Brazil Independence Day Celebration, Newark

[Jason Perlow]

Jhlurie and I decided to scope out the Brazilian Independence Day celebration on Ferry Street in Newark's Ironbound section today. Oh man, what a blast. Talk about one humungous nonstop party!

The party started at the intersection of Jackson and Ferry streets, and continued all the way down towards the end of Ferry Street. To put this in terms of scale, its like at least twelve blocks long, perhaps more.

While this is a Brazilian celebration, many other representative cuisines of Latin America were there as well, including Puerto Rican, Colombian, Peruvian, and Mexican.

By far one of the best food items was the Colombian Hangar Steak, which came in a nice sized portion along with Maduros and potatoes and slaw for $8. I also like the fact that the guy gave Jon and I a peice to taste before buying, not unlike the techniques used by the local drug pushers. Colombia: Our best exports are hangar steak and cocaine!

The Colombians had some nice kebabs as well:

We then hit the Peruvians:

The corn with the huge kernels was tasty but a bit starchy.

The Peruvians had some really nice Orangeade:

Brazilians making some serious churrasqaria food.

We then had some majorly tasty sausage and empanadas:

Brahma Beer was being drank at an alarmingly huge rate, there were probably at least a dozen stalls selling the stuff, not to mention Caipirinhas and entire quarts of sangria.

Here's another one of the better things we ate -- Pasteles and Croquettes, deep fried Brazilian yummy things stuffed with meat and cheese:

Deep fried chicken croquette with Brazilian Catupiry Cheese:

A Brazilian iced-tea distributor was selling a new import that I really liked -- Yerba Matte tea with honey.

In addition to the incredible smells wafting down the street, the place was utterly pounding with the Samba sounds of Pimenta Malagueta. People were dancing all over the place, including lots of really cute Brazilian girls. Note to to all you single guys -- this is an ooglers paradise.

One particular stand was selling young coconuts to drink and eat:

More Peruvian food:

And Pina Coladas:

[rooftop1000]

Now I am wondering if I can hang a tomato plant cage over a grill like that ....

all that and no mozzarepas....for shame...they were the best part of the portuguese festival last year

T

[Pan]

You mean those mozzarepas that you can get at any street fair in New York?

Great pictures, Jason! I have to try to remember the date for next year.

[Jason Perlow]

There may very well have been Arepas with cheese and various other types of things -- we only went about halfway thru it before petering out. It went at least twelve blocks, perhaps more, because I think it extended into another street cutting into Ferry.

We got there at like 2:30 and left at like 5:30. If we wanted to see the whole thing, we probably should have came at 10am, in order to get a better parking space and to have enough time. We parked my 18-foot-long Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham four blocks away from the start of the celebration at A.J. Seabra's supermarket (the local street parking was now out of the question at that late in the day) where I bought some nice sirloin cap steaks and chicken linguica sausage to cook for poor Rachel for dinner, who couldn't join us because she had an open house.

[rooftop1000]

You mean those mozzarepas that you can get at any street fair in New York?

Great pictures, Jason! I have to try to remember the date for next year.

←

The only street fair I have been to in NY was San Gennaro...and recently enough

T

[jhlurie]

Things to remember about the Brazil Day fair:

--Yellow and green napkins are apparently enough to dress most Brazilian women under 30...

--The bigger the (corn) kernel, the bigger the piece which gets stuck between your teeth...

--The really COOL hangar steak guys spin the hangar thing. Really.

--Those fried croquette thingies are approximately 1000% better if the girl just plucked them out of the oil five seconds ago.

--I'm not sure if there are actually 50,000 Brazilians in Newark, but it seemed like there were that many on that street. We walked through about 7 blocks of crowds, turned the corner where the band was set up and saw what had to be at least 10 more blocks of the same in the other direction.