Street food, per kilo, general, recipes...., São Paulo

Kilo restaurnts are everywhere in São Paulo - from the simplest and cheapest to very sofisticated!

They are common in the business areas (Av. Paulista, Brigadeiro Faria Lima) and are usually open only for lunch. This is where people eat everyday when working out and is a good way to try "everyday" food. Just take a plate, serve from the buffet and pay for the weight. There will be a salad section then hot dishes (usually two or three meat or chicken selections and side dishes). There will usually be a brown bean stew (feijão) that is eaten with rice by everyone and, on Wednesdays, the tradicional feijoada (black beans stewed with dried meats).

And you can see all the locals as well!

If you come to Brazil can´t miss the "PF", in any bussiness area. That´s the ready to eat dish that working people eat at lunch time...Very cheap and healthy.

Favorite Dish: Most of them have rice, beans, meat, salad and bread.

Sao Paulo grew with immigrants from all over the world who came here during the late 19th century until the 1950´s, after the end of World War II. Because of this, the city is very cosmopolitan, and, therefore, there´s a place for everyone! If you love McDonald´s, you´ll find one practically at any street corner. If you like Italian food, try the Italian district of Bela Vista (especially 13 de Maio St). Japanese food is best in the Jap district of Liberdade. Vila Mariana has excellent Arabic food. Itaim Bibi and Pinheiros have excellent barbecue places (Brazilian specialty) as well as many fancy restaurants, like Fasano, Spot among others.

Most interesting fare can be found in the three types of restaurant that define eating out in Brazil: the beer garden, the steak and barbecue house, and the pizzeria.

Favorite Dish: Excellent Brazilian draft beers on tap, Antartica is up there for me.

Waiters shuttle around the tables, serving different cuts of meat.

Some do say that you can get a better pizza in São Paulo than you can back in Italy.

São Paulo is big and full of restaurantes of all cusines you could think off. So if you want something special buy a restaurant guide of São Paulo.

Favorite Dish: São Paulo has one of the best Pizzas of the world, many Japonese Restaurants with good Sushi, German and Swiss Cuisine with Fondues in the cold wintermonth and of course Churrasco, the brasilian Barbie

Liberdade, the downtown Japanese area, has the cheapest fine sushi dining you'll ever run across. You can also buy affordable sushi lunches wrapped in plastic at the grocery stores. on Sundays there are fun street fairs and you can see all the teenage chicks struttin their stuff and pranking on the grannies.

Sao Paulo is known thorough Brazil for their food. If you ask any local what there is to do in Sao Paulo they will tell you to go get something to eat. If you're going to dig in and you think you are hungry enough I highly recommend the Brazilian traditional Churrascaria which is a traditional Brazilian BBQ. Think of it as an all meat buffet that comes to your table. Sure there's veggies and salad but you don't want that healthy stuff to get in the way of all of that beef. Each table is given a little card which has green on one side and red on the other. All you have to remember is when your card shows green the guys with skewers of meat will keep coming to your table to show their goods. Turn it to red and you can sit back and enjoy your meal for a while uninterrupted. When you're ready for more, it's back to green. After a few hours at a Churrascaria you'll be done eating meat for a while as it is more beef than anyone should ever consume in one sitting.

Favorite Dish: well I'll tell you, it's not the salad bar.

There's a great selection of comida-por-kilo restaurants in the huge shopping mall at Avenida Paulista, called Mall Paulista. I gravitated towards those that specialises on Northeast Brazilian dishes. These dishes are a combination of Portuguese and African tastes. Yummy. You can eat to your heart's content.