Camarão na Moranga: Best Brazilian Meal Yet!

We just returned from a road trip to Florianopolis. What a road trip it was! It took 10 hours to get there, all of which my husband had to drive since I’m incapable of driving a stick. Everyone says I can learn, but my brain will only allow one new thing at a time and the language is quite enough right now. It was cool and cloudy with some rain the whole weekend, but it didn’t ruin the trip. It was disappointing not to be out on the beach, but we used the time to drive around and explore the island. I’ll save the details of my impression of the island for later blog content. I thought I would devote this one to the food.

Thanks to a tip from a web forum, I was directed to a restaurant near Cachoeria do Bom Jesus called Antonio’s to try Camarão na Moranga. At first it looks as though this translates to shrimp in strawberry, however, morango is strawberry. Moranga is actually a variety of pumpkin here. We have been told that a restaurant near Maringá serves it as well, but we haven’t been out to try it yet.

This was absolutely the best meal I have had so far in Brazil, and I think it has become one of my favorite dishes ever. I know, it sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I’ve never had anything quite like it. Maybe it was the huge, fresh shrimp or the fact that it is close to Thanksgiving and I’m in mood for pumpkin, but it was amazing. They cook cheeses and shrimp inside a pumpkin and it is all served intact with the top of the pumpkin in place. (Unfortunately this was the one night I forgot my camera). You get to scoop out the shrimp and cheese stew and eat parts of the sweet pumpkin in the process. It was served with rice. No red meat anywhere can top this for me. If I can get my hands on a recipe I’m going to do my best to recreate it, however, with a small pumpkin. Have I mentioned that I have a mini-stove in our apartment? It is really small!

The rest of our meals consisted mainly of shrimp. I think we ate roughly the amount that one of the shrimp boats brings in. I had wanted to go to a fish market and price it per kilo, but never made it. Considering how much we were served and how much we paid, it has to be so much less expensive than in the states.

We were able to try Camarão Sequencia as well; very good. It was for duas pessoas (two people) and it was enough to feed 4 people, so much food. In some cases, Brazil has the US beat on portion sizes as unbelievable as that seems. Luckily we were able to share some with this little girl here. I have a soft spot for dogs, stray and all, so I snuck her some of our food out to the car and let her enjoy some camarão, too.

Saturday it rained, but we managed to find a seat at the Tropical Bar on Praia Mole and had stuffed crab for R$3.50. It was excellent and a nice change from shrimp.

As we had been told, the strong European influence is very evident the more south you go in Brazil. The Italian food (yes, we did without shrimp one night) seemed to be much more authentic than what we get in Maringa. Our poussada even had an Italian theme and we got Tiramisu and Apple Strudel for breakfast!

So, I still don’t have a tan. I’m still branca, as my Portuguese instructor would say, but the great food alone was worth the trip. More about the beaches to come.