Eating out on a Copacabana restaurant, typical Brazil food and drinks

Along the beach promenade you'll find restaurant after restaurant lined up with waiters dressed in white trying to tempt you with their Brasilian specialties!

Brazil is a rich country when it comes to food, with many exotic fruits and tropical ingredients. Go to a Copacabana restaurant and order a “succo” (which means juice in English) you have never tried before. There are at least 10 fruits you haven’t heard of here.

Copacabana Tropical Sucos Guide: My favourite succo is the one with maracuja from the amazone forrest and should be tried! The first thing I usually notice is how fresh and tasty the orange juice is on the plane down to Brazil.

It’s really different from the European juice with lots of conservants in it.

Everyone should try some food from Brazil and there are several different kinds of copacabana restaurants to do it in.

Churrascarias: A type of Copacabana restaurant which are barbeques where you can eat as much as you like with waiters coming around with different kinds of meat on skewers. Each table has a sign on it which says go or stop. As long as you have go, waiters will ask you all the time if you want more of their treats. This type of restaurant is cheap and very different from other countries I have visited. Just be careful not to take too much on your plate on the first round as the eating can go on for hours and you can get very full.

Pay by weight: This is a typical Copacabana restaurant type which is also normal throughout Brazil. There is a big table with all kinds of dishes where you help yourself with what you want. After you have put what you think you can eat on the plate, you weigh your food and pay by weight. I had never seen this before either and found it quite practical. You get the food served fast and it’s cheap aswell.

Cachacarias : This type of Copacabana restaurant serves alcoholic spirits called cachaca or pinga instead of food. Cachaca is brewed from sugarcanes and is remnants from the slavery time. There are many types of cachaca and in cachacarias you can try out many of them. They have one thing in common though that they are usually strong liquors. It’s usually allot of fun to go out to one of these with your friends. Cachaca is also used in the national drink of Brazil, the well known Caipirinha

Cervezarias / cervejarias: Those who know Spanish can tell what this copacabana restaurant type is all about, that’s right à Beers. Brazil make many different kinds of beers, the most popular ones being Skol, Bramha and Antartica. One thing that struck me was the way Brazilians drink beers. They usually get the bottles in containers to keep the cold and you drink from one litre bottle at the time by pouring into small glasses called chops. When the bottle is empty you simply take it out of the container and a waiter will come with a new one.

Beach bars
All along the copacabana beach promenade you can find small bars serving simple dishes, beers and coconut water. Brazilians like to hang out here talking into the late hours drinking beers and watching the beach life. You can usually always see some samba or other dancing and singing along the avenida atlantica (main road of copacabana along the beach) day or night!

When you have the picture about the different types of Copacabana restaurants, you should know a bit about the brazilian recipes served here.

Feijoada : The national brazil food has claims to the times of slavery. After the rich Portuguese nobles had eaten, the leftovers were given to the slaves. They put everything in a big pot and cooked it with black beans also called feijao. All copacabana restaurants usually have feijoada from some part of Brazil. I especially like feijoada from Minas Gerais, a state north of Sao Paulo inside Brazil.

Caipirinha
The national drink of Brazil made from limes, cachaca, sugar and ice.