Brazilian JAPANESE FOOD TOUR in LIBERDADE! Takoyaki, Cutlets & Sake | São Paulo, Brazil

Wow. Good? Amazing. Amazing? Good? It tastes better with my face on it. Oh. Ah. Good afternoon everyone. This is David Hoffman from David's Been Here coming at you from Sao Paulo, Brazil. I'm right now walking through Liberdade, basically Japan town. If you guys don't know, Brazil has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. Back in 1908, the first Japanese came here to this exact spot and since then, it's evolved. There's Chinese, there's Koreans. It's basically a mix of Asian fusion but today we're doing a Japanese food tour. We're gonna hit up Izakayas, Japanese restaurants, Saki, Tempura. What else, bro? I would say nigiri. Takoyaki. Ramen. Sushi. Man, Saki. Saki? Yeah, let's get drunk. I'm joking, I don't drink. I know you don't drink. Yeah. And right here, right in front of us, we have something called Kaizen Alimentos and they have takoyaki, tempura, okonomiyaki. That's the best. That is from Osaka. I love Japan. And we're gonna start off right here in this restaurant. It's called Restaurant Sato, right? Restaurant Sato, they have an array of things. Wow, the menu is never-ending. Small shop. If you didn't know about it, if you weren't with a local, you would have no idea. That's one of my favorite restaurants of a Brazilian restaurant in a mixture of Japan and Liberdade. So now we are going to check out and have a very good food. I love this place. Super hole-in-the-wall, you would never know about it. This is awesome. And we have our private own dining room, huh? When you come to Sato Restaurant, you have to try these dishes, okay? So this is pork and beef that have both been marinated with miso, which is fermented soy. Obviously the beans and the rice, which is very Brazilian. So it's basically a fusion of Japanese and Brazilian. Okay, so we're gonna try some of the pork. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That fermented soy is amazing. Miso all the way, always. The beef. It's a Japanese flavor. Obviously, all this is products of Brazil, but with Japanese twist. If the owner is Japanese in a Japanese neighborhood, wow, always beef in Brazil. What is that? This is chili sauce. Homemade chili sauce. I don't know if it's spicy. You don't know? I don't know. Let's find out. Let's see, let's find out. My boy, Guia, just tried this spicy sauce. He's put it on the pork. He's already doing this right now. Let's do it. Mmm. You have ginger, right? Ginger. Chili. It's actually not that spicy. Slight, slight ting. Doesn't linger too long. And then what you have to do is you have to add some of this chili to everything. Like that. I'm a big chili guy. You guys already know. Dive in. Mix it in with the rice. Love the amount of miso they put here. It's like overloaded, but it's good. Spicy. Nah, this is so good. What a mix. What a combination. Nice fusion of Japanese, Brazilian. If you like spicy, you'll like it. It's not crazy spicy. It's just a nice, a nice fusion. Rice and beans, Latin America. Always. Too hot? No, no. I was telling you about the, what do you call the pinprick? Mm-hmm. Very sweet. Guys, the turnip. Wow. Crunchy, juicy. Bag plant, the best. Wow, that food was good. Nice mix of Brazilian and Japanese. And now we're gonna go out and look for a place. The Izakaya. If you guys don't know what Izakaya is, it's basically a Japanese bar. There, you can have food. You can also have sake. You can get some beer. Right here, we got the vendor sign, the amazing okonomiyaki. What's up, guys? Bom dia, bom dia. Looks good, looks good. Oh my God. And right here, he's making two different street foods from Osaka, Japan. Okonomiyaki and takoyaki. Takoyaki is basically octopus fritters. They're amazing. Super hot balls. I don't know if we'll get some. I don't know. Do you want to try some? So we're gonna skip the takoyaki for now. We're gonna go to another place. He's saying we're going to a bar. Oh, actually, he wants to take us to a coffee place first. Yes. All right, so we're gonna get a coffee and we might get one of these. This looks amazing. Nutella? Yeah, it's Nutella. Oh my gosh, that looks phenomenal. Okay, so here's the deal. Like all the coffees that has a camera on it, it takes a picture of you and it shows on the coffee. Like a selfie coffee, right? Okay, let's try it. Here we go, coffee selfie. Iced coffee with my face on it. Oh wow, that's good, man. That's some good iced coffee. It's basically a frappuccino. Now, I'll get rid of myself. Mm, look at that foam. Mm, delicious. Wow. Amazing. It tastes better with my face on it. So now you guys know when you come here, definitely walk over to Coffee Selfie. Get yourself any of the coffees that have, you know, that they can print your face on it. You just take a picture, send it to them on WhatsApp, or you can airdrop it to them and they'll print it really fast. Oh, it's great. Loving Brazil so far. All right, so quickly take a selfie. Then I send it, right, to you guys. So I'll go like this. All right, so I'll open it, right? And then there, take a shot, and then I send this, right? Bam. And now you're gonna do it. Yes. Obrigado, obrigado. