Plan B: Morretes

During our time in Curitiba over the holiday we were determined to make another visit the Ilha do Mel. I wanted more of that peaceful atmosphere – crashing waves, no cars (more importantly no car alarms), only the low rumble of boat motors. Fresh seafood didn’t sound too bad either.

We woke up to a rainy Sunday, but decided to make the drive anyway hoping it would clear up as we got closer to the coast. Well, it did…for part of the trip. I got excited as we drove on and the rain turned to more of a light drizzle and bright skies.

Then as we turned the corner on the final stretch of road, the skies opened up. Ugh. The timing could not have been worse and there was no sign of it letting up. We drove on to the parking lot for the ferry terminal and sat for a bit. Looking at all the cars and watching the rain we knew that it would be a day of sitting at a crowded restaurant, no hiking or good pictures.

We reluctantly made the final call and decided to drive back to Curitiba and stop in Morretes. Poor Morretes, the second class citizen of our travel itinerary, plan B.

People had been telling us about this place for a while. It is a city in the mountains that we soon learned holds some of the gold rush history of the country, similar to, but perhaps not as historically significant (depending on who you speak with) as a city like Ouro Preto.

That certainly doesn’t take away from its beauty though. Even on a foggy, rainy day which didn’t do the surrounding environment much justice, you could still tell that this was one beautiful setting.

There is a train you can take from Curitiba to Morretes that is supposed to be beautiful as well. For us though, driving ourselves 1 hour (versus a 4 hour train ride that costs more money) was a better option. Plus, as I mentioned, we were on the way back from the coast carrying our disappointment.

Wow, it turned out to be a great day. In fact, although I really wanted to revisit Ilha do Mel, I’m very happy that we didn’t pass up Morretes.

The city was a bit wet and dreary, but it was so inviting with a quaint, slightly European feel. I mean, they even had a guy giving gondola rides.

I do have to say, it is touristy! However, it’s not internationally touristy, but Brazilian touristy, so for ex-pats like us it still ends up being a rather authentic experience. We’ve heard many come from Curitiba to have lunch and this seemed to be true.

We didn’t hear one word of English the whole time, no shop assistant grabbing the English speaker when we walked in or waiters breaking into English once they heard us speaking at the table. I have to say it was really nice.

According to the big boards of historic explanation in the town center (which by the way, one side was written in English), the town does have a rich history as I mentioned before, however, if you ask someone around here why they go the answer you get will be “Barreado.”

Barreado is a traditional food from Paraná and now Morretes is one of the only places you can find it. It’s surprising that it hasn’t spread to other areas because it was overwhelmingly popular. It was obvious everyone was there to eat it, and every single restaurant in town served it.

We ended up at Olimpo which looked to be new in town, maybe not as historic as the others, but it had a great balcony. Honestly you can’t miss it, or the other places which serve the dish. This town is completely centered on this specific food.

Barreado is a meat stew made with beef, bay leaf, cilantro and other herbs. It is sealed in a clay pot to cook for 12 to 18 hours. Once at your table you eat it with mandioca flour, rice and fried bananas. This explanation is a good resource if you want to learn a bit more.

First, let me demonstrate for you the wrong way to eat Barreado.

You see, the waitress brought our food and asked us if we were familiar with the dish. We said no and apparently she must have slipped another question in there that we didn’t hear because she took our no to mean we didn’t want an explanation.

Only after we were halfway finished did we see a demonstration at another table. What you are supposed to do is mix the meat with lots (and I mean lots) of mandioca flour. Stir it up and mash the meat, add broth, stir it more and then eat it with rice. It literally looked like a meat paste when the waiter was done and I have to admit, not appetizing at all. Therefore, we kept eating it our way even after the demonstration.

I was completely surprised how much I enjoyed this dish. Usually when it comes to beef stew it all tastes the same, but the flavor of Barreado really stood out from anything I’ve had before. There was an intense, rich and smoky flavor, not to mention the slow roasting made it incredibly tender with no visible fat in sight.

