City Style and Living - Summer 2008 - (Page 18) L ONG BEFORE THE PAIN OF EATING TOO MUCH HAS HAD A CHANCE TO LINGER IN YOUR BRAIN, the intoxicatingly rich smell of barbecue fills the air outside of Bolero restaurant on McLeod Trail. Chef Diego Restrepo is preparing tall skewers of meat: lamb, ribs, sirloin, picanha, alcatra, vegetables, and pineapple. This is churrasco, Brazilian barbecue. The perfect starter to a churrasco feast, is, of course the caipirinha, a freshly muddled lime and cachaca (fermented sugar cane rum) aperitif. “This is how we start off the meal – it’s very strong”. Though far removed from the rhythmic, balletic capoeira dance or string bikinis of Ipanema, Bolero is perfectly at home in this city, where, as in Brazil, meat (especially beef) is abundant. As Chef Restrepo explains, “in Brazil we have huge churrascarias - you have everything from sushi, lobster, fish and of course meat.” We enter the kitchen, where a massive barbecue takes centre stage. As the meat juices are sealed, displaying the telltale charcoal grill marks that all aspiring backyard barbecue enthusiasts desire, the skewers are incrementally moved higher above the roaring flames, until finally resting perpendicular to the heat on the top rung of the barbecue. As we learn, it is this final resting period that further enhances
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