Made in Brasil, Camden Town, London NW1

Recently I haven't been a particularly good blogger with few new posts. I have a few recipes I would like to share, more reviews and so on. For a number of reasons I just haven't got round to it. To be fair to myself, work, and more importantly my boss (boss, if you are reading, take note), have kept me so busy that I have little energy left for anything else. On another note, I haven't been anywhere which has been notable enough, for whatever reason-which includes not being good, that I immediately want to inform my followers- yes all twelve if you- about.

Yesterday, after an extremely long and exhausting day, I was lucky enough that my friend agreed to a drink. It was a beatifelly warm day so we went to Camden Town. I obviously don't go there enough. The sheer number of people is quite overwhelming but very refreshing to see such a different crowd of people. It's true what they say, the world is a different place south of the river, so crossing that divide is always interesting.

First, I declared my wish for a drink and within moments, my desire for food. We sat at one of the numerous bars overlooking the Canal just by Camden Lock for a beer, in what was left of the rest of the sunny(ish) afternoon. I remembered of the Brazilian place I happened to go a few times for drinks so I suggested we try the food there.

We made the short walk to Inverness Street and walked past the numerous bars/restaurants, which, by the way, all look equally interesting and walked into Made in Brasil.  The salsa music in the background, which together with the promise of food perked me up in what was for me a tiring Saturday otherwise.The decor is funkier than the outside would suggest with some low tables for drinks at the front, a bar which whose look promises wonderful cocktail and tables at the back. The courteous waitress led us to a table, by the window as we requested. It was quite early, 6pm, so we were two of only a handful of people there.

The drinks menu is extensive and has all sorts of lovely cocktails. It took longer to decide on drinks than on food. Almost always, I have wine with meals. This time I opted for a pineapple caipirinha. I've had a fair few cocktails in my life and only was this good, at £6.50 it is excellent value.



Pineapple Caipirinha


The menu consists of authentic Brazilian dishes. To be honest, I am not familiar with Brazilian cuisine so if anyone knows better you can verify this. However, I do know that halloumi is certainly not Brazilian which was one of the starters! But there was a good selections of both meat and fish dishes and a few vegetarian choices also.

To start, we settled on Lula 'a dore'- bread crumbed baby squid and the coxinha- chicken pastries. Both were straightforward dishes, the baby squid was a nicer version of calamari and the chicken pastries were what I would recognise as chicken croquettes. Although we happily ate them, I wouldn't say that these were out of the ordinary and quality that you would expect at the least.

Lula 'a dore'



Coxinha

I had the feijoada to continue. This is slow cooked mixed pork and black beans stew served with rice. The stew comes in a separate bowl which you add over the rice. As previously mentioned, I can't comment on how authentic the dishes are, or how true the flavours are to local brazilian cuisine, however I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed my meal. The portions were substantial and the stew was lovely with perfectly cooked pork.



Feijoado



My friend has the Virado a paulista: pork cutlet with poached egg and brown beans served with rice which was an equally substantial dish, and as tasty.

Over the course of our meal it started getting much busier, with people who seemed to know their brazilian food better than us. I have once been there after dinner when the music gets going and everyone is there not for the food but the cocktails. Whatever your 'usual' kind of place may be, you will enjoy this, with a mixed crowd and interesting people watching. The fashion sense is certainly different to that in south west London.

We ended our meal with alcoholic coffees which I recommend. The service is in fact very good which for some reason surprised me. I know I may be unfair here, but I was expecting typical run-down bar kind of service. Far from it. Although I wouldn't suggest you make a trip to Camden Town just to go here, if you are in Camden Town, then it's certainly on my list of recommendations. This place does get packed so if you want to sit down, get there early.

We paid £31pp incl service for two courses, a cocktail each and an alcoholic coffee each

Made in Brazil, 12 Inverness Street, Camden Town, London NW1 7HJ Tel: 020 7482 0777
http://made-in-brasil-bar.co.uk/