A Taste of Brazil: Rio 40

Today is the first day of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil so what better way to start than with a Brazilian lunch.  I was hoping to stay downtown by going to the new Copacabana on Adelaide but the related Asian part to the restaurant was only serving sushi on their menu and the Brazilian meats have been temporarily removed, or so the hostess informed me.  If I wanted to eat there today I would have to eat an all you can eat dinner buffet.  To get my money’s worth I really would have to stuff myself and that’s the last thing I want to do right now.  I’ve already been eating out more than I wanted to in the past few weeks and will be eating out a lot for this blog for the next little while.  I’d like to be able to fit into my clothes at the end of the World Cup.  So I headed up to St. Clair to Rio 40.

When I arrived just after 12:00 I took a walk through the interior and noticed that almost every single table had a reserved sign on it and not a single customer was inside.  So I walked out to the patio where they were finishing mounting TVs to the exterior wall.  I took a seat and enquired about a few items on the menu.  The waitress made a few recommendations including a rump steak.  Based on what I saw on the menu, it didn’t seem very Brazilian even though I know Brazilian meats is a thing, so I upgraded to the rump steak and Brazilian sausage just to make sure there was something Brazilian about my lunch. 

I also ordered a Brazilian drink called a Caipirinha.  It has liquor in it called cachaca which is made from sugar cane.  I’ve had this drink before and really enjoyed it, so much so that I previously went out and bought a bottle of cachaca.  When I buy a bottle of liquor I always like to try it on its own before mixing it, just to see what it tastes like.  I can say without a doubt that cachaca is not good on its own, at least not to me and I can drink things like whisky, scotch and brandy without compliant.   Caipirinha has as much or more sugar in it as it does cachaca which would be why it tastes so good.  It also has limes in it for a fresh flavour.

As I waited for my food, the staff wandered around serving the patio patrons and setting up for the onslaught of revelers while wearing large hats, headbands and sunglasses in the Brazilian yellow and green.  A few early partygoers showed up in what I will call their Brazilian boom boxes.  The music coming from a car and pickup truck was loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss if you stood too close.  They drove up and down the street a few times honking their horns with the music blaring, then kept trying to park their vehicles as close to the patio as possible, re-parking them as other vehicles left the area.   Every time they moved a vehicle the music boomed out of it.  A woman walking her infant yelled at them and that was the last I heard of it.  Then the pickup owner dropped the tailgate reveling why it was so loud. The entire opening was filled with one massive speaker.  Brazilian boom box indeed!  If you like loud music with your soccer then that was probably the patio to be on today as long as you don’t mind some hearing loss! 

My food arrived and I was delighted by the presentation.  The meat was hanging on a skewer.  The waitress pulled all of the meat off the skewer at the table and presented it on a side plate.  It was served with fries, rice, beans and farofa which is something that resembles bread crumbs.  The sausage was good but I found the rump steak to be rather chewy.  Is that normal?

I couldn’t finish my meal and as I said, it’s probably best that I didn’t in hopes that my clothes still fit me in a few weeks.  ;)