Mr. Beer - Ribeirão Preto

These are a few of my favorite things...

Yes, I am going to talk about beer and food again. No Brazilian visits Ribeirão Preto, 3 hours northwest of São Paulo, without thinking of beer. It is the home of famous Pinguim, which I have talked about before and I cannot recommend highly enough a visit to the downtown (not shopping mall) location. Great sandwiches. Great chopp (draft beer). To get up to speed on things like chopp and cardboard coasters and important stuff like that, check out my August 2013 post here.

So, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, all the religion and baptizing made us thirsty and so we went to the Mecca (I am now going to be struck dead by both Allah and God, presuming they are different guys) of beer. No, not Pinguim. The Mecca of Indoor Beer.  Indoor Beer is what you have in Ribeirão Preto from November to March when you cannot stand outside without frying your brains. And melting the bottoms of your shoes. True story. I cannot abide the two indoor Pinguims which are in shopping malls. What's a gringa in search of air conditioning to do?

Senhor Chopp. Translated by me as Mr. Beer. Senhor Chopp is a wonderful bar/restaurant at the Novo Mercadão de Ribeirão Preto (the big new market of RP), opened in 2008. This "new" market is less about fresh fruit and vegetables and more about doo-dad selling than others I have been in. That's fine. What matters is the beer. And the food.

As we sat down with our menus, you can already tell you're in for good service. One of the waiters knew my father-in-law and shook his hand and asked after everyone in the family, etc. Later FIL told me that he knew this waiter from when he (the waiter) worked at Pinguim 40 years ago. My FIL was a medical student at the time. This guy has been a waiter for forty years. Happily. Solicitously. Successfully. He moved to Senhor Chopp a few years ago and am I glad he did.

Our 2nd waiter. Not the 40 year one.

I asked him first about a dish called "Lascas de Bacalhau" (for one delightful moment I read that at "Lashes of Bacalhau" and was looking forward to that stinky old fish getting a bad beating). Lascas actually means "chips". But not Brit chips. He said to wait, I'll show you. Off he went and got a plate of it that was being delivered to another table and showed it to me. Then I asked about what was an "Azzura" olive and he brought me two to test--a green one and a black one. Large and yummy. The olives, people. 

My father, who speaks only one word of Portuguese, which is by some weird coincidence "chopp", was then confused by what was a "chopp escuro doce" (sweet dark beer) or "chopp escuro normal" and of course they brought him a taster. I am saying "they" because we had two waiters taking care of us for a long time until the place was too crowded and we dropped to one. We felt lonely.

Escondidinho de carne with homemade spicy pepper. And beer glasses looking sadly half full...

Huge green salad with the best fresh arugula and palm hearts in the land. It fed six people, and cost US$10. Escondidinho de carne (see here). Shrimp, though not their specialty (RP being a land-locked city), was garlicky and good too. And we did get the lashes of bacalhau and they were good. A few chopps went down, because of course, when in Rome...you do what the Ribeirão Pretanos do... Highly recommend. 

PS> This marks my 265th post. That means there are still 100 more to go to make my goal of one year of daily posts. Not all of them have been good, I admit, but all of them have been here. Thanks for reading along!

Beer territory - Ribeirão Preto

Ribeirão Preto - SP interior agricultural capital and the territory of chopp

My husband is originally from the city of Ribeirão Preto which is about 300 kms (190 miles) from São Paulo capital. It's a fairly wealthy city of 600,000+ inhabitants, with much of the money coming from agriculture - principally sugar cane and coffee. The outskirts are quite beautiful with rolling green hills, and of course a river runs through it (the city's name means "Black Creek") and is largely ignored and polluted, as all city rivers are in this country. It has been called the Brazilian California--but only if we are talking about Livermore and the Central Valley, okay? My nickname for the city is "Inferno" --summer temperatures don't get much out of the 35 celsius (95 Fahrenheit) range. 

All the heat may be why Ribeirão Preto became the Territory of Chopp. Chopp is draft beer (some of those who met my yellow labrador Chopp know he was named for the color of the beer).  This is pronounced "Show-pee" by the way. Doesn't look great phonetically but man, you'll need to know this word if you live here. If you google Território de Chopp (draft beer territory), the results come up with Ribeirão Preto. The most famous of all chopp places is Pinguim (Penguin) which began life as an independent brewer in Ribeirão Preto, and was later bought by Antartica (AmBev, InBev, whatever). 

When I first "met" Pinguim back in 1996, it was only in its downtown location in the historic center of Ribeirão Preto, and was a little scruffy. The waiters were older than time itself, dressed in black aprons, and very quick on the refills. In fact, your glass never fully empties before a new one appears in front of you. In order to stop the madness, you put your cardboard coaster on top of the mouth of the glass--a fact that my boyfriend-now-husband neglected to mention so I think I might have had around 10 beers. Who knows? When a new one appears in front of you, you drink it. It's what you do.

Part of the mystique of chopp is how the beer is pulled. It has to have a certain amount of foam head, and it has to be exactly the right temperature. Chopp is not to be drunk "estupidamente gelado" (silly cold) like other beers. In fact you have to drink it relatively quickly because otherwise it goes over into Brit-land...warm...yech.

In 1977, Pinguim opened Pinguim II across the street and next to the gorgeous Teatro Municipal. This is now the flagship (photo below) and the original has become a shop.  Pinguim II has been renovated and is definitely gorgeous. The waiters seem to have undergone renovation too as they seem quite a bit younger (or is it me getting older? Hmmm...). The sandwiches of steak and pork and cheese cut into bite-sized pieces have not changed. They are delicious. There are also two more locations of Pinguim in Ribeirão Preto, both in shopping centers, and one has opened in Belo Horizonte in the neighboring state of Minas Gerais. I haven't been to Belo, but the two shopping center Pinguims lack the grace of the original. I say a prayer every night to the beer god asking for a Pinguim to open in São Paulo but no luck.

Pinguim. Just looking at it makes me hungry and thirsty.

Ah, for those of you who do not like lighter beers (my husband), they also have dark chopp, or if you are in the know, you can get a "pingado" or light and dark mixed chopp. I think some marketing guys have gotten a hold of some extra funds because I just saw their new menu of beers and it includes one called "sexual"-- dear Antartica, just say no to the Harvard MBAs who came up with that one. I am a traditionalist: it's chopp claro for me. I also have learned when to stop drinking and wield my coaster like a pro. 

 If all of this makes you want to get to know the Territory of Chopp , make sure you visit in July or August when temperatures drop into the reasonable numbers (it's winter in the southern hemisphere). The inferno gets going in December--you will not be able to drink enough chopp to replace what you are sweating out. At least that's my theory.

Saúde! ("health" or cheers!)