What to Eat Tonight

Haute Brazilian at Café Boulud — Limited Time Only!

Prawns in cream of cassava with salmon roe, up close and personal.Photo courtesy Cafe Boulud
We’ve got nothing against your typical feijoada, the black-bean stew that’s Brazil’s national dish and often as dark and heavy as a neutron star. But though there are fine meals to be had in “Little Brazil” (which you can find on 45th and 46th Streets near Fifth Avenue), New Yorkers rarely get to taste the best of what the country has to offer. This week, as Rob and Robin point out in the magazine, top Brazilian chefs João Leme and Fred Frank have been cooking more nuanced, tropical-tinged dishes at Café Boulud. Their repetoire includes a high-end feijoada, which will be served, once the chefs leave at the end of the weekend, every Saturday this month. But we’d try some of their other dishes while there’s still time.

You can’t go wrong if you start with light cream of cassava and dendê palm oil with grilled prawns, tapioca, and salmon roe, and follow it with the duck breast lacquered with sugarcane molasses, caramelized pumpkin, and cocoa sauce. Make sure to down a couple caipirinhas, then finish up with the roasted pineapple with coconut mousse and coriander honey — the type of thing feijoada rarely leaves room for.

Taste of Brazil [NYM]

Haute Brazilian at Café Boulud — Limited Time Only!