Trying Brazil's National Dish & "Dry Aged" Fish BBQ in Rio de Janeiro

Hey guys, Mike Chang here in Rio de Janeiro. I'm here with Tom and Marcela. And where are we going today? We are on the west side of Rio. They call this the Pantanal of Rio because that's like a kind of jungle. There's wildlife here, there's a big lagoon and we're on our way to a place called Ostia. So Ostia is a new place that's kind of pioneering dry-aged seafood. So we're gonna see their crazy curing chamber with all kinds of awesome fish hanging up, dry-aging. And yeah, look at this beautiful scenery. It's gonna be spectacular. It is really spectacular and dry-aged fish sounds really good too. And there it is. Look at that. That is the dry-aging chamber for all different types of fish and inside is a bunch of varieties of dry-aged fish. You got tuna right here, the big one. There's yellowtail, emberjack, there's snappers, there's wahoos. And the small ones are dry-aged sometimes for days, the bigger ones sometimes for weeks. They're even trying it out where they're dry-aging some fish for several months. And how they get everything prepared is they skin the fish using a traditional Japanese skinning method. And what they're trying to do is they're actually trying to do a nose to tail approach to fish. So they're using every single part of the fish, the head, the tails, the fins. And the dry-aging process is supposed to intensify the flavor and also change the texture of the fish. And there's only three places in Brazil that does this and these guys are the biggest ones. So yeah, can't wait to try this out. Dry-aged fish. This place is truly remarkable. I never even thought there were people out there dry-aging fish. To start, this is a drink made with fruits from northern Brazil. Not really, it's interesting. So got a few dishes to try. This dish here, this is really interesting. I came to love Brazilian garlic bread, which is very very common here. So it's Brazilian garlic bread with shrimp stuffed inside and then fried and then there's shrimp farofa on top. Oh my god, that's good. This is like decadent Brazilian comfort food. Garlic bread, first of all, on its own, already so delicious. Really garlicky, toasty on the outside. Usually the garlic bread inside comes with some sort of butter. But this is also stuffed with shrimp aioli on the inside as well. So just shrimp on shrimp on shrimp inside this toasty garlic bread shell. Second appetizer is a stuffed squid. And squid is stuffed with garlic, onions, tomatoes. Wow, that's tender and garlicky. And they grill everything over a wood charcoal grill. So you get a lot of that nice smoky flavor. The squid is perfectly charred inside. Succulent, it's tender. Tomatoes give off a subtle sweet flavor. Crunch of the onions. Again, very garlicky. And you taste that olive oil as well. I haven't even got to the fish yet. This is already so good. Next up, this is my first taste of dry-aged fish. Dry-aged mahi-mahi. This thing is, first of all, cooked beautifully. The crust is nice and toasty. And as my fork cut into the fillet, you see the juicy, see a slight pink hue in the center. Wow, that thing is mind-blowingly good. First thing you notice when you take a bite is how crispy and charred that skin is. I think it's just like a delicate little fish cracker. And this is by far the most delicate, tender, juicy, flavorful mahi I've ever put in my mouth. You barely need to chew this. I can see what they're talking about with the dry-aging. I don't think I've ever had mahi flavor this intense before. You can taste all that sweetness from the flaky meat. Usually this fish is pretty mild, but wow, that flavor just shines. All it really has is a bit of salt. But man, that flavor just magnified with the dry-aging process. There's some sauce on the side if you need it. You don't really need it. It's just tasting the natural flavor of the mahi is enough. Again, that skin is perfect. It's been sitting on the table for like 10 minutes, still crispy, melts in your mouth. Best mahi I ever had. I remember too. Usually I don't even like mahi that much. Amazing. And the fish just arrived. Got a whole fish as well. This is a wahoo. It's just simply grilled with some butter and salt and it's grilled to absolute perfection. They wanted to start dry-aging to present the fish to their customers in a different way. So a lot of trial and error went into this. Oh my gosh. First thing you notice as I'm running my fork over the fish skin, it is crispy. You can already tell the top layer is crunchy. The bottom layer is gonna be tremendously tender. The fish is sliced. Look how perfectly grilled this is. You can see all that succulent meat. This is about as perfect of a piece of fish as you can ever find anywhere. Just one of the softest, most delicate piece of fish you'll ever have in your life, I promise you. The skin, like I said, still