Last Stop. Rio!

Last update of our Brazilian vacation Hello?! Isn't this a NYC food blog?

I think all of those pictures of SUN! SAND! HAMMOCKS! caused the Brazilian gods to be way mad at us. Welcome Clouds. And Rain.

Luckily the last 2 days in Rio were sunny enough for everyone to whip out their bathing suits.

But first some food updates.

Koni. A sushi shop specializing in hand rolls.

This was shrimp tempura with roe. Looks like cheetos right? It's roe.

This is at the famous Cafe Columbia coffeeshop. Lots of tourists for all the sweets in the glass cases.

We settled on a walnut and goat cheese (?) quiche and some fried fritter.

Aah Brazilian steakhouse. Where they try to load you up with lots and lots of carbs, and then loads of servers unleash towards your table and come around with skewers of meat and carve you all things brown and grey.

This was Porcão which I highly recommend.

Have no fear! Mr. Broad, was not about to fall for those carbs! They even had a huge buffet consisting of sushi, fish, pastas, salad (aah, veggies!) But Mr. Broad was ready to get his meat's worth (aside from some sushi). We pushed them aside, turned our card to "Green" and said Sim! Sim! (Yes, Yes for the non-Portuguese speaking tongue)

The servers cutting the meat onto people's plates.

I'm presenting Chicken Hearts.

Sidenote- How did food like ribs become "normal" but chicken hearts became like, totally ewwww??

Well, somebody get out the rebranding campaign. Offal is back.

Lamb, chicken hearts, and other things brown.

I took the "take a bite of meat and move on" technique.

As if there's any room...(There wasn't, but I had to take the picture)

Enough steakhouse. This is Feijoada. (serves 2 but really probably could have served 6).

This dish is as typical Brazilian as American apple pie. (However, it was the first time I saw it at a restaurant so you be the judge).

Starting at the top: pork rinds on some greens, dried sausage, farofa (fried manioc or flour), fried plantains, and an orange. Random.

It comes with rice and some blood sausage stew thing. And some black beans not pictured.

This is what it looked like plated.

But time for some sights...

This is a reading room in downtown Brazil. Those are all books. I was in love.

The famous Christ the Redeemer. So apparently they recommend going to see this statue on a non cloudy day. No kidding.

Still quite a sight. Even if you are Jewish.

A favella in the distance. We could NOT stop talking about City of God. Okay, I could not stop talking about City of God. But like scary crap. Who shoots down a military helicopter?!

And the beaches. The Olympics are all the rage. Note to Rio, you may want to fix the situation mentioned above with the favellas shooting the helicopters thing.

This guy had shrimp that he sold on the beach.

And we tried the national drink on a self guided pub tour.

And this was just the start.

And finally a soccer game. It was pouring rain. POURING. And out came the flares by the opposing fans.

So Brazil. Two weeks in Brazil and I'm ready for more South America. I am now recommending Brazil to everyone. Go and follow our itinerary. And even hit up the samba club. Which there are no pictures of, because DUH tourists. But it was AWESOME. SAMBA! And Brazilian Steakhouse! Okay, I can pass on the Brazilian steakhouse for awhile. A long awhile. But samba music. Getting Mr. Broad to dance to the Samba, is worth the trip back to Brazil for sure.

Oh white man dancing. How I love...

BRAZIL: 10

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More Hammocks.. And Sand. Lots of Sand.

Okay. So Mr. Broad and I were ready to get to Jericoacoara!

In order to get there... the ONLY way was to either:

1) take the local (7.5 hours)

2) take the express bus (4.5 hours)

3) take a helicopter that is about $4K a person.

The express bus it was!

I must admit I was a bit skeptical about where we were going. The only Americans on the bus which felt like it led to nowhere... We even switched busses mid way to a 4 wheel drive bus. I was starting to think the helicopter was the way to go.

And then we got there.

Endless sand dunes on the beach.

Comb the dessert! Oh that's when the Spaceballs quotes started... (We've been JAMMED! The WORST of the them all... Raspberry!) Side note: Rick Moranis- most underrated actor.

The streets of this town are all composed of sand

Lots of water activities.

This is some random guy doing kite surfing.

We went windsurfing. This is not us. Our windsurfs spent a lot of time in the water.

The wind was perfect

And then everyone hikes to the top of the sand dunes to watch the sunset.

The sun just gets swallowed up by the ocean. Something about watching a sunset on the equator collapse into the ocean. It's really something.

A close up

Aaah fun in the sand dunes.

Sand skiing

Summersaults

The food was pretty good. Nothing stood out completely and I was getting a lot of "Are you REALLY going to take pictures of everything we eat while on vacation" looks. "Cause we're on vacation and I may not want you to document everything we eat" look.

Aah true.

But Acai. Aah, I like you. You cool, trendy superfood group. When are you coming to New York? Well, I'm sure you're here. But where ARE you?!

This is a cashew. The top part is a fruit which is eaten consumed thoughout Brazil (juices, etc.) The bottom part is the nut you're familiar with. It is poisonous if you eat it right away which was a good warning to Mr. Broad.

At night these guys line the sand. Cheapest mixed drinks we ever had at $2.

No real pictures of wildlife yet but check out this picture of a bird we saw. What IS this? Where's that google app when you need it??

But back at our "villa." Sometimes you just need to relax.

Underneath our cottage on stilts- pure relaxation.

Next up was RIO! Well, first it was back to Fortaleza for a night. And then a flight to RIO! AND because we booked the WRONG BUS... we took a 7.5 hour bus ride back. Stopped in every small town you could think of to pick up everyone's mother. Have no fear, the bus ride included a Lifetime movie, Living Proof, in Portuguese with English subtitles that left me an emotional MESS! Oh I was ready to get off that bus.

That helicopter was looking mighty fine at this point.

But Rio. Next stop... Rio!

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A stop over in Fortaleza...

In order to get to our next destination we needed to head to Fortaleza to catch a bus from there. It's the only way to get to Jericoacara and we're mavericks like that.

We had a connecting flight to Fortaleza since Fernando is really in the middle of nowhere and killed some time in between at Recife airport.

Note to Rio: I know you are hosting an Olympics in like 7 years so perhaps you should take a look at Recife's airport because you have a lot of work to do...

Recife Airport (I know, I'm really stretching with this post here)

The servers at one of their restaurants are on roller skates! How cool!

Introducing Brazil's version of McDonald's.

Bob's Burger.

Mr. Broad had to try some. I watched instead. It looked to be a pretty grey and nasty burger if I do say so myself. Mr. Broad added words like dry and flavorless.

And I had to take a picture of this store because I thought it meant pregnant monkey.

It didn't. It's a type of monkey according to Wikipedia.

Oops.

Yeah we had time to kill. And then we got to Fortaleza. I don't have too many pictures of that city if that should tell you something. That and once we got back from Fernando de Noronha Mr. Broad and I thought how can any other beach stack up?! (Oh we were mistaken after our next destination).

Fortaleza isn't bad by any means- a kinda Miami Beach strip once we got out of the BAD area (Why is that always near the airport?) And their main strip has a nightly street market.

Oh how I love a good street market...

Next up Jericoacoara...

Oh just wait.

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