Another ingredient that really stood out around the area was ginger. The small feira taking place during our visit was offering candies made of ginger and the ice cream shop we passed had a ginger flavor as well. I really wanted to try it so I was happy to learn our dessert would be bananas with ginger ice cream. It was great – spicy with fresh ginger and went so well with the bananas and cinnamon.

After full bellies of Barreado we walked around for more pictures of the city. I finally got my panela de barro (clay pot) to take back to the US. Wish me luck in the transport.

So all in all, it was one surprisingly successful travel day; an unexpected surprise.

What I keep realizing here is that it is in visiting these small towns like Morretes that you realize just how much of Brazil is left to explore. For me, these are the types of places that top my travel list for this country and had I not lived here I never would have known they existed.

Things We Could Learn

My days here are typically filled with discovering things I’ll miss when I’m gone and remembering things I still miss from home. In the midst of all that, I also regularly discover a few things the U.S. could learn from Brazil. And just so there is no mistake that I’m generalizing we can also call it “things my home country (or maybe just city) could learn from the one I’m living in (or maybe just Maringá).”

Help Others

First I should say that I fall into the camp which believes that you should not take more with you when you travel than you can handle by yourself. It is a rule I try to live by myself. However, there are certain situations of obvious exception. One being a mom with small kids, in which case she is going to have more to carry than she can handle by necessity not by choice.

On my last flight home, I was once again taken aback by the helpfulness of the public and especially of flight attendants. There was a mother with a baby on the my flight and the attendants put her bags in the overhead bin for her, carried them to the bus and people nearby picked up where they left off assisting her. It was nice to see so much helpfulness.

Oh, and did I mention that if it is raining the airport workers will walk you out on the runway with an umbrella? Now, that is mostly here in Maringá and Londrina, but still very helpful.

Now compare this to a flight in the U.S. Ha, ha, ha! Now an international flight might be an exception, but on the domestic flights you, and you alone, are responsible for finding your overhead space and getting your bag down. People will scoff at you as you struggle to get out of the aisle (however, in fairness they won’t usually push you as can sometimes be the case here). Simply put, unless you come across an incredibly friendly person, you are on your own.

The helpfulness also extends to respect for the elderly, something I think is sadly dying around much of the States. These individuals here receive the ultimate amount of assistance from seats being given up for them to getting help to climb up a stair.

So helping others out a little bit during travel could be a refreshing change at home. However, I do still have to point out that if you are traveling for a week and have two suitcases weighing 70 lbs each because you can’t bear the thought of a trip with out 20 pairs of shoes to match each of your outfits; well, you are still on your own in my book. Take off those four inch heels, wear some tennis shoes and start lifting weights! And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Credit Card Machines

Every restaurant we have been to here has transportable credit card scanners that they bring to your table. Can someone please explain to me why we don’t have this in the U.S.?!! Hopefully, I’m wrong. Maybe some places do and it is starting to spread. I hope so!

Bringing the machine to the table to swipe the card in front of the customer eliminates all the shadiness that exists around paying a bill at a restaurant in the States. The waiter takes the card goes to the register and enters the info. Often when more than one bill is being paid at once totals get confused and then there is that convenient tip fraud. You know, where the service staff just happens to give themselves an extra dollar or ten when you just order drinks and a snack. Oh yes it does happen, I was a victim myself. The waiter gave himself an $11.00 tip on a $6.00 bill by slipping in an extra one. Never did get that money back because the owners took the side of the waiter and I was in the process of moving at the time so I couldn’t follow up.

We have to get these little machines in the U.S.! It is way to logical not to.

Drink More Beer

Yes, I said it – drink more beer. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say drink more beer, but for some, just spread your weekend binge drinking out so it equals a week of moderate drinking. This isn’t a feeling I’ve developed just from living in Brazil. I had the same view upon returning from a trip to Vienna when my husband studied there. They sold both beer and wine in the school cafeteria and the drinking atmosphere was so relaxed and, well, accepted.

