Basics - The Rough Guide to Brazil - page 33

THE CAIPIRINHA BRAZIL'S NATIONAL COCKTAIL
By far the best way to drink cachaça is in a caipirinha , along with football and samba one of
Brazil's great gifts to world civilization - rum mixed with fresh lime, sugar and crushed ice. It
may not sound like much, but it is the best cocktail you're ever likely to drink. Be sure to stir it
regularly while drinking, and treat it with healthy respect - it is much more powerful than it
tastes. Variants are the caipirosca or caipiríssima , the same made with vodka. Waiters will often
assume foreigners want vodka, so make sure you say caipirinha de cachaça . You can also get
batidas , cachaça mixed with fruit juice and ice, which flow like water during Carnaval: they also
pack quite a punch, despite tasting like a soft drink.

cream ( sorvete ), which can be excellent; keep an
eye out for sorvetarias (ice-cream parlours).
Our Language section has a list of common
menu terms (see p.682).

restaurants, typically at lunchtime only, is self-
service comida por quilo , where a wide choice of
food is priced according to the weight of the food
on your plate. Specialist restaurants to look out for
include a rodizio , where you pay a fixed charge and
eat as much as you want; most churrascarias -
restaurants specializing in charcoal-grilled meat of
all kinds, especially beef - operate this system, too,
bringing a constant supply of meat on huge spits to
the tables.
Many restaurants will present unsolicited food the
moment you sit down - the couvert , which can
consist of anything from a couple of bits of raw
carrot and an olive to quite an elaborate and
substantial plate. Although the price is generally
modest, it still has to be paid for. If you don't want it,
ask the waiter to take it away.
Brazil also has a large variety of ethnic restau-
rants , thanks to the generations of Portuguese,
Arab, Italian, Japanese, German and other
immigrants who have made the country their
home. The widest selection is in São Paulo, with the
best Italian, Lebanese and Japanese food in Brazil,
but almost anywhere of any size will have good
ethnic restaurants.
In almost all restaurants the bill comes with a ten
percent service charge; whatever you may be told,
this is not a mandatory charge, but to not pay it is
considered very bad form. Most locals tend not to
leave an additional tip, but unless you've had bad
service it's a good idea to leave some change, as
waiters rely on this to supplement their very low
wages (and many restaurants simply pocket the
ten percent).

Snacks and street food

On every street corner in Brazil you will find a
lanchonete , a mixture of café and bar that sells
beer and rum, snacks, cigarettes, soft drinks, coffee
and sometimes small meals. Bakeries - padarias -
often have a lanchonete attached, and they're
good places for cheap snacks: an empada or
empadinha is a small pie, which has various fillings
- carne (meat), palmito (palm heart), frango
(chicken) and camarão (shrimp) being the best
( misto is “mixed”); a pastel is a fried, filled pasty; an
esfiha is a savoury pastry stuffed with spiced meat;
and a coxinha is spiced chicken rolled in manioc
dough and then fried.; in the Amazon, keep an eye
out for a tapioquinha , a tapioca pancake folded
with cheese, ham or whatever else you want to
start the day with. All these savoury snacks fall
under the generic heading salgados .
Food sold by street vendors should be treated
with caution, but not dismissed out of hand. Some
of the food they sell has the advantage of being
cooked a long time, which reduces the chance of
picking anything up, and in some places - Salvador
and Belém especially - you can get good food
cheaply in the street; just choose your vendor
sensibly. A good example in Salvador is acarajé , only
available from street vendors - a delicious fried
bean mix with shrimp and hot pepper.

Restaurants Vegetarian food

Restaurants are ubiquitous, portions are very large
and prices extremely reasonable. A prato comercial
is around R$12, while a good full meal can usually
be had for about R$35 in cheaper restaurants.
Cheaper places, though, tend only to be open for
lunch. One of the best options offered by many

Being a vegetarian - or at least a strict one - is no
easy matter in Brazil. If you eat fish, there's no
problem, especially in the Northeast and Amazônia,
where seafood forms the basis of many meals. You
can usually get a fair choice of vegetarian food at a
comida por quilo restaurant, which offers a range of