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Archives for March 2016

March 28, 2016 By Phillip Retuta

Brazil Trip 2016: São Paulo, Part 2.

2016-03-26-17.13.00Clayton, Brett, and I landed back in São Paulo around Saturday afternoon and found an Airbnb in the Vila Madalena district — just in the heart of the artistic center of the city. It was a stylish, modern apartment owned by a married couple who lived somewhere else in the building, and — of course, as Brett would always prefer — it had a pool.

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We walked around the neighborhood a little bit, and found a small garage that was converted to a European-style storefront that served craft beers from around Brazil. It was there that I decided to buy my roommate a particular brand of IPA and attempt to smuggle it back to the US. It also started to rain. Oddly, though it was a complete downpour, the afternoon sun was still shining. Now if there was anything that I’ve learned about Brazil, everything about the country is beautiful: the peculiar weather and setting sun cast a warm, golden glow between the alleys and hilly roads of Vila Madalena, it almost looked like a Fanta soda video — the one where a bunch of scantily clad models in purple and orange bask in the golden, afternoon sun and someone decides to open a fire hydrant and pass around free bottles of pop. You can almost say it looked like a golden shower you’d want to be caught under.

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After the skies cleared up, we walked to Beco Do Batman, the famous series of alleys known for their government-protected street art. I was naturally enamored with the graffiti and had to take photos, so much so that the memory on my cellphone filled up and I was forced to delete some precious images from elsewhere on my trip. There’s something about the art in Brazil that is completely distinct from anything I’ve seen in New York or even around the world; perhaps — at least in my opinion — Brazil’s unique style combines Japanese, French, and American aesthetics when it comes to graphic design and street art, but there is a definitive touch of tropical sensibility mixed into their artists’ work.

In the evening, we took an Uber to D.O.M. Resturante in the Jardins neighborhood of São Paulo. You can read more about the exquisite, 13-course meal in my last post.

Ultimately, we called it an early night. None of us really wanted us to deal with the saturated nightlife of Vila Madalena, as the bars and clubs tend to spill over into the streets, and maneuvering around anywhere by foot is frustrating. I checked my email, worked on some videos I wanted to publish, and went to bed.

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2016-03-27-12.37.52The next day (with only a few hours remaining before I flew back to New York), the three of us found Coffee Lab near our Airbnb, a neat cafe located in a two-story house that also serves as the manufacturing facility for their somewhat renowned coffee. I had some delicious pour over espresso and for breakfast, a coffee-braised beef stew over toast. The coffee was so good, I decided to buy packages of beans for both Gino/Monica and my roommates. I figured it’d be a nice gift from Brazil, especially since they love fresh ground coffee as much as they do drinking themselves stupid with alcohol.

2016-03-27-17.37.24-copyAfter finishing our coffee, Clayton, Brett and I had one last beer together at a nearby bar, and then we headed downtown to attend Brett’s friend Marcel’s Easter dinner. After finishing a traditional meal of eggs, fish, and rice (as well as a few glasses of wine), I took a taxi to Guarulhos Airport to return back to New York, back to reality.

Tchau, Brazil! Obrigado.

I’ll write a post-mortem on the entirety of my Brazil trip (along with photos from my DSLR), but in the meantime, here are some pics from my cellphone:

Filed Under: Art, Design, Friends, Travel

March 26, 2016 By Phillip Retuta

Brazil Trip 2016: D.O.M. Restaurante.

DOM_heroClayton, Brett, and I landed back in São Paulo around Saturday afternoon.

We had reservations at Chef Alex Atala‘s D.O.M. Restaurante, the only two Michelin Star-rated restaurant in both Brazil and all of the Southern Hemisphere. In summation, it was a 13 to 14 course meal that lasted about 3 hours and cost each of us a little over $200. Still, the dinner itself was a very interesting experience: each course had such dramatic fanfare in both serving the food and its presentation, and Chef Atala gets every ingredient from each state or territory in Brazil. It’s wild, and quite worth the price: for example, neither Clayton or myself are much seafood fans, but some of the fish-heavy courses were delicious. I even ate ants for dessert, as well as a dish containing Cassava root that — if not boiled properly for several hours to remove the natural cynaide — can get you sick or die.

Here’s a rundown of the meal:

4Caramelized Cachaca with Beet Powder.

7Mashed Sweet Potato with Caramelized Garlic and Sour Cream.

1Fermented Palm Heart With Spirulina.

8Sorbet of some sort.

9Sake Shooters in Brazilian Peppers.

6Watermelon, Cucumber, and Codium.

12Squid with Cashew, Over Ice.

11Oysters with Cupuacu, Whiskey, and Candied Mango.

5Palm Heart Fettucine Alfredo with Brazilian Cheese.

3Watercress and Mustard Seed.

