An Epicurian Feast
Written: Jan 24 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Great intro to Brazilian food at a reasonable price
Cons: You'll overeat.
|
|
|
| suziamo's Full Review: Salvador da Bahia |
(This is an excerpt from my journal.)
I am in Salvador's Pelourinho, at Restaurant SENAC, the state run cooking school for a late lunch. All you can eat for $16 plus $1 for water and tip (Aug. 1998 prices). Well worth it. The girl students wear long very drapy African fabric skirts and sashes with headdresses. The boys, all young men, in black pans with white waiter top. It’s kind of like a banquet hall. The waiter in training actually walked over, lifted my water bottled, and wiped the water ring from the table!
Lining the white wall, steel tub after tub of Bahian "comida tipico." [typical food] Stewed gherkins with ham, black eyed peas, okra stew, acaraje, shrimp and onions in palm oil, manioc/pinto bean mixture, vegetable stew, coconut fish stew, pureed beans with coconut, four types of rice, peanut mush, feijoada – the national anti-vegetarian dish laced with animal parts, eggfish souffle, cozido – somehow translated as vegetables when in reality it has three meats and no visible veges.
I return for seconds on the pumpkin puree. Wood floors, nice fans, starched waiters. The view from this comfortable bustling room is of rundown homes and apartments across the hill.
I am fully prepared to endure a sugar induced black out to thoroughly document these desserts if need be. Quindim de yaya. The best dessert name I’ve ever seen. It’s flan but with a thick layer of coconut. Fried bananas, thin strips with cinnamon sugar and darkly cooked. Yum! Dark coconut candy, caramelized flakes. The same in white, just like a Mounds filling. Coconut flan, good but even better when I couple it with the coconut candy or friend banana. Ambrosia, not sure what it is. Made from grain? The orange fruit paste resembles earwax and is not much more tasty, not that I’d know.
The benefit of using the same ingredients repeatedly (coconut, bananas, sugar, butter, eggs) seems to be you can create different flavors and textures yet they all combine so well when eaten together. Wow! It has no butter. Bananas prata [black], sugar, water, cinnamon I find out later from the cookbook. I made one last investigation of the ambrosia and caramel bananas. Yes, they’re still heavenly. Now with sugar coated mouth, I eagerly watch o café being poured. The young waiter did not track my three trips to the dessert table, or saw nothing funny in it like I did. I could just hang out here all day.
How delightful, a cinnamon stick to stir the coffee. I am at Mesa No 15. I learn the phrase “fechar a conta,” to close the bill. The most satisfying $17 lunch I've had in muito tempo. Don't miss it.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
suziamo
|
|
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 7 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.