Then we came back to the mentality that you must drink to get wasted and cocktails are for happy hour and beer for pizza and parties. I have truly enjoyed ordering beer on a Saturday at noon or at a week night dinner out without anyone giving it a second thought. I’m not looking forward to going back to the old mentality.

Oh, and while you’re at it with drinking more beer in the U.S., lower the prices too for goodness sake. Oh how I will miss the 2 USD liter garrafas.

Stay Small

After being surrounded by family-size packs and economy bulk, coming to supermarkets here was quite a shock. Everything was just so tiny. This goes for bags of chips, crackers, cases of soda and even fruit. However, little by little the size of things is increasing around here. It is visibly noticeable comparing now with when we arrived two years ago. The small bags of chips that were equivalent to a personal snack size in the U.S. have now doubled. They aren’t as big as the U.S. yet, but growing.

My advice – stay small! Well, of course, that is unless you want to get big like we have in the U.S. (i.e. obesity rates). In the U.S. food manufacturers need to go back to small and consumers need to start eating small. Those foods aren’t good in the first place, but less of them is better than an more.


And guess what? With all my ranting and raving I actually missed my 2 year anniversary a while back. August 1st marked two years for living in Brazil. Just look at all I’ve learned!

The Answer is – Yes!

Since living in Brazil there has been one question that gets asked of us over, and over, and over, and over again. “Have you had feijoada?” It could be a Brazilian friend, acquaintance or even a person back home with culinary interests.

My favorite answer for the past several months has been that I’ve had vegetarian feijoada. This always gave me a good laugh because it would usually result in a look of completely surprise by the person asking the question. Do they even make that? Well, yes they do, at the little vegetarian restaurant I’ve grown to love here. It’s full of soy-based meats which usually aren’t my cup of tea and not that good for you either, but in the end it is just black beans and rice and I like that.

To be honest, I was getting a little tired of the question. Personally, I feel that Brazil has so much more to offer regarding food than feijoada. I realize it is the national dish, and a visitor should experience it, but when it comes down to it you’re talking about black beans, pork and rice. As with most of the dishes, the farofa (toasted manioc flour with bacon) and the vinaigrette (tomatoes, onion, parsley and lime juice) really make the meal for me.

Well, my husband had wanted to try the real thing, and I figured I couldn’t keep making my claim that there were better foods than feijoada if I had never actually had the real thing so we set out to try it on Saturday.

There were a couple different options for Saturday feijoada and we headed to our first pick which, as it turns out, no longer offers it on the weekends. So our second pick was pretty much by default because it was along the walk back to our apartment. This place is actually a rodizio pizza joint during the week, but on Saturday it is traditional feijoada buffet.

The experience as a whole was quite pleasant. There were several people there and even a live band playing samba music. We really need to learn more about the different types of samba here. We know there are several and this was the kind we liked, but we couldn’t identify it. I had my heart set on a picture and maybe even a little filming, but as we finished up and I was ready, the band took a break to eat lunch!

Okay, so let’s talk about the food. I’ve mentioned that feijoada is a national, traditional dish which in most cultures translates to - it has a lot of random animal parts. In the case of feijoada this comes in the form of the pig.

I must also mention that almost every person we’ve met here has told us we should try feijoada. Then when I express concern about random pig parts they quickly tell me that they would never eat it out. They would only eat their grandma’s or moms. Well, okay, so you are suggesting I go out and eat, but telling me you never would. Hence, the reason we’ve been here two years and haven’t had it yet.

Most restaurants who offer special feijoada days are kind enough to separate out all the parts so you can choose beans, along with the meat you want, or no meat, as they just had black beans as well. This is why you see all the different crocks in the picture.

So depending what you enjoy you could have your beans with calabresa (a sausage), carne seca (dried meat), costela (rib), pé (pig foot) or orelha (pig ear). Hmmm…can you guess which one I went for? I stuck with calabresa, a tiny bit of carne seca and then just beans.