13Smoked Horse Mackerel, Red Onion Cream, and Baroa Potato.

14Pirarucu Skin, Banana Puree, and Aviu.

15Pirarucu with Tapioca and Tucupi.

17Caipirinha Limon.

18Quail with Combu Island Cocoa.

19Duck Confit with Maderira Wine, Yam Puree, and Green Pepper Oil.

20Mashed Potato with Queijo.

2Amazonic Ant.

21Lime and Banana Ravioli with Priprioca and Cassava Root.

22Cafe Expresso.

23Assorted Macarons and Pastries.

Filed Under: Food, Friends, Travel

March 25, 2016 By Phillip Retuta

Brazil Trip 2016: Rio De Janeiro.

90We reached Rio De Janeiro around dusk; the weather was fairly overcast and slightly drizzling, but as we drove along the coasts of Ipanema and Copacabana, there were hundreds of people still enjoying the beaches. Traffic, as with the case with São Paulo, had hit a snarl as we drove towards our lodgings.

The Airbnb we stayed at was in the Ipanema neighborhood, two walkable blocks from the sand and directly across the street from a bar owned by the Delirium Brewing Company — a great spot where Clayton, Brett, and I would enjoy one last beer each night. The apartment itself was owned by a young Swedish-Brazilian couple and had the look of an atypical hotel: everything appeared outdated and sterile, like that from a Holiday Inn from the 90’s. Still, it had its amenities: a parking garage, a pool and hot tub, laundry in the unit itself, and each room had a balcony overlooking the city and ocean.

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After dropping off our luggage, Brett, Clayton, and myself went to Galeto Sat’s — a small restaurant in the Copacabana neighborhood that served rotisserie chicken and cheesy-garlic bread. On prior trips, both Brett and Clayton would go here and rave about the food. I may have had some doubts, but it was absolutely some of the best food (namely that buttery, cheesy garlic bread) I’ve ever had. Pure fucking decadence. The staff were friendly and kept pushing Cachaça shots on us. We quickly finished dinner and attempted to hail a cab.

Now fully raining (the first time since we’ve been in Brazil), we drove back to Ipanema and went to Empório 37, some bar near our apartment. The bar’s resident DJ kept on playing 90’s Alternative hits as the attentive wait staff (girls who I can only imagine aren’t even pushing 21) kept bringing us beers. The place was also, to the best of my knowledge, crawling with prostitutes — scantily-clad women, even for Brazilian standards, who kept on eyeing the random male clientele and then approaching them for a drink or a dance. Clayton and I started singing some Foo Fighters or Smashing Pumpkins song (I forget which one, but it was definitely a throwback to my Q101 days), and that caught the attention of two British dudes who were in Rio for work. We were, after all, speaking English so I’d figure these two oil company execs found some commonality in us. They came over and kept buying us rounds of beer, discussing how America is fucked if we elected Trump as president.

One of Brett’s friends from Rio met up with us later that night, and as a freelance art director, he explained to me how a lot of creative folks are moving from the city and into São Paulo. It was an interesting perspective of how artists and designers work in Brazil, and how São Paulo is starting to become the industry’s creative capital of the country.

The next day, we returned the rental car to the airport. Wandering around the park near the rental spot, Clayton and Brett were so enamored with Rio’s sunset that they felt compelled to take photos with their phones (personally, I took enough photos at this point and wanted to relax and have a beer, so I just followed them around). This caught the attention of three homeless men sleeping in the park, all of whom were in their 50’s and all of whom took a sudden interest in Clayton and Brett’s phones. They started following us, and one of them was carrying a stick. We walked faster, and they followed suit at the same pace. The three of us began to run and crossed the highway nearby, and we eventually lost them. As I’d later learn from Brett, we were in the shady-ass part of Rio, and though we escaped our potential muggers, we were soon inundated by beggars and crooked cab drivers.

Failing to get a reasonably-priced taxi, we walked several blocks to Bar do Mineiro, yet another restaurant Brett and Clayton had been to in years past. I had feijoada, a typical Brazilian dish (historically eaten by the poor) of beans, meat stew, rice, and farofa. It was delicious, and for the first time in this trip, I had an authentic Brazilian meal that I’ve only heard about in one of Anthony Bourdain’s travel show.

Later that night, we took an Uber to the Leblon neighborhood and met up with yet another of Brett Harmon’s Brasilian friends, an oil company executive whose socialist ideals and relationship with Rio’s DJ/music community reminded me a lot of my friend Brett Burton. We had several drinks at this hip taqueria restaurant, and considering it was a Thursday, the general scene of Leblon was reminiscent of New York’s Meatpacking or Chelsea districts.

