Evolving Porto Alegre

Porto Alegre like all the world´s cities is a ragbag of the great and the dire. I love living here quite like I love Lemmy from Motorhead, warts´n´all, but there´s room for improvement. Much smaller than London it offers many things we Londoners don’t have and we can learn from the way of life here as no doubt Alegrenses learn from our gross and gourdy metropolis. Obviously the first thing that should change in Brazil is the huge gulf between rich and poor which leads to crime and destitution the world over, but apart from that here is my list of things I think PoA could do with and without…

Do with:

garam masala - bring your own or see if you can find it in the public market!

Curry: If an Alegrense says they like spicy food they´re telling black lies, there isn´t one good Indian restaurant in the whole town. Not one. Where are the nosebleed vindaloos? Can I even get an authentic chicken tikka masala? Visitors, bring your own gram masala and colman´s mustard with you. See also branston pickle and cheddar cheese!

Bus timetables – Bus shelters, half-pipes of corrugated iron, line the streets but you learn more about jesus and strip joints than you do the times and destinations of the sadly characterless buses. Import those retro buses from Argentina, they´re far more exotic, and put up timetables.

where are we going?

Cycle lanes – When I first arrived here in 2011, a manifestation by cyclists for better facilities and safer roads made world headlines when a maniac plowed into it with his car. Fortunately no one was killed. Since then there still aren´t cycle paths on the road and motorists are as selfish as ever. Why not go green and replace the lane slaloming taxis with rickshaws or make them solar powered with max speeds of 20mph?

Monkeys – I don´t get why anyone would be proud that Porto Alegre doesn´t have monkeys and think us foreigners ignorant or rude for expecting them. Since when was having cute little monkeys a bad thing? The mata atlantica used to belong to them, species like the blond capuchins are all endangered now so reintroduce them, it´s not like you don´t have enough trees.

More saliva – I love sharing a chimarrão with strangers but why not share ice lollies and cutlery as well?

Others: sound time-keeping, cheaper dvds and snow at Christmas

Things PoA can do without:

Giselle Bundchen – If you blindfolded a newcomer to Brazil and took them from Salgado Filho airport to the centro historico, the shock of so many ugly people would make them think they´d entered the twilight zone by mistake. Porto Alegre has more than its fair share of beautiful women, enticing us ugly expats to your shores, but be honest, you have a plethora of different people of all shapes and sizes and too much body consciousness to sustain them. Be proud of everyone not just the size zeros and vacuous supermodels.

The Beatles and ACDC – Okay, they´re great, I get it. But while universidade sertanejo and Brazilian funk deservedly take the flak, the gaucho mobsession with these two bands is chatissimo (really boring). Putting your baby in an ACDC t-shirt makes ACDC less cool and makes you a moron.

This building – 

unfinished since 1956

Maniac Taxi Drivers: If you want to feel like a princess here, take a taxi. Within minutes of hurtling down the road you will feel like Princess Diana. The fast lane in Brazil is whatever lane your taxi happens to be in.

Others: rip-off internet shops, stripclub flyers all over the pavement (use blue tack) and the facebook page for estrangeiros/foreigners in Porto Alegre which is oddly unfriendly and snooty.

But what can we Londoners take from Porto Alegre?... I will blog about that soon!

Beer in Brazil Part Deux

An English man, a Scottish man and an Irish man walk into a pub in Porto Alegre…. The joke´s on them, there are no Pubs, no real pubs, in Porto Alegre as far as I can tell after 2 years here.  Not pubs as we would understand them in any case. This is not a slur just an innocent observation as there are some inextricable differences in atmosphere, method, blah and blah. That said, there are lots of good, some great, Pubstitutes. Some of them are even called Pubs as opposed to Bars to make them easier to spot.

Say you fancy a liquid lunch, pubs in Porto Alegre don´t usually open till about 6pm so you´ll find yourself having to sit in a neon-blanched lanchonette sharing a midday drinking sesh with retirees. To get a good beer at that time of day the best place I know is Café Cantante in Bom Fim. The staff are nice and you´ll never be alone as there are other lonely people sat in close proximity to you sipping their coffee, reading the paper and wobbling about on the dainty furniture.

Kerouac- Best English night in the city

After 6pm on a Tuesday (the beginning of the drinking week for most locales) you can find a variety of botecos, bars and pseudo-pubs in the area of Cidade Baixa. All of the pubs have table service which means you rarely get up save to go to the bathroom but makes it difficult to mingle.  When you enter these establishments you are given a comanda, a slip of paper on which your orders are tallied and which you lose under pain of a billion R$ fine. The fine is only to spook you, there´s no legal way they can make you pay it. The real problem with the comanda system is when you miscalculate your own funds.

Sadly, the vibrancy of cidade baixa has been coming under attack from a neighbourhood coalition demanding curfews. This has cut off the life blood to some smaller, newer pubs who depend on live music to keep going. The new pubs that don´t have an immediate buzz around them find themselves skittering around like Bambi on ice and are soon dead. The longevity of a pub is one of the deeper differences between back home and here. If you get the chance before it slips off the edge of the world then I heartily recommend the bluesy  beatnik bar the Kerouac Rock Pub in Cidade Baixa which has live music and a kick-ass English pub quiz (see Pub Quiz POA on facebook for info).

Bier Keller - where mugs defy gravity

Some other places I recommend:  First, the Bier Keller is a mysterious tavern hidden somewhere in Porto Alegre. It´s beautifully decorated and has a giant walk-in fridge stocked full of beers from around the world. Entry is by invitation only and it´s a little pricey but the atmosphere is wonderful. Second, the Malt Store in Petropolis is a shop offering a vast array of beers. It has a few tables for degustaçao, meaning you can drink yourself merry until about 10pm. Third, Imperial on the corner of Rua Santana, is a great, great boteco with ninja-fast service, top food and a real buzz. Last and my favourite pseudo-pub is Lagom. A brew-pub in Bom Fim where you can be served draught beers in pints and listen to Maiden!

Some places to avoid: It´d be unfair to name names. Certain irish bars near Redenção with their no havaiana policy (isn´t this Brazil?); an eponymously owned pub on Avenida Mariland where they´ll try to convince you that their sound system isn´t malfunctioning and that Robert Plant raps as fast as Apache Indian while simultaneously telling you that Baden on the menu means Baden Crystal and not Baden Golden which is 5r$ more please; a Bukowski joint which would be amazing if it had about 10 more floors to fit all the sardines in. 

I haven´t been to all of the so-called pubs here, whole streets and neighbourhoods are missing from my experience, and I imagine there´s many more wonderful surprises in store, perhaps even a real pub with London Pride on tap and KP nuts and Sunday roast. 

Sharing my experiences of beer in Brazil, how it´s served and where to find it! (Read part 1)

Now, if you're looking for bars with latin music in, try here.