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, it's raining right now. Is it me? It's rain. Oh man, this is great. Oh, that was nice. The coffee, like, lifted me up. I feel good. This looks phenomenal. Look at this. You have everything from Japan. You have the sushi. You have the freaking ramen, wow. And you also have that cutlet, the amazing pork cutlet. Where's the zakaya at, though? We're here at Quintaro Zakaya. It's owned by a Japanese family. They are like a sumo fighter. They compete sumo. No way. Yes. Okay. And man, it's awesome. It's a place for you to, like, do quick bites, have sake, and it's almost 5 p.m. here now. It's happy hour. And you drink. I eat. Okay, let's go inside. Because I'm still hungry. Let's go. Okay, so we're gonna order pork with ginger and miso eggplant. That's his suggestion. So this bar, look how small this is. Super tight. We have this menu, which are basically like tapas, right? Brazilian, Japanese tapas. So that's what we're getting. We're also getting sake? Sake? For me, sake. All right, guys. Because of the situation with COVID, we had to come outside. Starting off with some sake. I love sake, guys. Rice wine's the best. Did you guys know that in Brazil, what am I saying, Brazil? In Japan, open container policy. You can drink sake anywhere you want. Okay, here we go. Oh, nice. Super smooth. So this one is, it's dry, and it's called Pure Junmai. Ose Saka, Holistic California. So they're from California? Wow. Okay, eggplant with miso and pork with ginger. Let's dive on this. You guys know how much I love eggplants. The best. Oh, man. Super pork and ginger. Wow. Ginger's like intense, no? It's like real. And right here we have the pork. Ginger, miso, and onions. Fantastic. I love it. It's like shredded pork. This is 20, so $4, right? Each. Each? Yeah. So this is an $8 plate, plus a sake, and we also have some spice. This is like real street food, huh? Absolutely. This is a typical Izakaya in Sao Paulo. Wow. Guys, I am getting really full. I mean, I'm not stopping today. Food, food galore. Let's try. Yeah, really intense, that ginger. Really good. Little bit limey, right? Yeah. Eggplant, a little bit sweet. I love it. People are just talking to us everywhere, huh? Yes. It's like, what are you guys doing here? See, I love it. Amazing tapas, Japanese style. Eggplant, pork, and sake on the street. So in terms of sake, this one is 10 bucks for 300 milliliters. I'll say, in the United States, I'd probably pay double or triple that automatically at any Japanese restaurant. So this is very affordable. Here, you're spending 20 bucks eating two people, drinking and eating, and it's an appetizer, right? These are tapas. These aren't like meant to fill you up. It's supposed to, you know, just eat while you drink and then keep going. I mean, at least in Brazil, Izakaya, usually they open at 6 p.m., so it's a place for you when you get off from work. You come here, drink, eat, and go home happy. Right next door to the Izakaya, we have a Hello Kitty shop. What is this? So basically, that's the only store, the food store of Hello Kitty, that they sell everything, like burgers, Japanese food, smoothies, ice cream, fruits, and everything about Hello Kitty. Now we can see upstairs. It's actually called Eat Asia, right? Eat Asia, and it's the Hello Kitty shop. And the Hello Kitty shop. Wow, look at this, I love it. So this is Eat Asia Hello Kitty, and as you can see, it's a Hello Kitty shop, right? Or like a cafe, restaurant. They have shirts, shirts for sale. They have these collectible dolls, and they also have upstairs. Yeah, let's go upstairs. This is really wild. I mean, I know in Japan, they love Hello Kitty, but this is taking it to another level. So it's basically, upstairs, you can buy some cookies, some souvenirs, masks, shirts, et cetera. And then you can also sit down and eat, and relax right here with the view, right? This is it, beautiful. Look at that. All right, let's get out of here. Let's go have some sushi. I want sushi. Sushi, definitely something you should visit when you come here. Whoa, I almost hit my head. Awesome. Obrigado, obrigado. Obrigado, ciao. So now next, we are going to maybe a Japanese supermarket, or a nice sushi restaurant. Let's see what's gonna wait for us. Yeah, we don't have a perfect plan. We're just going and looking, and seeing what's interesting, and meeting with locals, and just going to like holes in the walls. Lots of shops here. Everything is like, look at that. It's like a Japanese shop. Everything's imported there from like Asia, right? And over here, this is like the Japanese gate. This is what you see all over Japan. Okay, so once you pass the gate, the Japanese gate, here you have a bridge that goes over the highway. We actually came from the airport going this way, going south. Look at this. Crazy traffic, but this is the area, right? Libertadji, Japan town. Amazing, wow. So you have vendors, people walking, relaxing. Coming back home, we