Master Chi Fu - São Paulo

Chi Fu Restaurant: image credit br.kekanto.br

So, as I mentioned yesterday, the Chinese New Year street celebration was hot and took long enough for us to build up a mighty hunger. For years now I have heard about a Chinese restaurant named "Chi Fu"--for various reasons (flat tire, double-booked lunches, illness) I had missed numerous invitations there. But not Sunday--we were right across the street.

My friend Michelle, a teacher at my kids' school, also told us that her son was anxious to have his friends try out frog legs. If you thought my kids at all squeamish, you would be wrong. They would eat fried bugs if the challenge were there. Actually they would probably feel sorry for the bugs.

Chi Fu is across the street from the Praça da Liberdade and almost literally on top of the Liberdade metro station. Its entryway reminded me of every Chinese restaurant I have ever been in--reception in front, carp pond, waiting line and not-nearly enough room for waiting and sitting. When we got there, Michelle went up to the reception desk and spoke to them in Chinese. What she probably said is "these sunburned gringos need to eat NOW so can you help me out?" We were seventh on a wait list, and with 8 people, I thought that would be an hour. But no, they said 20 minutes. In reality it was 10 minutes.

A waitress! Grab her, quick!

All the tables are large and round, seating anywhere from 10 to 20 people. If you have a small group and the waitlist is big, expect to share a table. In the middle of each one is one of those lazy Susan devices which generally causes a huge issue with my twins as they each want to drive it a different direction. This time I got smart and seated them next to each other.

Michelle did the ordering for us: we made no attempt to understand the waitresses. This is the biggest complaint I hear on the web reviews--service is non Portuguese speaking, and non-existent. Michelle ordered frog legs, rice, sweet and sour chicken, pork and Chinese watercress. My kids were terribly disappointed that we did not get noodles so they could pose like Master Shifu from Kung Fu Panda with a noodle on their lips. 

The food was great, particularly the frog legs which were lightly fried. You did have to be a little patient to nibble all the meat from those tiny bones (oops, sorry, vegetarians). Michelle got up to get forks and knives for my kids (who had resorted to stabbing things with their chopsticks), to get a water for me and also got the to-go boxes at the end. Service is not fast. Do not go there starving. The quantities are huge, however. We brought home much of the food.

The kids ate quickly and then disappeared to the front of the restaurant. When I went to check on them, I caught one of my twins trying to catch the foot-and-a-half long carp with his bare hands. Funny how our check came really quickly. It was in Chinese, though, so we had Michelle check it. For all that food, it was about $20 per adult. I probably would have been charged more if my kid had actually caught the carp.

Chi Fu Restaurant
Praça Carlos Gomes, 200
Liberdade
Open every day 11 am-4 pm, 6 pm-10 pm

Ah, and don't bring your credit or debit cards, nor check. Cash only.

Lions and Dragons, oh my! - São Paulo

The white lion. His tail wags and eyelids wink.

One of my sons takes Chinese class after school once a week. Yes, he is only 7 years old and I don't know how much of this he will retain, but he loves it and it's taught by a friend of mine. So, when we were invited to go with this teacher and another friend's family to Chinese New Year celebrations in São Paulo, we immediately said yes.

The celebrations were over two days and located in the neighborhood of Liberdade, a place I really need to visit more often. Liberdade is known as the Japanese neighborhood, and has the largest concentration of people of Japanese descent in the city. And, if you didn't already know it, São Paulo has the biggest "colony" of Japanese outside of Japan. Cool. It also has other Asian stores and some of the best Chinese food in the city.

This past month has been the hottest month on record in São Paulo, and one family quickly gave up on the outing. But we are hardcore. Temperatures that afternoon were to reach 95F/35C. 

My teacher friend and I decided to metro in and met at the Faria Lima station on the yellow line. I only specify this because the yellow line is the youngest line in São Paulo and it is "beleza" or a beauty. Driverless cars, clean, new, flashy light above the train door exit to tell you at which station you have arrived.  We had to switch in Luz to the blue line. The Blue Line, poor thing, is the first metro line of São Paulo, and indeed the first one built in Brazil, and was inaugurated in the early 1970s. And it shows--dark stations, crappy train cars. 