At one point when there were no people around, I did a little digging with the spoon in the pot of all the random parts. I was tempted to try the pig ear and then pulled up a nice flabby piece of flesh which practically initiated the gag reflex. The pot with the feet was full of pieces of bone. Then there was this one pot that we couldn’t identify – rabo. Considering that google is telling me that rabo translates to bum, posterior, stern or tail, by the looks of what was in that pot, I’m going have to go with tail.

The thing is if someone would offer me a tiny bite of say ear or a small piece of meat off the foot, I’d probably try it (sorry, no-go on the tail). However, I do not want a big piece of said part staring back at me from my plate. I just can’t stomach it.

So, the feijoada, minus certain parts, was very good, but I had no doubt it would be. However, I will say it made us feel like complete crap the rest of the day. We literally walked in the door and hit the bed for a nap. Even after the nap we could barely move. It wasn’t the typical bean bloating and all that, we just felt awful. Personally I think it is all the pork fat that my body simply isn’t used to. It was a good, cultural experience, but I doubt I’ll be dining on an afternoon of feijoada again anytime soon.

After the experience my prior opinion still stands, however. If you are in Brazil, try feijoada, but please don’t stop there. There are so many other foods that I would consider much better especially if on the coast. Moqueca (a stew made with peppers, onions, meat or seafood and coconut milk) and Camarão na Moranga (shrimp and cheese baked in a pumpkin) come to mind.

At lunch I asked my husband if you can truly say you’ve had feijoada if you didn’t have all the parts. I don’t know what others would say, but I think I’m going to go with yes. Finally I can stop talking with people about it because – Yes! I’ve had feijoada.

I Had a Feeling…

Over this past weekend we finally tried out the newest place in town – Flor Café. It had been described to me as being “chic” and unlike anything else in Maringá. The outside certainly had us intrigued. It is in a two story building on a corner with large windows around the front and side.

True to its name, Flor Café does have flowers. In fact, it is like a coffee shop slash home décor shop. Half of it has couches that I can only assume are for sitting, but they look a bit more like an upscale furniture store display. Surrounding this area is all kind of home décor gift items for sale as well as candy and flowers.

Although the service counter is filled with the typical pastel, empanada, fried snack selection that every single café I’ve ever been to in Brazil has, the rest of the menu is kind of nice. Lots of desserts and specialty coffees/hot chocolates. And get this! The sandwiches actually come with chips or a small salad!

This issue has been an ongoing point of discussion among my husband and I and we were surprised when the lack of a “side” was also mentioned by a visitor not long ago. When you order a sandwich here you just get the sandwich. Not that I enjoy eating lots of chips, but sometimes you just crave a little something else. We are so used to the whole ½ and ½ soup, salad, sandwich combos in the US it feels like something is missing when you just get a sandwich. Anyway, apparently you can get that something at Flor Café.

We did have dinner while there. We shared the mushroom bruschetta. My husband had the croque monsieur on which they went a bit crazy with the cheese. Is there even a sandwich under there?

Oh, that little swirl of orange with black specs in it, that’s maracujá. It tasted like they cooked it down into a reduction and crushed the seeds. That stuff is so amazing. I wished they had drizzled the whole plate!

I had the individual escondidinho de carne seca which is one of my favorite Brazilian dishes. It has been described as a Brazilian Shepherd’s pie with the top made of mandioca (yucca, manioc) instead of potato. This one came out wrapped like a gift. I have no idea why. Too keep warm? To make it fancy? I’m not quite sure.

So this is where it started.

I had a feeling with this being such a chic, modern establishment in the city that there would likely be English somewhere. The place does have a bit of international flair. When it came time for dessert, I got up to look at the cakes and pies at the counter. A waiter asked me (in Portuguese) if I had questions. I asked him about one of the cakes and he proceeded to describe each one to me.

He was about halfway through and he said, “Where are you from?”