have a subway station very close to here. Okay, that's why everybody's walking through here now. Awesome. I actually love this because, so it's not a pedestrian-only street. It's a one-way street, but most of it is walking. Most people are just hanging out, right? Yeah, exactly. Especially now, it's almost 5.30. People are hanging out, going home. Some of them, they are like shooting. And of course, here is a touristic area of Sao Paulo, so people love Libertadji. Once you cross the bridge, there's a Japanese garden. It's open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Unfortunately, it's five already, it's closed. But it looks beautiful. There's koi fish in there. It's like a pond, right? And over here, more vendors. Just crowded. Hey, what's up, man? Bom dia, bom dia. So here, we have another Japanese supermarket. We have one here and another one in that corner, so we can visit both. So basically, they have Japanese products, right? Everything that comes from Japan. Yeah. And over there, we have Minasou, and it has the Avengers everywhere. Exactly. So right here, we have the subway station, right? The metro station. Banca de Praça Libertadji. Yeah, no. Actually, the subway is the Japão Libertadji. We go down here, and that's like a bank. They sell magazines. Yeah, it's a newsstand. Okay, that's the newsstand. Under it is the metro station, subway station. Over here, we have a bank, National Bank, and then over here, we have street food vendors, but they're not selling Japanese food, are they? Some. Some? Some. As you can see, the decor of the National Bank, it's all Asia-style, look. Kind of like a temple, right? So here, we have two street food vendors. One is selling Guarapo, or sugarcane juice, just like in India. Sugarcane all day here in Brazil. And next to us, we have a guy doing tempura. Looks phenomenal. Wow. There's a difference between Rio and Sao Paulo. Here in Sao Paulo, we have Guarapo. We also call Caldo de Cana, which is the sugarcane. So it's the same product that you make the sugarcane liquor, which is the cachaça, right? And also, we make the ethanol, right? The fuel. And the difference between Sao Paulo and Rio here, they mix with pineapple. And in Rio, we do with lime. I prefer with pineapple. Let's try it. You're saying it's very sweet. Guarapo. Mm. Delicious, huh? Oh, wow. With pineapple? Amazing. Pineapple. I prefer with pineapple. Oh, that's amazing. That's so good. So in Rio, it's not with pineapple, it's with lime. Okay. Yeah, I guess it'd be very similar, though. So this is sugarcane. Sugarcane. And you just chew it, it don't swallow. Yeah, you suck it in. Let's suck it up. Suck it in. Sweet. It's pretty good. It's kind of like lollipop, right? Sugarcane lollipop. You just can't, you can't swallow it. You gotta chew. Chew. I'm good with this. But as you can see, there's bees everywhere. Okay, now Rio style, because I'm from Rio, right? So, sugarcane, sugarcane with lime. But again, I do prefer Sao Paulo style. With pineapple. All right, my friends, here we go. Salud. Cheers, guys. Saúde. Obrigado. Okay. I mean, both are good. I think this one, they put too much ice. Because the other one, I just took it down fast. So, if you like lime, I think you'll like this one better, obviously. But the other one, for me, Sao Paulo style is better. Yeah, you see? In the heat, this is the best thing in the world. Right now, it's not so hot. It's actually a little chilly. Now we are going to try pastel. And we're gonna learn how to make it. This place is called Yoka. They've been in business for 79 years. And look at these pastries. We're gonna have them with beef. A beef pastry. A little different. That's more Brazilian style. I love it, though. Super Japanese. Everything, even the spice. Wow. Okay. So, I'm here with the owner. And he's taking me into the kitchen to see how they make the pasteles. So, the chef here is making tons of pasteles. Every single one's different. The first one was a mix of stuff. And then he dropped an egg inside. Then he did one with chocolate. I mean, this is fantastic. So many different ingredients. Look at this. That's like crema. And then that's another type of mash. I have no idea what that is. What is that? Basically, this is chicken. And then we have a Brazilian cheese. Call it catupiry, right? And kind of a Brazilian cream cheese. Call it catupiry. And this is their famous pastel. Ground beef, tomato, cheese, and egg. Woo! Really big. Let me take a bite. That was like empty. Hold on, hold on. Let me take a bite in here. Yeah, super hot. I love it, though. The inside of the dough is soft. The outside's crispy, but not too crispy. The cheese is like melting on my hand. Look at this. It falls apart. So crunchy. And they gave me some of this spicy sauce. So the pastel I tried with the egg in the middle. I finally got to the center. Look at this. It just like pops. Oh my gosh. Oh, it's just breaking. It's just starting to break, the whole thing. Oh wow. This is like carne mechada. They scramble the egg inside. The egg basically boils in there. Oh wow. It's