scratch the surface of this enormous city (population 19million!!) but
still enough time (with thankfully only one more rain storm!) for a
largely food related top 5!
1. Mercado Municipal - I have written about food market restaurants
before (in the Montevideo entry) but this one definitely deserves a
mention. Despite an insalubrious walk through the old city to get
there once inside the Mercado is a pristine spot. Food stalls, largely
fruit, meat and deli, on the ground floor and a selection of
restaurants on the upper level looking down over the food stalls. The
distinguishing feature of most of the restaurants is that they all
seem to focus on giant Mortadella sandwiches. I don't like Mortadella
so I had a salt beef sandwich and it was delicious and huge (I swear
the meat was 6 times thicker than the lovely French bread it came in).
I washed it down with a Brazilian canned soft drink which I love
called Guarana Antartica (handily available in a no sugar Zero
format). I definitely think there is a market for it in the UK. Yummy!
After lunch we had a wander around the stalls and I decided to try
Acai, which is a N. Brazilian fruit normally served crushed up with
ice. It is really delicious - the only thing I can compare it to is
mushed up sour cherries. An all round excellent lunch.
2. Figureira Rubaiyat - a restaurant in the posh Jardim Paulista area
as recommended by Bailo. By far the most expensive and swanky meal of
our trip so far but it is a really lovely place. It's main feature is
that you eat in a covered courtyard (there is an inside bar which does
nice cocktails while you wait for your table - about 40mins on a
Tuesday with no reservation) which is shaded by an enormous and
beautiful tree. It must be at least 300 years old and is quite a find
in the 'concrete jungle' of SP. Another thing I liked about the place
was despite a reasonably hefty cover charge there are a lot of nice
small touches: canapes while you wait for your table, a platter of
deli style mise en bouches, delicious cheese filled dough balls and
Cachaca to finish the meal off. On the food itself Paul had a very
good steak, I had seafood pasta which was a bit disappointing (too
salty) but overall a lovely (expensive!) experience! Full of
businessmen and Americans of course none of whom were paying for their
own meal I suspect!
We also had another nice, more low key meal in the Jardim Paulista
area (my favourite area in SP - lots of swanky bars, restaurants and
gorgeous houses belonging to wealthy Paulistas) at a place called
Lanchonete da Cidade which did great burgers and an amazing red fruits
Capirinha.
3. Museu Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP) - SP's main art museum on the famous
Avenida Paulista (a ridiculously long road which covers all the bases
from business district to culture to shopping etc.). The museum houses
S America's largest collection of Western Art and has a good selection
of the VIP artists (Degas, Manet, Monet, El Greco, Van Gogh to name a
few). I particularly liked a selection of portraits of the French
Nobility (18th C) by Nattier. There was also a very interesting Max
Ernst exhibition which was more comprehensive than I have ever seen
elsewhere. They have made an effort to theme the musuem and this works
well, but the building is another example of architectural concept
over common sense (see also 5 below and my previous entry on Curitba's
Oscar Niemeyer museum), still -recommended.
4. Vila Madalena - this area reminded me of Palermo in Buenos Aires.
It is predominantly a residential area but with a smattering of bars,
shops and restaurants. It doesn't have the quantity of Palermo
(particularly in terms of shops) but a lot of the bars appeared to
have the quality. Unfortunately because of our tight schedule in SP we
only had time to go there in the afternoon, which is obviously not the
best time to visit a bar area (particularly in S. America where no one
anywhere before 9pm) but I was still impressed by the area and wished
I'd had time to sample it on a weekend evening.
5. Park Ibirapuera - this is a large park not far from where we were
staying in Jardim Paulista. It is a nice park; predominantly greenery
and some bits of water. Perfect for picnicing, jogging, football etc
but nothing special for the horticulturalist. It does stand out
though as a result of the numerous cultural buildings within its
grounds. We only visited two (Museum of Modern Art (MAM) and Museum of
Contemporary Art (MAC)) but there are plenty of other cultural spots.
MAM and particularly MAC were a bit of a disappointment. The
exhibitions were pretty dull and once again the buildings defied
common sense and are not even that attractive with it. We spent about
20mins working out how to get inside MAC! Having said that it is still
worth a trip on the basis that parks almost always are and it is also
interesting to see just how hard SP is trying to incorporate culture
into the city landscape.
Overall I enjoyed SP a lot. The old city was a bit of a disappointment
(scruffy) and it is does feel rough round the edges (especially at
night when the only people on the street are the people who don't have
anywhere else to go) but it does have a lot to see and do and
certainly knows how to have fun.
You will be surprised to hear that I am on yet another bus. This time
on the way to colonial Paraty. I am expecting something very different
from SP in this tiny town with a population of 33,000.
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