And there it was.

Turns out he lived in Tampa for five years. Later he started a conversation with my husband, and, of course, apologized that his English wasn’t very good. Yeah right. I didn’t even noticed an accent and his use of the word “cool” gave away that he had been in the U.S. a while.

Always a small world around here. It's nice that we are continually meeting new, friendly people.
So as for Flor Café, a cool place for sure. I probably wouldn’t go back for dinner because it wasn’t exceptionally exciting and a bit overpriced, however, if I’m in the mood for a fancy coffee or hot chocolate I’ll be swinging back by.

I guess I should clarify that the dinner wasn’t overly exciting except for one item offered. I got a picture off the menu.

This is brie cheese baked in a pastry and served with honeycomb. How tasty is that? However, at R$52 on a menu of things costing R$20 or less it is quite a splurge.

Blumenau

Upon first hearing about it, I was immediately intrigued by the idea of a European Valley in Brazil. I learned a lot about the area sitting next to a friendly Brazilian during one my flights to the US. He lived in the US, but traveled back to Sao Paulo for work regularly and had traveled his home country extensively.

On the flight he told me all about this are of the country and how there were small towns which had a high concentration of German and Italian immigrants. This was reflected in the city designs, foods and languages spoken.

Others we’ve met during our abroad experience have echoed this same information. We had been hearing about Blumenau since we moved to Brazil. Most of this came from people talking about the Oktoberfest held there each year.

After hearing more and more about it I knew I really wanted to visit the city of Blumenau to experience this strong German influence in Brazil. To be honest though, the reviews were really mixed. These are a few things we were told by friends and acquaintances.

-It’s a beautiful city with great German beer and food.
-Don’t go to Oktoberfest. It is just a college drunken fest and they only serve Brahma.
-There’s really nothing interesting to see there.
-It is a great place to spend a weekend.
-It is German, but has changed a lot. You have to go outside the city to smaller towns like Pomerode to see a lot of German influence and hear the language.

Despite the mixed reviews we decided we did want to see this place and since it is somewhat on the way from Florianopolis we chose to spend one night there on our drive back from the coast.

As we drove into the city it took a while to start seeing evidence of German culture.

Once we got downtown though, we realized there were several buildings that resembled those which you think of when Bavaria comes to mind. However, along with this were signs that you were certainly still in Brazil – typical Brazilian department stores, churro and pipoca carts and people sitting out in plastic chairs drinking Bramha and Bohemia.

This building is known as the castle and it now houses a Havan store. One of the tourist brochures we got said that it is the second most photographed structure/site in southern Brazil after only Foz de Iguaçu.

We saw a beer garden listed on the tourist map so we headed in that direction. It turned out to be a park, but there was a beer museum there and we were able to learn about all the microbreweries in the surrounding area. There was a restaurant there serving Eisenbahn which is brewed in Blumenau so that was our first stop. We can get this in Curitiba too, but having it a bit closer to the source was worth it. The wheat beer was excellent.

We were expecting there to be a lot of German restaurants, but at first glance this was not the case. However, Café Colonial was very popular and we just happened to be staying at the hotel which was widely known for having the best one, Hotel Gloria.

If you aren’t familiar Café Colonial it is basically a dessert dream come true. It is a buffet of cakes, tortas, pastries and even a few breads and salty snacks. The hours are usually late afternoon into the evening, just the time you want to overdose on sugar to get you through the day. We have experienced a Café Colonial in Curitiba, but didn’t make the actual event in Blumenau. We did however get free breakfast at the hotel and they had many of their cakes on the buffet that morning. They were excellent!

We wanted a traditional German meal during our stay and the restaurant Frohsinn was repeatedly recommended to us. It sits up on a hill overlooking the city. We were expecting some type of casual beer garden, but it turned out to be more of an elegant restaurant.