retains that subtle crunch. It's also my fault because I've been taking photos of it and videos of it for like five minutes as it was sitting on the table. So the skin is not as crispy as when it first landed on the table, but it still retains a lot of that crunch. The meat is very mild, but again, the dry-aging process, you're able to taste all that subtle sweetness. Again, nothing on the fish, but a little oil or butter and a bit of salt. Not even a lot of salt, just a little bit of salt. So what you're tasting right now is really just the true flavor of the fish and the dry-aging process intensified the flavors and also made it even more delicate. Like I told you guys, the softest fish you'll ever put in your mouth. It's truly a fish that I've never tasted before. What a place. This has got to be one of my favorite fish places in the world. So now we are in the neighborhood of Santa Teresa, and this place is basically up in a mountain. And to get here, you can either take a cab or walk, I guess, but there's also a tram that goes all the way up. This restaurant we're at is called Bar Dominero, and this place serves an iconic dish, feijoada. Pretty much a super, super heavy stew that I was told if I eat it, I need to go immediately go take a nap. And this place is supposed to be the best place to get this dish, and that's why the late great Anthony Bourdain came here as well. To start though, this is a little appetizer cup of soup. It's known as poor man's soup. It's just beans and pork, a little chicharron on the side that I just dunked it in here. This is really tasty. It's rich, it's thick, it's got a very deep, rustic flavor. Dunk the little chicharron here, have it soak up some of the soup. This thing definitely needs some hot sauce, so add some fireball into it. Wow, be careful with this. That was like five drops, and this thing is now just what spews out of a volcano. It's really good though. With some heat, that mixed with the deep, rich flavor, this is superb. The feijoada has arrived, and it is looking great. But at the same time, that is a hefty, hefty looking dish. And inside the feijoada, there's pork ribs, cured pieces of beef, sausage, and of course, tons of black beans. There's a specific way to eat this. So you take some of the rice, take your feijoada, some greens, some farofa. This is apparently a vital ingredient. Slices of oranges, and of course, a little chicharron. This is a very popular dish here in Brazil, and apparently this dish is mainly just eaten on Saturdays, because supposedly after you eat this dish, there's no way you can ever work for that day. You're done for that day. You are going home, laying on the couch, laying on your bed, and that's pretty much all you're doing. Look how tender this pork is. Oh, some cured beef. Look at that. Look at that color. This beef looks like the rocks of Sedona. This is very, very good. It's very rich. Different cuts of meat in here. The beans are scrumptious and creamy. The collard greens provides an additional crunch and a hint of bitterness. The beef's got more of a chew to it, because it is cured beef. But wow, there's a lot of flavor. Here's it with the chicharron. The chicharron and the farofa is such a great crunchy element to this dish. I can also see how that after you finish this, you've got no motivation left for the day. I'll try it with the oranges. Wow. Yeah, when you're eating this, one thing I do find myself craving is some acid, and the orange definitely provides that. Add some of this atomic whatever this is. They brought this over, kind of got this little smirk on their face. You know, whenever that happens, it's partially doing you a favor and partially wants you to make their day by seeing your reaction. Personally, I felt like that smirk was a little sinister. All right, let's just add some, a little bit. Let's try this. It's not bad. I don't understand it. I mean, thinking I was going to just, you know, my head is going to blow off or something. Not bad. This is way spicier. Yeah. Kind of fireball. I think I mentioned this before, rice and beans. My first time really liking it was at a Brazilian restaurant. It's so tasty and rustic and comforting, and it definitely, definitely will fill you up. You guys have been loving this dish. I can't stop. I can't stop. I have a trouble. Is this your favorite dish? It's one of them. You think you're going to have a little bit, and then you eat a lot, and then you're like, okay, I've got to stop or I'm going to be in trouble. And then you don't stop. And that's when you look for a hammock. You either lie in a hammock or you lie on the beach. Yeah. It's that good. Also, besides that, we also got this dish. This is a very classic Brazilian dish of oxtails and watercress and potatoes stewed together. Oh my gosh. Look how tender this oxtail is. Oh, this thing is just falling off the bones, complete with a