Last day in São Paulo and let’s change things up a bit….
A visit to the Museu Afro-Brasil in Parque Ibirapuera, for about two hours of wandering through and seeing some of the history of the African descendant community of Brazil, from the days of Portuguese slave trade to modern day. Well worth a visit! And a mere 6 reais, or about $1.60, to enter.
And, a visit to another city market, the Mercado Municipal de Pinheiros, which, I guess, given the sort of more young, hip and upscale neighborhood, fits with what is basically one level of little gourmet food shops and one of little gourmet food eateries. Much smaller than the main municipal market, we only spent about half an hour here, and then moved on to lunch.
Maybe a month and a half ago, we had a family of four here at Casa S from São Paulo, and they asserted that their absolute favorite restaurant, in fact, the only place all four of them liked in common, was Iconé Gastrorock, Rua Fidalga 79, Pinheiros. I put it on my map of spots to try, with a little bit of a question mark, since a) a week later the mom of the family wrote a somewhat nasty review about us, and b) I might have had some suspicions as to their palates before that, given that they’d lived for six years in China before moving to São Paulo and hadn’t found “any food worth eating or culture worth experiencing” in the country, except for a few spots in Shanghai, where they lived. Yeah, that should have been a clue.
Now, right off the bat, a little disappointing. After checking out their website and menu, the food looked interesting, and one dish in particular, a grilled octopus with wasabi sauce, sounded right up my alley. But they didn’t have it. In fact, they didn’t have anything from the menu that was on the website. Because it turns out that at lunch, they offer up only a prix fixe menu, with a choice of protein – fish of the day (tuna), meat of the day (pork chop), piece of chicken of the day (leg-thigh), accompanied by a choice of three of any of their side dishes – basically salad, a few types of potatoes, a fried egg, or rice. All run around 30 reais. The chef offered to whip up a special prix fixe lunch with a mix of shellfish and spaghetti for us….
Which turned out to be a quickly thrown together tomato sauce from garlic, butter, white wine, some canned tomatoes, and some parsley, tossed with some boxed cavatelli. The shellfish was all overcooked, and consisted of 3 mussels, 2 shrimp, and a couple of small pieces of calamari. And they hit us for a bill at the end of 68 reais for each plate, $18 – double the price of the lunch prix fixe, and more expensive than most of what’s on their dinner menu. And a pasta we could have whipped up at home in the same 10-15 minutes, and bluntly, made more interesting without much effort. And just to add insult to injury, when the chef found out I was a chef and we had a restaurant, he stopped talking, turned his back on us and literally walked out of the restaurant, telling his assistant to finish lunch service. WTF? As some might say, “what’s your problem dude?”
Let’s go for the big one for our last meal in São Paulo. We had to hit one of the modern spots, right? So it was off to Maní, Joaquim Antunes 210, Jardim Paulistano, and a splurge. We decided against one of the longer tasting menus, especially as they won’t tell you anything about what’s on it in advance (fine for me, not fine for Henry), and it’s really expensive – with wine, 730 reais per person, or $194!) and went with a more straightforward three course menu (choice of any appetizer, main course, and dessert) at 210 reais apiece, $56, plus wine/water extra.
Let’s see how I can do with describing these….
First up, we both got the Ceviche de Caju, as a little starter extra course. Underneath is basically diced cashew apple, the fruit attached to the nut (see midway down this post from Iquitos) with a little red onion and cilantro, topped by a scoop of shaved ice flavored with cachaça (essentially Brazilian rum) and cajuina (a local soft drink made from cashew apples). It was refreshing, but not much of a ceviche… it needed more acidity, salt, and spice – it was more of a sweet tartare than anything else. And normally, they charge 46 reais for that dish on its own!
Henry started with the Ovo do Maní, a sous vide egg in a foam of pupunha, the fruit of the peach palm. It was surprisingly better than he expected, the fruit foam tasting a bit like some sort of cheese.
I had the Lámen de lulas, or baby calamari ramen. What it turned out to be was noodles made from the calamari, thinly sliced, in a roasted ham broth, with pea and rice crisps, and some black garlic. It was quite good, and, also in a good way not at all what I expected.
Main course, Henry went with the Magret de pato, breast of duck, perfectly cooked, sliced, and served with a reduced jús, some roasted squash, and a little salad of radicchio and persimmon in a loquat vinaigrette. Again, he’d been worried the whole dish would be too sweet and fruity, but it turned out not to be, and he ate it all!
Still missing my octopus from lunch, I ordered the Polvo na brasa, grilled octopus, which turned out to be two somewhat small tentacles, grilled nicely, over a very mild rocoto chili paste, and served with roasted baby corn, okra, red onions, and peanuts, with a leaf wrapped packet of black rice on the side. Totally delicious, but a bit skimpy, I thought.
Henry left the choice of dessert in our charming waitress’ hands, and she brought him the Motel California, which, probably not for the first time, engendered some jokes about diving in and not coming out. Basically a sort of floating island, a merengue, with strawberries, vanilla cream, custard, and bitter chocolate. Perfect choice for him.
I, not surprisingly, went with the weirdest sounding dessert on the menu – the Da Lama ao Caos, literally, “from mud to chaos”. It was described on the menu as “sweet of smoked eggplant, dry curd, lemon peel, orange flower gelatin, caramelized pistachios, crispy “kneff” pastry (I think that’s what they call kadaif, the middle eastern shredded pastry), and black sesame sorbet”. And, that’s pretty much what it was, though mostly it was the shredded pastry and the sorbet, the other things were more or less little dots and bits underneath. Good, and quite unusual, though I think I’d have liked more of the dots and bits to add more punch to the dish.
A nice bottle of a local syrah rosé, from Guasparí. Some water. Tip. 701 reais, $186. Was it worth it? Yes, kind of. I would say that I didn’t find it to be quite the level of what I’d expected, though, that’s my expectations. On the other hand, Henry found it better than he was bracing himself for – he doesn’t generally like places like this, and he enjoyed himself thoroughly, other than the cashew ceviche at the beginning, which he tasted and then pushed across the table to me. We basically liked everything. Service was fantastic – both the sommelier and our waitress were gems. The space is very comfortable. So yes, on that basis, yes.
On the other hand, the 210 peso price tag for the prix fixe option… let’s see, if Henry had ordered his three courses, they would have added up to 180 reais – yes, the 46 reais for the ceviche would make it 226, but he wouldn’t have ordered it, and didn’t really want it. My three courses would have added up to 200 reais, and while I liked the ceviche and was happy to have tried it, I didn’t find it worth an extra $12, and also wouldn’t have ordered it. So, if I were to return, and I would if I were spending more time in SP, I’d probably just order three courses on their own (if I didn’t do the tasting menu), rather than go the route of the prix fixe.
And with that, we headed back to the hotel, for a short night’s sleep before a morning flight back to BA. Some inspirations to come in future Casa S menus, and I should do a little write-up on last week’s menus at some point in the next day or two!
