• Brasil a Gosto (São Paulo, Brazil)

I am a foreigner.  I know I am a foreigner, but I still find it slightly annoying when I am in a restaurant and the staff assumes that I only speak English.  Thus I sat in Brasil a Gosto, offended by the waitress’ manner implying my lack-of-looking Brazilian and wanting to see the local menu instead of the English one, despite not speaking Portuguese.

Brasil a Gosto is highly regarded by foreigners.  With ratings in guide books and travel websites, I did not expect it to be as good as local advice, but good enough for an enjoyable meal.

The main eating area is upstairs, and whilst there are tables in a pleasant setting on the ground floor, this was empty (making the restaurant seem unpopular for passers-by).  The upper level is decorated with white and feature walls where photos hang, a garden can been seen through the glass and a single pink and a single red gerbera sat on each table.  This along with the music, made me feel like I was at a holiday beach resort.

Brasil a Gosto presents its food and menu as an education.  The menu itself is a photo book worthy of a coffee table and I enjoyed reading through each section about the ingredients and their meaning in Brazil.
The ‘executive menu’ (three courses for R$44) cannot be changed, and no doubt will never be vegetarian.  Instead I ordered the moqueca, deciding it would be an interesting study to try a more tradition take of this dish compared to that at Paraiso Tropical, which I enjoyed so much.

The meal started with different types of bread: a version of Brazil’s popular cheese bread as well as milk bread and pumpkin bread.  The pumpkin one was enjoyable, like a croissant and was flavoured with herbs.  The milk bread had the texture of a brioche and did not taste like milk.  The cheese bread was one of the better ones I had had being moist and soft (the best were still the ones we put in the oven ourselves at the farm).

The moqueca was saucy; so much liquid it looked like a creamy, curry soup.  Zucchini, broccoli, carrots and beans made up the veggies as well as (my phobia inducing) uncooked white onion.  This came with several accompaniments; chili oil, coconut rice (slightly undercooked), beans with hibiscus (slightly gluggy) and baked flour.  The moqueca tasted of coconut, the lime flavour was extremely subtle.   Overall, the dish was not as exciting as that at Paraiso Tropical, which had a bigger variety of ingredients soaked together for a longer time so that they absorbed the flavours.  The moqueca at Brasil a Gosto seemed to have been prepared separately and fast.

Brasil a Gosto was filled with corporate clients and the service was aptly professional but impersonal.

Brasil a Gosto
R. Professor Azevedo do Amaral 70
Jardins, São Paulo, Brasil
(11) 3086 3565