like floating throughout everything. The yolk. Whoa, so good, man. So different. This actually reminds me of more like a Colombian empanada. Oily, but not too much. They like drain the oil. So I thought we were done, but the owner just brought more food. And this is shredded chicken with potato. It's like a little fritter. It has also celery. Oh yeah. So I've had a few of these in Colombia. Yeah, this is mini size. Yeah, and then I just throw a little bit of that chili, right? Have to. Today I'm overdoing it. Too much fried stuff. Nice shredded chicken. Super mushy. Basically like a mashed potato fritter with chicken inside. Add the chili. That little spice. Perfect. It's awesome. The owner's amazing, man. Yeah, man, the owner is outstanding. Awesome. Yoka. Yokahama. Yokahama, okay. And now we're gonna cross the street and we're gonna look for some sushi. It's the last thing we're doing. We're gonna hunt for some sushi. Obviously we're in Japan town. We have to eat some sushi. All right, so our last stop tonight is here at Izakaya Isa. We're gonna have some sushi, probably some sake. This place looks awesome. They were closed when we got here, but now it's 6.30. They're open. We're the first ones going in. Can't wait. I love this place already. I feel like I'm jumping back into Japan. Look over here to the left, we have a bar. Very nice. Sake, never ending sake. Incredible. Over here we have tables. So we have three tables. You have to take off your shoes and sit down. Luckily for us though, the table is like lifted so you can put your feet inside. Not like in Miami. The Japanese restaurants, you're sitting on the floor and your legs get like hurt, you know? This is good, this is good. I like this, it's cool. So quick change of plans. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, they don't have any cold dishes. They only have hot dishes. So we're gonna have takoyaki. So basically, you know, octopus fritter balls and we're gonna have some soju. Soju is basically sweet potatoes. It's still sweet potatoes. Instead of rice, it's sweet potatoes. It's delicious. It's a little stronger than sake though. And here she is. She's making takoyaki. All right, so this is takoyaki. If you've never tried it before, it's basically octopus fritters, balls, and on top they shave bonito, right? So bonito shavings and it moves because it's so hot that it makes the bonito shavings move, right? That's basically it. You think it's like something alive. You think it's alive, yeah, yeah. Yeah, alive. Yeah, this is like the ultimate dish to have in Japan. It's like a war in your life. No, it's not alive though, it's not alive. No, it's not alive. But you gotta be careful. You have to wait a little bit because it's super hot. Super hot. If you bite into it, you're gonna burn all your gums. Exactly. I say wait five minutes. Yes. But we're just gonna wait just one minute because I'm still starving. I'm ready. Go, go, go. He's ready to burn his tongue. It's on fire. A little. Yes, yes. Delicious. First time I tried this, I was in Osaka. I couldn't believe it. It blew my mind. I know it's gonna blow my mind here too. Ooh. It's still really hot though, right? Yeah. Not that much, but. Mm. Oh, wow. This is a gourmet version. So it's like a sweet sauce on top. Needle flakes. Mm, the shavings. It's very mushy inside. Nice chunks of octopus. Whoa. That was hot. My friend. Cheers. This is soju. Not so bad. Do you want to try? Not so bad. Mm. Good, right? Mm, good. Very good. So if you've never been to Japan, obviously they make sake, which is rice wine, but they also make this soju. Soju. And it's different from the one in China. A little different. This is basically made with sweet potatoes. So it's actually a little sweet. This one, not so strong. Pretty good. That's my favorite. And it was 35 right off for this one? Yeah, 35, 35. So $7 for a little drink. And that's it, my friends. We explored Liberdade, the Japan town of Sao Paulo. The biggest population outside of Japan is in Brazil, roughly 1.5 million people. This is where they arrived in 1908, and it really exploded, obviously, after World War II. So here you can come, you can eat traditional Japanese food. We didn't eat any sushi tonight, but we had some traditional food. We had takoyaki. Takoyaki. What else did we have, my friend? We had guarapo. Guaraná. We had sake. Sake. We had some bites there. What was the first place we went to? We went to Sato, and we had that. Oh, that place. So it was like beef, pork, rice, beans. So that was like a fusion Brazilian slash Japanese food. I mean, amazing tour here. Definitely a place you gotta hit up when you come to Sao Paulo. You must visit. Explore, eat, nonstop. We started at two, and it's already 8 p.m. We ate for six hours straight. Yeah. I'm out popping. No more food for me, man. All right, guys, so I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please give me a thumbs up. Leave me a comment below. Subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content. We'll see you in the next Travel Food Adventure in Sao Paulo. Peace.