Dos Ingleses
More rain, more beach, more ice cream and acai
I really love our place in Dos Ingleses. The apartment is just across the street from a thriving touristy beach with lots of great restaurants and shops all in walking distance. Again, we we ended up getting a lot of rain for the first couple of days, but that helped us focus on work… and eating.
On our first night, we discovered the “Buffet do Sorvetes”. Yep, they have scoop ice cream by weight here. We managed to get somewhere between 10-14 flavors piled up on a single cone for about $5. They have lots of very good fruit sorbets and at least 30 flavors of ice cream, including my childhood favorite (and now Baby Bear’s as well), Mint Chocolate Chip. And of course, you can put tons of fixings on it as well.
We found that dessert and dinner TOGETHER is great, specifically, freshly fried beef pastel (a common street food) goes great with ice cream.
It also goes great with Acai. Acailand has a special Tuesday deal where you can fill up a cup for 26 Reals. Mama Bear REALLY wanted to go, so despite a heavy rain, we trekked out to our nearest Acailand for pastel and acai for dinner. Luckily they had a heated seating area and were very happy to serve us just as they closed (they’re 6th customer all day!).
We also found the best lunch buffet ever. Wood fire, upstairs dining, an indoor waterfall, amazing meats (tongue, oxtail, amazing roast chicken, a churrasco, and even gizzard). The quality really goes up when you pay more for the “fancy” lunch buffets which are still under $8.
It stopped raining one night, so we went out to the beach, still wearing our rain gear. There we discovered that the little sand crabs that hide under the wet sand are even more active at night! Baby Bear became very good at stomping on the ground when the waves recede in order to see the buggies. Then she diggs some sand out with a stick and picks the crabs out of the sand.
Later in the week, the sun started coming out, and we could really enjoy the beach. It went from a bit chilly, to ridiculously hot when I really love our apartment’s rooftop pool. There’s a 180 degree view, and you can watch all the people playing on the beach while sitting in the pool.
I personally love running along the water at the beach, feet splashing in the water like a pickup truck in a commercial or a horse galloping through a stream. I can’t believe how joyful I feel to be chilling in the cold waters of the sea with an expansive view of beach, waves, and green hills all around me.
We also found that the restaurant staff on the beach are much more relaxed and truly friendly than in other countries. Lots of people hang out under restaurant umbrellas with their own food, and might get a drink or two eventually. We saw a group putting up their own umbrella right in front of the restaurant. One of the waiters came out with a hole digger and helped him dig the hole for the umbrella! He also helped us take some pictures.
Since it was getting really hot, we found that we needed to be wet AND in the shade, but then it was super comfortable. Meanwhile, Baby Bear went on a mission to collect more sand crabs. She gathered dozens in a small pitcher where we could watch them swim out into the water and then dig themselves back into the sand by swimming backwards, their feelers out to catch plankton in the water.
And we got some amazing food at the beach too. At Camarao, we had stuffed crab shell and a camarao and cheese pastel which were very good. But the picanha (Brazil’s most popular cut, a top sirloin) skewer was the best I ever tasted, and the grilled shrimp skewer was amazing as well.
We also ate at Brazza, and they had a really great Pao de Alho (garlic bread) with LOTS of shrimp and a salmon in passionfruit sauce. We feel so lucky to dine on such top notch food on a beautiful beach that’s fun for our kid too. All this just steps away from our apartment.
