Eating on Amazon

The day I took a flight from Colombia and reached Tabatinga I did not know what to expect food wise from Brazil or for that matter from the Amazons. Tabatinga is a border town in the Amazon, it borders three countries: Colombia, Peru and Brazil.








So, when I reached the airport in Colombia I thought I will head to the Brazilian side and start my experience with Brazilian food. I went to a restaurant and I found that they have something called WEIGHT SYSTEM.










So, you pay according to what you eat... they have a buffet system and then you take the food you want on your plate and weigh it...you can take 10 pieces of meat or 10 pieces of potato, and you pay the price for the grams or kilos...










Hence, I ended up paying same as a meat eater for a plate. In my plate there was rice + red beans + some salad and my neighbour paid the same for a piece of great amazon fish :)










I went to a big city in the middle of the Amazon, called Manaus.
Manaus, a great cultural city, very very humid and hot but with beautiful rivers and fishes...










I went to restaurants and everywhere they had the weight system and I usually ended up paying more, hence I started hunting for street food. A friend of mine asked me to try a soup called Tacacá which is made of jambú, tucupi, goma de mandioca, and dried shrimp.










The tucupi broth is extracted from mandioca and the jambú leaf is a natural anesthetic which leaves your tongue numb after eating it. Tacacá is served hot in a cuia, a special bowl made out of the shell of a local fruit.










But of course, I had mine without the shrimp. The soup will cost you more or less 4$ = 9Reales. I had it once, was just feeling a bit wierd for the amount of slime in the soup but it is good.










And the best thing about Amazon is the amount of fruits and fruit juices you can find on the street. The only street food that saved me from dying of hunger was sandwich.










You can ask them to make your sandwich with tomato and cheese, and this accompanied with a big glass of milkshake. Cheap me but I was on a tight budget.










In the south of Brazil I found another interesting system of food selling and a way to attract customers. I went to a pizza restaurant and there I paid around 12$ = 23Reales and I could eat as many pizzas as I wanted to.










There are waiters with big plates of pizza going from one table to the other, and you just stop them and take as many slices as you want. I took one of each and then I repeated the ones I reallly loved.










All this includes drinks and ice cream. I say after the whole trip I found a solution to my backpacking cheap problem in Rio de Janeiro :).






Soon, about my backpacking trip throughout South America.
Manisha, for my friends in Romania from www.e-Restaurant.ro