Eat Rio Blog - Page 16 of 106

World Cup 2014: What to do if you don’t have tickets for a Brazil World Cup game…

08/07/2014/0 Comments/in Art and culture

The Rio Metro on World Cup game day.

Well, it’s World Cup 2014 game day again and the nerves are jangling here at Eat Rio HQ. Personally I’ve been fairly confident on Brazil’s behalf for all of the preceding games, but Mrs Eat Rio has been a bag of nerves from day 1. But going up against Germany in the semi-final of the World Cup? Well, let’s just say I have some painful memories…

The game today will be played in Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, but what should you do if you’re in Rio and want to get the big game atmosphere? How about walking through Cardeal Arcoverde metro station on the way to the Fanfest in Copacabana? Here’s how it went down in Brazil’s most recent game against Colombia:

World Cup 2014 – Penalties on the beach

04/07/2014/2 Comments/in Art and culture

Phew! I’ve finally managed to find time to write a new post. I would like to post more often, but things have been ridiculously busy over the last month – I’ve been working 7 days a week with a mixture of food tours and writing assignments. So far my new career as freelance writer and food guide is going well and although I’m looking forward to having a little break, it feels good to be this busy.

Eat Rio Food Tours have been going really well and I am now up to number 38 in TripAdvisor’s list of Activities in Rio.

Anyway, enough random talk, let’s get back to the football shall we? Last Saturday Brazil took on Chile in their first knock-out game and I decided to go out on assignment to capture the drama of the occasion (of course I had no idea quite how dramatic things would be). In the photo above you can see that the bar near Eat Rio HQ was taking things very seriously.

I hopped on the metro and was almost immediately absorbed into a group of Brazilians on their way to the big screens on Copacabana beach:

Tucum and Gift Brazil

27/06/2014/10 Comments/in Art and culture

Havaianas – a great holiday present (though not hugely original).

One question that comes up a lot from visitors to Rio is “What is a nice gift that I can buy here to take home?”. The usual list of suggested presents/mementos goes like this: Havaianas, cachaça, coffee. That’s it.

Well, actually of course that’s not it – there are other imaginative suggestions like pão de queijo mix (both my parents have been the lucky recipients of this Brazilian treat), hammocks (my sister) and giant bird-head masks (my friends):

Cutting Crispy Couve

24/06/2014/7 Comments/in Food and drink

A hand-cranked slicing machine to give you perfectly shredded couve for your feijoada. If you don’t have one of your own (sadly I don’t), find someone at the market to do it for you.

Photo: Rodrigo Moreira

If you’re visiting Rio for a few days and you’re interested in eating some typical dishes, one of the items that should be near the top of your list is feijoada (pictured above). It’s a rich, heavy stew of black beans, carne seca, linguiça (sausuage) and various cuts of pork, not unlike the French dish cassoulet. Traditionally, it is served with rice, torresmo (pork scratchings/pork rind), farofa, orange slices and couve.

Couve is that shredded, green vegetable you can see at the top of the plate above. In the US they call it Collard Greens which is basically the same as what the British called Spring Greens – basically it’s a thick, slightly bitter green leaf from the Brassica family, not a million miles from Kale.

Watching Brazil vs Mexico

19/06/2014/6 Comments/in Musings

Casa Alto Vidigal is a hostel and bar sitting right at the top of the Vidigal favela.

Well, Brazil have played 2 games now and I think it’s fair to say that most people have been pretty underwhelmed. So far there have been no dominant displays and no goleadas – just a feeling that something isn’t quite clicking when the team get out on the field.

I have a few Mexican friends living here in Rio, and they had all decided to watch the game at Casa Alto Vidigal, a hostel/bar at the very top of Vidigal favela. The journey would normally take a little over an hour, so I gave myself a little over 2 hours and set off on my journey. Within minutes I received messages from other friends who were also trying to get to Vidigal – everyone was telling me that the traffic was the worst they’d ever seen in Rio.