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The next day, we went to Fogo de Chão, a churrascaria restaurant that endlessly serves meat on swords. Fogo de Chão has several chains across the world, including New York and Chicago, and though its name lend itself to a tourist trap, it was by far the most fulfilling meal of the entire trip. I had the meat sweats. It dawned on us later that it was Good Friday, a day that strictly prohibits Catholics from eating meat, but whatever; consuming a near infinite supply of meat at a churrascaria was one of my goals in Brazil, and considering that the country has an incredibly significant Catholic population, I was taken aback by the number of patrons eating meat at the restaurant.

After filling up on assorted beef and pork, the three of us traveled to Pão de Açúcar, aka “Sugarloaf Mountain.” As one of Rio’s largest and more recognizable mountains, we took a cable car to the top. Otherwise shrouded in clouds, we were fortunate enough to see all of Rio De Janeiro, including the famous Christ the Redeemer statue off in the distance.

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Later that night, we went to the Botafogo neighborhood — pretty much the hipster, Williamsburg-like enclave of Rio De Janeiro. We ended up at Caverna, an edgy cocktail bar that played a lot of indie rock, had a Street Fighter 3 arcade machine, and served a lot of artisanal appetizers. I spotted a girl drinking a cocktail out of a glass skull (roughly the same size of an actual adolescent’s skull), and I thought to myself, “I should have one too. Why the fuck not?” Well, that was a mistake: I immediately regretted the sweet-tasting concoction of 4 shots of rum, Cachaça, honey, and berry juice. It tasted like Jungle Juice and was just as potent.

Slightly hungover the next day, we spent our remaining morning just hanging out at the beach of Ipanema. I managed to cross off yet another item on my Brazil trip checklist: drink a coconut on the beach. Afterwards, the three of us gathered our luggage and headed to the airport to catch our flight back to São Paulo.

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Filed Under: Food, Friends, Travel

March 22, 2016 By Phillip Retuta

Brazil Trip 2016: Trindade and Paraty.

2016-03-22-11.55.27Brett, Clayton, and I rented a car from Congonhas Airport in São Paulo, and we decided to drive to Rio De Janeiro.

Now if there’s anything you need to know about Paulistano traffic: it sucks. The highways are generally congested, and packs of motorcycles drive between lanes of sluggish cars; you have to be constantly vigilant when switching lanes, otherwise you’re bound to strike a motorcyclist. After dodging motorcycles and lagging behind cars, we got out of the city in hour.

The three of us decided to take the scenic route, which is roughly an 8-hour straight drive to Rio. We drove across the poor Favelas on the outskirts of São Paulo and through the sharp, winding curves of Brazilian mountains and rainforests. We paused at a colorful village with a sky blue cathedral on the top of hill for a bathroom break, and a fish-and-chip shop along the coast of the Atlantic for lunch.

After 4 hours of driving, we decided to stop at Trindade, a small beach village halfway between São Paulo and Rio. It was a destination that Brett and his ex-girlfriend had stayed at during one of his previous trips, and although he had spent two weeks there, the three of us decided to just stay for at least two days. The town was definitely a surfing and vacation spot with a sort of Southern Californian vibe, and it had packs of stray (but neutered and spayed) dogs roaming the quiet cobblestone streets. At night, after enjoying a few ice-cold Brahma beers, I’d play with these dogs and feed them scraps. Clayton and I even named a few of them, as they casually walked by or laid down by us, begging for attention and food.

We stayed at a tiny pousado (a home converted to a motel) just about half a mile from the beach and a mile or two from Trindade’s renowned waterfalls and natural pools. The lady who ran it and lived on the premises was a former Rio resident, a single mother with her teenage daughter. The host wanted to move to the US — but of all places, Boston. One night, I saw her sitting at the check-in counter, practicing her English. When I inquired where it was okay to smoke, she asked what’s the English word for “lighter”. As I smoked a cigarette outside, I could hear her at the front desk, speaking to her computer, “Do you need a lighter? Do you need a lighter?”

On our first full day in Trindade, the three of decided to hike through two small mountains to Piscina Natural, the natural pool located at Praia do Cachadaço. It was sunny, hot, and my climbing skills are so inferior that I’d sweat like a motherfucker if I climbed even a foot. Naturally, I was looking forward to taking a dip in the still waters of Piscina Natural. We reached the natural pool after nearly an hour of hiking and walking, but it was worth it: the pool’s clear water was surrounded by huge rocks, preventing the rough waves from disturbing the water. Tiny fish greeted visitors and swam up to their hands, expecting to be fed. The water certainly wasn’t deep, as I could waddle my way from the shallow end of the pool to the neck-deep end of the rock perimeter.

After taking a boat back to the main area (fuck climbing again), we spent the rest of the daylight hours laying on the beach and drinking beers. I managed to get caught up on some reading, squeeze in a nap, and take some photos and video footage. After hiking up another mountain to return to our po0sado, the sun began to set. Trindade’s a very sleepy town and everything seemed to shut down around 9pm. Still, I was able to get some good Picanha for dinner and drink some pretty boozy Caipirinhas.