ton of cartilage and tendon. One of the best tasting parts of a cow, the tail. This is one of the greatest things ever. It's so good. This is some next level tender oxtail. Wow. This thing is melt in your mouth. It's gelatinous. It's soft. It's flavored really, really well. Eat that with some potatoes. This is really, really gelatinous. Every single bite, you barely need to chew at all. Potatoes are delicious. Again, watercress. Fantastic. This is one of those things where you got to pick this up and gnaw on it. There's a lot of crevices inside the oxtail, so you got to suck out all that marrow and that tendon right here. Just gnaw that off the bone. That is so satisfying. I think this is my favorite dish here. One of the best oxtails I've ever had in my life. This dish is really interesting. Well, it has a really interesting name. Chicken Little Bird. It's basically fried chicken. Well, fried really crispy chicken with dried garlic, some herbs, seasoning on top, some lime. That's a very crispy piece of chicken. Really crispy skin. Chicken's nice and juicy. You get random little pieces of skin. This thing is really garlicky. There's a little appetizer before going to the next location. This is a nighttime food stall. What's he frying? Acarajé. This is you guys' favorite food. You guys were really excited about this. Me, every Sunday, I go here just to have one. I need it. I need it. I'm thinking about it. We've just been eating all day, so if you're this excited about it, I'm sure it's really good. So this is the ever-popular acarajé. So what they do is they take black-eyed peas and it's peeled, often by hand, one by one to get rid of all the skin, and then it's blended with some onions, deep-fried in red palm oil. And then inside here, I see some salsa, it looks like, some shrimp, and then some sort of creamy, nutty-looking paste. It just goes everywhere. Yeah, this is definitely a messy food item. So this thing's really crispy on the outside. Inside, it's extremely creamy, a little sweet, basically a whole shrimp with a shell on it, which I like. Oh, spicy too. I think there's okra in here. It's really slimy. It's okra in here, right? Yeah. It's really slimy. It's good though. So texture is ultra crispy, also creamy, also slimy. It's savory, it's spicy. So pretty much every single flavor and texture you can think of, I think is represented here. Tom's happy. It kind of tastes like cornmeal, a little bit. Yeah. We waited about 20-30 minutes for this, and there's already a line, too, behind us. Yeah, this is a very popular food stall, and this is a very popular food item. Yeah, I can see why. This is delicious. I've been eating all day, and eating this makes you hungry all over again. All right, one more sandwich to close out the night. Is that a pet grasshopper? What? Is that a chimney? So this is also a bar-slash-restaurant. Look at the size of these cuts of pork. A little chicharron right over here. You got two sandwiches. One is a sliced pork sandwich. The other is a roast beef sandwich. So basically what happens is they slice up your ham or beef or whatever meat you want in your sandwich. Then it's taken back to the kitchen to get it roasted and the cheese melted, and finally it's put together. And what's interesting is there's now a slice of pineapple in it. It's one of these elevated skyscraper meat sandwiches where, of course, you're asking the question, would you like some bread with your meats? It's a thick layer of cheese, pineapples over many slices of pork. The flavor of the pork is good. I love the pineapple. The acid and the sweetness really cuts through and balances out the savory and fattiness of the pork. But it is really dry, unfortunately. The beef sandwich though, I think we might have a different story here. This is so awesome. Those slices of beef are just pure gushers. Then you have the sweet juice from the pineapple on top, mixing in with all that savory goodness. Of course, some chili sauce. Add some of that. You can add a splash of lime if you want. Look at the juice of the beef just soaking into the bread. I just want to say, for a country that really doesn't offer a lot of spicy food, all their hot sauces are nuclear. It's not even like some mild hot sauce. Every hot sauce I've had in this country will burn a layer of skin off your tongue, and I love them for it. And this is a great way to top up a fun-filled food day. Starting off with some tri-age fish, then a bunch of bar food, street food, finally skyscraper of a meat sandwich. You okay, Tom? What happened, buddy? I'm done. I'm done. You're done? Okay. Well, thank you guys so much for showing me around today again. If you guys are traveling to Rio, check them out. Eat Rio. I'll put all their information down below for you. They'll show you some amazing places. And as always, thank you all so much for watching. Until we eat again, see you later.