Portugal Day Festival

Featuring a guest star from Bahia.

At last year's Portugal Day Festival — a two-day event that consumes a mile and a half of Ferry St., in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark — numerous vendors prepared outsized cuts of meat, and one Ecuadorian stand grilled the guinea pigs called cuy. I also have a recollection (though not a photo) of an entire steer cooking on a spit alongside the street.

This year, the beef options were skimpier and farther between, and cuy was nowhere in sight, so festival-goers had to make do with clams on the half-shell, sugar-sprinkled fried dough, Colombian skirt steak, Ecuadorian pork, Puerto Rican frituras, grilled chicken, grilled sardines — even grilled eel. Fruity blended alcoholic drinks, too, freely (and legally) paraded through the streets. (Click on any photo to see more from the festival.)

It was the Denara "Sabor de Bahia" stand, however, that set me scampering across the street. The African-influenced food of that northeast Brazilian state seldom shows its face in the tristate area; in the past few years, I've come across it only once. So you can imagine my glee when I was handed an acarajé ($5), a black-eyed-pea fritter that had been sliced, spread with hot sauce, loaded with vatapá (a mash typically made from nuts, palm oil, coconut milk, and wheat), then studded with shrimp. It's messy street food, in the best sense.

The Denara folks don't have their own place, but in addition to street festivals, they seem to be getting together a regular gig; call 908-477-7324 to find out more.

Portugal Day Festival
In and around Ferry St., Newark, New Jersey
Early June