I’ll admit I still haven’t figured out how to navigate the restaurant scene here. Although I imagine the US is also very bewildering for foreigners, I maintain that, if only because of the extreme variability in the ways your tab can be tallied, eating out in Sampa is significantly more complicated. My first experience eating out was at Bella Paulista, the fancy bakery near Av. Paulista, just a few hours after I’d groggily stumbled off the plane. Upon entering the bakery, I was confronted with a turnstile and a man in a suit. As if entering a parking garage, my friend pushed a button on a machine next to the turnstyle, and a small plastic card popped out. Seeing that I was at a loss, he pushed it again, and handed me my own plastic card, indicating that I should go through the turnstyle. As I struggled with the turnstyle, the man in the suit handed out plastic cards to the people behind us.

When we entered the bakery, the chaos reminded me of Durham’s hip and super-stressful restaurant/shop/bakeries, “Foster’s” and “Parker and Otis.” However, unlike these places where everything is ordered at various counters around the shop, at Bella, we were seated and brought a menu. When we placed our order of coxinha, pao de queijo and fresh squeezed orange and mango juice (in honor of Paula, of course!), the waitress walked off with our plastic “comandas” (this might be a niche market for aspiring artists who want to expatriate), returning them several minutes later when our food came. It wasn’t until the next morning when I went out to breakfast at a padoca, or bakery/bar, with Tammy that I understood the function of a plastic comanda. This time the card was not required for entry, but we were each handed one when we sat down at the “bar.” When we ordered our grilled pâo de queijo, sprinkled with queijo parmesâo and filled with queijo requejâo (yes, that’s three types of cheese), the man behind the counter grabbed our cards. A few minutes later, when I ordered water, it was only after significant prompting and gesturing from Tammy, that I realized I needed to hand in the plastic comanda again. At the end of our breakfast, we hopped down from the bar and brought our comandas to the register where we were rung up.

I think if that’s how all bars, café-type restaurants and padocas here worked, I might just about be able to get the hang of it. However, enough cafés here employ more familiar payment methods, that on the slightly rarer occasions I do need to use a plastic comanda, I am constantly forgetting to give it to the waitress, leaving it at the counter, or not taking it back from the cashier. This last can be particularly fun if there’s a turnstyle, since you also can’t leave the establishment without dropping your “paid” comanda in the slot. And after ordering food at the counter, I’m usually so relieved to have successfully communicated my request, that when the waitress looks at me expectantly, I still have no idea that she’s waiting for me to hand her the comanda.

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