We checked out of our pousado early the next day and resumed our road trip to Rio. Brett wanted us to stop by Paraty, a small town which has the charm and architecture of old world Brazil. I picked up some souvenirs, drank a Coca-Cola (I haven’t had soda in such a long time, but being in Brazil it seemed appropriate to drink), and had chicken, rice, and beans for lunch.

I ended up taking a nap in the car, and before I knew it, I was in Rio De Janeiro — a stark contrast from Sao Paulo in regards to the general atmosphere. More on that later…

Filed Under: Friends, Photography, Travel

March 20, 2016 By Phillip Retuta

Brazil Trip 2016: São Paulo, Part 1.

2016-03-20-14.59.30Despite the shitty events preceding my trip, I had arrived safely in São Paulo. After drinking some generous amounts of wine provided by the flight attendants and generating small talk with my neighbors (a teenage couple from Connecticut, who — in the beginning of the 8.5-hour flight — the girl would frequently berate and punch her boyfriend in the stomach), Clayton, Brett, and I landed at Guarulhos International Airport a little after 9pm local time. We each withdrew about 200 to 300 US dollars from the airport’s ATM (about the equivalent of 900 to 1000 Brazilian Reals), and took a cab to our Airbnb near the bustling street of Avenida Paulista.

The Airbnb was charming: two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a washer-dryer combo, a rooftop pool, and a very effective gated, security system that — in case of a Brazilian Zombie Apocalypse — I’d feel more than safe from an undead horde. The apartment was owned by Nash, a middle-aged expat from Colorado who was incredibly accommodating and always carried around a leather fanny pack on the three occasions he’d stop by.

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After meeting one of Brett’s friend, Marcel, at a bar for some cheap beer and Cachaça shots, we ended up at a club that solely played 90’s alternative and dance hits. By the end of the night, Brett, Clayton, and myself took an Uber back to our Airbnb (Ubers in Brazil are so fucking cheap), where I passed out on the couch — fortunately next to the open balcony overlooking São Paulo.

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The next morning, I woke up, turned on the TV, and started watching “The Simpsons” in Portuguese. Sure, the voice-acting was off (Milhouse sounded like a 40-year-old man), but as a fan of the earlier seasons who knows every line of dialogue, I felt that “The Simpsons” in Portuguese would better acclimate me to the language. Leaving an appropriately hungover Clayton behind, Brett and I walked around the area bit and managed to stumble upon some of the organized protests against Lula and Dilma.

At first impression, São Paulo feels like a hotter, more tropical New York City. Unlike New York, São Paulo is way more sprawling: on the second full day in the city, the three of us went to the top of Edifício Itália, the second tallest building. From the skydeck bar, all I could see around me were miles upon miles of indiscernible, concrete buildings. At least with New York, I can point out iconic skyscrapers like 30 Rock or the Freedom Tower; in São Paulo there are just plain, gray monoliths whose only charm was that there was a shit-ton of them. Still, one thing I found incredibly fascinating about São Paulo was the street art. I know a lot of world-renowned streets artists are from the area, and what São Paulo lacks — visually — several stories above the ground, on the street level there’s an abundance of great murals and graffiti.

There was talk between Clayton and Brett that we won’t stay in São Paulo for the entire duration of our trip. In fact, they’ve talked about renting a car and driving up to Rio De Janeiro. Stay tuned, but in the meantime here some photos:

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Places of note:

  • Elevado Costa e Silva is a section of the highway closed off to vehicle traffic. It’s a lot like The Highline here in NYC but retains the infrastructure of an otherwise busy road. It’s a photographer’s paradise.
  • Brazil really likes their Havaianas flips flops, and there were so many stores as much as there are Starbucks here. You can even customize them in-store.
  • The Liberdade district is generally considered a Japanese enclave, and as a result São Paulo has the second largest Japanese population outside of Japan itself. They have good ramen and sushi in this area, and if you’re ever going to find a karaoke bar it’s here.
  • Vila Madalena reminds me of Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg: kinda cool and very hip, but at night it’s packed full of drunken assholes. Still, of all the neighborhoods we visited, this one has the best graffiti in all of the city.

Filed Under: Friends, Photography, Travel

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Born 1983. Art Director, UX/UI and Digital Designer. Illustrator. Dog Owner. Coffee Enthusiast. Pizza Lover.

I love over-thinking the simplest of things and making stuff at every waking moment: comics, food, videos, photos... you name it. This blog is a record of my work, my exploits, and my philosophical, political, and psychological ideologies. So enjoy reading my dumb ideas and inane rants that I'd otherwise be ashamed to verbally speak out in public.

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