We couldn’t pass up the Oktoberfest platter which feeds two, by the way (this really means it feeds four). Pork knee, sausages, stuffed duck, spaetzle, sauerkraut, pureed peas and potatoes came out on this massive platter almost as long as our table. Every bit of it was delicious. We liked the pork knee better than the one we had in Vienna last summer.

An added treat was that we got to try another microbrew, this one Schronstein from the city of Pomerode. We really enjoyed it as well, but I think Eisenbahn remains my favorite when it comes to Brazilian beer.

I think my husband and I both agree that Blumenau is a cool place to visit if it is on the way from one destination to another. However, we wouldn’t recommend that someone make a special trip there and are happy that we didn’t travel just to see it.

The food and beer were excellent and a nice change from the norm for us. On the other hand, the city itself, although charming, isn’t incredibly impressive or different; at least not so much so as to warrant a 10 hour drive there for us. I am very happy that we got to see it though and I still find that whole area of the country appealing. I think more exploration of the surrounding towns is a must if you go. If we would have had more time we definitely would have set out on some driving adventures outside of Blumenau.

Floripa Round 2

After all the excitement of the Volta, we were able to take two nights and relax on the island. On our first trip we stayed at Praia Brava at the very north end of the island and hung out at Praia Mole on the east of the island as well.

This time we thought we would try out a new area and chose the northwest. We originally wanted to stay at Jurerê, but were drawn to Canasvieiras due to the cheaper prices. Not a smart decision. We took a suggestion from an acquaintance here and the hotel room turned out to be more like a hostel.

I'm okay with a simple room as long as it is clean, but we really weren't in the mood for this kind of trip. We wanted to relax in a comfortable room and we weren't that impressed with the beach there so we left.

We headed to Jurerê as we had originally planned and got a room at the Jurerê Beach Village. This place is great. It has a resort feel, and although the rooms are very basic as are all hotel rooms we've come across in Brazil, the atmosphere more than made up for it.

There were two pools, one heated, and a deck which walked right out on the beach. The beach was very nice, but we were surprised to find that with the tide it nearly disappeared around 3:00 pm. It was long and relatively wide during other parts of the day, though. We went for a jog one morning and my husband estimated that it was probably about 6K long.

We are always surprised to hear our friends here tell us that right now isn't a good time to go to Floripa because it is too cold. It seems people from Curitiba are only interested in going December through February.

The weather was perfect for us. It was hot in the sun and comfortable in the shade. The nights were cool and breezy. The lack of crowds and the price we got on the room for the low season was even better. There was practically no one at the resort at all, just a handful of couples and a few kids.

You do sacrifice a few things by going this time of year and enjoying the quiet though. The biggest of these is a lack of restaurants. Many places close for the season or are only open on the weekends. We didn't have a shortage of food though. We found a local seafood place, called Toca, open and had some great moqueca with shrimp and calamari.

The rest of the time we ate at the hotel which was really delicious and quite reasonably priced. We are so used hotel food prices being hiked up, but drinks and meals were about the same as what we pay in Curitiba. At the hotel we had an amazing lunch of bake oysters and casquinha de siri (stuffed crab).

We tried the Festival of Shrimp as well. It was a little different the the sequência de camarão that is so popular on the island. Steamed shrimp, fried shrimp, fish in shrimp sauce, bolinhos de siri, potatoes and rice were all served in one clay pot. It was excellent and the dessert of maracujá sorbet and a brownie was so unique, one of the best desserts we've had in Brazil.

The service was outstanding. One night we had a waiter who started speaking English to us. He spoke very well and we asked him if he had been to the US since most people who speak at his level and with a US American accent have been at some point. He told us no and that he had not even studied. He simply taught himself from working with tourists. That is so amazing to me.

There were umbrellas and chairs for use among guests of the resort. We were also able to get drink service on the beach, which is something we aren't at all used to so I took advantage by ordering a caprioska (caipirinha with vodka instead of cachaça) with mango.

Our two days there were exactly what we were looking for – quiet time on the beach with a lot of fresh seafood.