Vieiras－seared scallops, seaweed salad.(Photo/China Daily)
"It is the tenderest, best part in the back quarter of the cow, and you only find it in Brazil," he says. "It's a triangular cut and should weigh no more than 1.5 kg. If there's more than that, there's a part of the maminha (bottom sirloin) with it."
Schramm says eating Brazilian barbecued meat with white rice and a kind of vinaigrette sauce on the side called campanha is popular.
"We also have garlic bread, chicken wings and chicken legs for churrasco (barbecues), but everywhere you go in Brazil they eat chicken hearts. They're very popular."
Top-quality beef is not that expensive in Brazil, and a meal in a top barbecue restaurant would cost about 300 yuan per person, Schramm says.
"As a desert, we put whole bananas with the skin on the grill, a very traditional way of having barbecue dessert."
Schramm cooked for a similar food festival in Beijing last year just before the soccer World Cup held in Brazil. This year the festival is bigger, and a much more diversified Brazilian dining experience will be on offer, he says.
"We have set menus for lunch and dinner, but also a cocktail party, a barbecue party and a samba party. Brazilians are party people. So more information and more options."
From Rio he has brought some typical Brazilian ingredients that he says are hard to find in Beijing, including tapioca (starch from cassava root), goiabada cascao (Brazilian guava paste) and castanha-do-para (popular Brazilian nuts found only in the country's Amazon forests).
Asked what he thinks will surprise people most when they try Brazilian food for the first time, he replies: "The mixture of food and fruits".
"We have some traditional combinations. When you think of pork, you think about pineapple in Brazil. Pork is heavy and pineapple helps with digestion.
"There are also oranges with feijoada (a stew of beans with beef and pork), passion fruit with salmon, and mangos with shrimp. Fruits in Brazil are so good, and the best way to eat them is simply having them pure."
For Schramm, who has been a chef for 15 years, his stints in China showing off the best food his country has to offer are not a one-way affair - he also takes ingredients and ideas back to Brazil. Pork belly, sesame oil, ginger, oyster sauce and rice vinegar are ingredients he frequently uses in his restaurant, Laguiole, in Rio de Janeiro.
"Brazil and China are growing up," he says. "China has surpassed the US to become our first commercial partner. Chinese are open to other cultures, like Brazilians, and we both like showing great hospitality."
