Oui Oui, French food in Brazil

Yes there is French food in Brazil! Chef Pascal Jolly of Club Chocolate (which closed last year, but apparently was a huge hit)  has found a new home at Chez L’Ami Martin which opened at the beginning of this year.  FYI- make a reservation.  We showed up without one and the hostess was very rude but agreed to give us a reservation in an hour… however she made it very clear that if she called our name and we are not there our table would be given away immediately! Ok on to the good stuff…

The 2 story ‘house’ located on Avenida General San Martin, 1.227 has a warm, relaxing decor with mirrored walls.

Our journey to France began with the Couvert (ie cover charge of $15 per person)  which included baguettes, olives, butter, almonds, French fries (chips as they say which were delicious!), and aioli sauce.  

The menu is classic with a French accent. There was a nice selection of pastas and risottos as well as a variety of fish and beef dishes to choose from.  The balsamic grilled tuna which came with batsami rice and grilled vegetables was grilled perfectly and very flavorful.  The gnocchi with prosciutto and asparagus was phenomenal, I highly recommend trying a bite of that one!

Onto dessert-my favorite part of the meal.  The profiteroles, filled with hazelnut were delicious. As you can see from the picture below, there were 5 of these yumy little guys to share and they came with vanilla ice cream.  However the banana creme brule was a bit of a disappointment, it was not crunchy on top, so stick to the profiteroles.

If you are in the mood for French fair head over to Chez L’Ami Martin, just make sure you have to profiteroles for dessert!

 

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Thai food in Rio?! You Bet!

The food here is INCREDIBLE, honestly every direction you turn there is something delicious to eat (don’t worry I joined the gym and will report on that soon!). I would say most of the ‘traditional’ restaurants along Ataulfo de Paiva (think: ‘main street’) have grilled chicken (perf for me) or some other form of protein served with fries or rice and beans.  They also have sandwiches, salads, crepes, you get the drift. Last night after Carnival we were craving something different and discovered Mekong a cute Thai restaurant a few blocks away from our apartment. It was a nice change for the palate!! We had chicken satay- with real peanut sauce… It is actually quite hard to find peanut butter here! Had to do some investigating, but finally found a small container at the 3rd market I went to(see below).  Then onto spring rolls and of course pad Thai.  The Pad Thai tastes very similar to any of the NYC restaurants on seamlessweb you are ordering it in from, but there are 2 differences…

First, the size! As you can see above the portion of pad thai was VERY small.  Think we were a little shocked, since we were obviously expecting a giant portion like we are used to (probably a good thing that it was tiny) but still a shocker. Second, instead of egg being mixed into it, it was sprinkled on top (yellow spaghetti looking stuff on top is really egg). Personally, favor their egg placement here more than that in the states since I usually pick it out! Overall, the place was cute- half inside/outside of course and the food was great.  Next time I am jonesing for Thai, I will most likely head back here!

Trying to meet some other Expats :)

In my quest to find some English speaking folks I discovered a fun blog written by a fellow expat DailyRioLife and figured why not email the writer.  To my pleasant surprise she emailed me back and arranged to meet! I’ll be honest I have never done the ‘internet dating’ thing so when she suggested lunch at Via Sete I was thrilled (have walked by this place a bunch of times and each time I walked by said “that place looks good”.   The restaurant was great— highly recommend it (salads were fantastic!) and she was awesome, very helpful! I am looking forward to hanging out with her again and meeting some of her other ‘expat’ friends:)