Saturday, November 30, 2013

Good times and menus - São Paulo

Bakery menu
We live pretty much across the street from one of the largest padarias (bakeries) in São Paulo. Bakeries here have nothing to do with bakeries in the US. They are places for breakfast, lunch, tea, coffee, dinner, a beer, a pizza, some sushi (in this one anyway), the usual baked goods (except the selection is unusually huge), a deli, and a mini supermarket. They are like mini-mart meets Denny's meets Starbucks meets .... hmmm, I can't think of a good US bakery...where the food is a cheaper, usually very good and service quick and friendly.

A couple of days ago, my husband and I had a free moment for lunch together so we wandered over to the bakery. They have a huge 12 page menu (they also have an enormous buffet), and we sat down at the bar chairs and perused it. To my complete joy, the restaurant attempted to translate to English and that is always fodder for fun. 

I have to say that in general, things were not too bad until I got to the "beirute" (pronounced like "Bay-roo-chee") sandwiches. This is a type of sandwich made with pita bread, filled with some other yummy like grilled meat, cheese or veggies. It is a common type of sandwich in São Paulo, where it was thought to be imported by Syrian-Lebanese immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century. All this you can get from wikipedia, including this photo:



Anyway, check out number 090. We have "meat crouched  tempereded and Philadephia Cream Cheese." I won't even mention that Philadelphia is a brand and needs a "tm". But what exactly is "crouched" meat? Oh, ground meat. "Tempereded" is an an attempted at "seasoned", methinks, though the Portuguese is technically wrong as well "temporada" is a season like summer, not "temperada" which would be "seasoned."

Menus are a good time.

3 comments:

  1. It's not just in English. Have fun:

    http://kibeloco.com.br/?s=PRACAS+DO+BRAZIU

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    Replies
    1. Awesome!! Current favorite is discount on all birds except rabbit...but I could waste a lot more time there! :) thanks!

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    2. Me too. That one just cracked me up.

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