookery ideal; Brazilian espresso marinated, grilled pork loin and lobster-saffron (Miami-style) Paella risotto made with an infusion of locally produced in the city just a stone’s throw away from Itajuba; Mascarpone cheese.
scampi and avocado salad with Caribbean spiced Mahi Mahi and tobacco onions
Finally….
Citrus is extremely important in this area of Brazil as is cheese so to highlight this, Chef Michael Bennett paired his recipes to reflect the locally available foods for Itajuba’s first culinary expo. The aftermath of all this was the dinner’s finishing touches of Chef Michael’s Saint Maarten, FIVE-liquor Tiramisu made with local Brazilian espresso and locally produced Mascarpone cheese.
The second dessert choice of a Brazilian chocolate and cardamom seed ganached base of a passionfruit – that is always extremely popular in Brazil – Tart; with a cardamom-ricotta cheese (also a locally produced cheese) Mousse dressed with a caramelized citrus sauce was a fitter selection proving Chef Michael use of localized ingredient theory.
Two of the most important things in the Brazilian kitchen’s pantry; chocolate and passionfruit collide in this Passionfruit Tart dessert especially formatted for this #miaminights event
Chef Michael Bennett’s FIVE Liquor Tiramesu
The dinner was of course topped off with a multiple red and white Chilean wine selections.
Wine selection for #Miaminights
An Afternoon in another Country or, it just seems that way….
Campos do Jordao; the city that Switzerland lost during the last continental shift.
This is a city that if you did not drive here yourself, you would believe that you were secretly discarded in Switzerland by alien abductors.
Traveling a little more than an hour from our Itajuba gastronomic haven we ventured out early in the afternoon to Campos Do Jordao and toured the city’s mountainous (elevation: 6,000 feet) neighborhoods and after we crossed the city’s gates anyone can tell that this city was going to be very different.
The architecture in this city is amazing #nytimestravel
The architecture in this city is amazing #nytimestravel
The architecture in this city is amazing #nytimestravel
The architecture in this city is amazing #nytimestravel
The architecture in this city is amazing #nytimestravel
The architecture in this city is amazing #nytimestravel
The architecture in this city is amazing #nytimestravel
This city is known to be Brazil’s fashionableSwiss hot chocolate and fondue capital.
This is a place that in the wintertime (June and July –where the population quadruples) is filled with Brazilians fleeing the warm climes of equatorial Brazil to feel as though they absconded the South American continent to vacation in Switzerland’s Alps. This town is purely a vacationer’s paradise. Even in the Brazilian summer, the nights are chilly at this altitude. The town is filled with gift stores, restaurants, bars and seems to be the only reason that people are on the streets, rambling between one watering hole to another. Some people actually use the city’s antique commuter train to do this like a metro trolley.
Sao Lourenco (the Water City) and the Hotel Brasil
Overview of the city of Sao Laurenco, Brazil
This city is the ultimate spring (September to October) afternoon city. A trip to Brazil’s water city can’t be complete without touring it greatest asset – theWater Park.
Entrance of #saolaurencos water park
#96hoursinbrazil
#96hoursinbrazil
The park is a walking tour of nine different tastings of naturally occurring springs. All have of the water stations have different tasting water because of the changing mineral content of each spring. To me it was just amazing to see an adjoining park district separated by little more than a few hundred yards yet, the taste from the wells were completely dissimilar.
Description for the naturally sparkling water spring.
Each spring has different medicinal purposes.
Water station in Sao Laurenco’s water park
Bottling our own Naturally sparkling water in #SaoLaurenco
Sights in Brazil #96hoursinbrazil #nytimestravel
Opposite the park (Parque das Águas) district of São Lourenço; in the city center is a tradition in São Lourenço, Brazil – theHotel Brasil.
Across the lake view of #HotelBrasil #nytimestravel
Lakeview of #HotelBrasil
An afternoon at the park will lead to a family in need of replenishment. Directly in front of the Water Park is the Hotel Brasil (com – Certificate of Excellence 2014). Since the founding of this area and the discovery of the healthful spring water, the Hotel Brasil has been there.
#HotelBrasil walking up from water park
Art collection in the #HotelBrasil in @saoLaurenco Brazil
The hotel stands out for its gentle care. This has been the branding the hotel exemplifies since the end of WW1.
Evaluation:
He who evaluates this hotel can not lose sight that Hotel Brasil has a full life story and during its existence it has been home to media and social personalities to Presidents of Brazil. Charming and this hotel today still keeps the glamour of the 1920’s DECO era despite several generational renovations and expansions.
Depiction of the #saoLaurenco area around #HotelBrasil in 1920
Decor:
The building is antiquated and flows with (the) DECO style of Rio de Janeiro and South Beach of the 1920’s and 30’s
Ambiance:
The ambiance is kick started with the ageless marble that surrounds you like a luxurious frock, in every sector of the hotel. Timeless flooring instigates your eyes to notice to original artisan-crafted windows and doors.
Don’t want to compare Hotel Brasil network hotels like; Holiday Inn, Hilton or Marriott. The hotel stands out for his gentle care and this branding is what the hotel exemplifies. It is a place that provides good moments of peace, beautiful photos with friends or family.
Sentimental value.
Since 1917 this family has been keeping the doors of Hotel Brasil open for road warriors and the summertime family vacationer. This will be the hotel you’ll want to come back to year after the year cared for by the same waiters that have been there for over 30 years. Reserve a stay on the south side of the hotel… to get views of the water park and its lake. The north side of the hotel has views of the city.
The family that owns a fab Deco hotel #HotelBrazil