We packed ourselves in with people coming from the intracity bus station, with bicyclists and bicycles from the morning's Bike Tour event, and the usual collection of riff raff and non-riff raff. By the way, I count myself as riff-raff.

Open Sesame! Our three lion magnets getting on the metro-oh-oh!

When we got to Liberdade, the place was packed. I was alone with the 7 year old twins that day and I was quite stressed out hanging on to them. We met up with our South African friends and went to find ourselves a place to save for the passing Dragon dance scheduled one hour from then. The one dad held down the kids (not literally) and the places (literally) while the moms went in search of tasty treats for the 3 boys and 1 girl. Needless to say that the very second we leave the house in the morning, my kids are starrrrrrving. We got some meat, fish and shrimp on a stick. That is a very bad translation.

We were about 30 feet from the main stage, and when we arrived, there was a calligraphy demonstration and then a guy trying to teach us all a bit of Chinese. I will never again forget the word for horse as yelled by 500 people "mah". Not "maaaaaaaaah". Not "maaaaaannnhhhh". My son who is taking Chinese loves this particular word so I had actually known it before I got there but by the end of the teaching session, we were both laughing too hard to get the word right.

Then came bizarreness. As we waited for the dragons, a cover band came up with a woman lead singer. They commenced to serenade us with such Chinese classics as "Come Together" by the Beatles, "Welcome to the Jungle" by whatever those guys names are, "Take on Me" by a-ha (I am not kidding, this was the actual playlist. So weird!) and my personal favorite "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC. At a Chinese New Year celebration? Did someone cancel last minute? Did the organizers forget to listen to the demo tape? Ear-splitting.

And so we waited and waited. We finally could see the dragons way down the street. There was one, or was that a mirage and there were two? Does anyone remember that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the attacking army is coming and coming but never gets there? They seem to always be in the same place and then after a looooonnnnnngggg time, they are right there killing you. The dragons were coming towards us for about an hour, and then suddenly they were there and then suddenly they were gone!

11:30. Dragon waaaaaaay down the street

12:00 Dragon still too far way to see well (it's the gold thing)

 

 

 

Aggh! 12:15 Dragon on top of us! Photo credit to my friend Michelle

The best news is finally the Beatles/AC-DC/ a-ha cover band shut up so we could concentrate on the good stuff. Two dragons came first, and then some drummers and then came the lion dance. I had a feeling that our three boys were going to come in for some attention. My friend's son is Filipino/Chinese and was wearing a cute Chinese shirt, one of my twins is bright blonde and the other attracts attention with his green eyes. So it surprised me not at all when they got it.

But first, does everyone know what is a dragon dance? I didn't. Not really. Dragons in Chinese tradition are linked to good luck, wisdom and long life. I also see that they are linked to "life-giving rains" which might explain why we finally got about a millimeter of rain late in the afternoon (after I was already at a superbowl party and not in Liberdade anymore). So dragon dances are performed at New Year to scare away evil spirits. They follow a ball of wisdom to the accompaniment of drums. The two dragons swirling and "flying" were the highlight of the day.

Or were they? Then came the "cute" lions made up of one person in the front and one in the back. Tradition is that these also bring good luck. The dancers were fantastic, and you can only imagine how they must have been suffering in the heat, jumping around under giant costumes. Two of the lions passed by without taking any notice of the kids. The third, a gorgeous white and blue and pink one, stopped at our three boys, winked his giant eyes three times, put his "paw" (clad in black trainers) on the cord and charmed us all. As he walked on, he shook his head, and wagged his tail. It was enchanting.

Nope, does not see the kids

Also not seeing the kids

BINGO! The white lion spies the three kids

He winks three times

And shows the kids his "paw"

The kids were in love. With a large white lion with black trainers. A red lion also stopped by for a visit and flapped its lashes at them, then all the lions and dragons ended up on the stage.

We were maxxed out on heat and crowds so we headed over for lunch at the one and only Chi Fu. But that's a blog for tomorrow.

Happy Year of the Horse!

Source for Lion Dance and Dragon Dance information: http://www.topmarks.co.uk/ChineseNewYear/LionDance.aspx