What Belo Horizonte Actually Eats When The Tour Bus Breaks Down (Again)

so i rolled into *Belo Horizonte after our drum kit flew off the trailer near Ouro Preto - hills here punch harder than my snare backbeat. First lesson: BH ain't Rio. Rent's like half price ($300 gets you a
real apartment, not some favela Airbnb), but unemployment's sitting at a
shaky 12%. You eat accordingly. The locals here treat food like a
4/4 rhythm: solid, repetitive, delicious. Weather's that dry heat that cracks your drumsticks by noon,
then smacks you with cool mountain air when the sun dips. Just six hours from Rio's chaos or an hour flight from São Paulo's concrete jungle,
but feels like another planet.

Monday lunch at a
padaria near Savassi taught me the drill: pile your plate with
feijão tropeiro (beans + bacon + kale +
cassava flour = magic), squash some pão de queijo with your
beer, and shut up. Workers here spend 30% of their income on food according to some
government stat I overheard between soundchecks. Explains why the portions
feel like drum solos - no half-measures.

"Don't you dare eat
pasteis at Mercado Central after 2pm," warned João the roadie, chewing
on smoked pork neck at Bar do
Ôlho. "They've been
sitting since breakfast."

The real action's in the botecos* after
dark. Found a place near Santa Tereza where old guys argue about
futebol over ice-cold Bohemias (R$4 a bottle!)
and plates of fried queijo coalho bigger than my snare drum. Check this Google
map if you doubt me:

.

Funny thing - BH folks
act embarrassed about their food while secretly knowing it's god-tier.

"Go
to Xapuri for
fancy mineira food," mumbled some artist type at Café
Palhares,
"but we eat braised pork knuckles at my mom's."

Safety tip from a bass
player sleeping in his van: Northeast side after midnight hits like a
bad fill. Stick to downtown eats where cops nurse coffees at
2am.

Three things I'll
remember when we haul gear out tomorrow: 1) Mineiros put cottage cheese in
everything like it's drum grease, 2) the bread aisle here looks like a
percussion section - fifty types of rolls!, 3) according to r/foradecasa,
expats go vegetarian within weeks because resisting pork belly is
impossible. Six days, fourteen
comida
kilo joints, zero salads. Mission accomplished.

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