Boteco Belmonte — Restaurant in Região Geográfica Imediata do Rio de Janeiro

I checked the menu online at home before ordering a take-away for my family. However, when I arrived none of the waiters could speak well enough neither English, nor Spanish (I am sorry I do not speak Portuguese) or maybe didn't wish to when I said I want to get a take away. So I was given an English menu which didn't have all the dishes as online. So I ended up ordering not the food I wanted. After I collected my order, I noticed on one side from the entrance they had a blackboard with an additional menu (in portuguese) having the dishes that I wanted to try. Although the portions were reasonable and the quality of food was ok - the fact that I didn't get what I really wanted makes me upsetting. We ended up trying the fried squid and picanha - the potatoes coming with the latter were a bit too dry (maybe that's a strange brazilian variety, don't know) and even the given sauce didn't help much. I paid $60 for two main dishes and 4 different pies (pasteis), which I find to be on a higher end for such a restaurant. When we arrived after 20 minutes, the food was already packed and standing but the waiter that took our order disappeared and others looked as they didn't know what to do with my take away, although I saw our bag standing there and we were alone who ordered a takeaway meal. Finally, some other person decided to help - he took my receipt and started to open each box and to check if it corresponds to the order. I didn't feel very welcomed here in a nutshell. Thus 3 stars: -1 for the price/quality ratio and -1 for the service. If you do not want to work with takeaway orders you can say it at the beginning... I didn't visit other places in Rio (so I can't really compare) as we had an apartment and cooked other days ourselves - but might be this was because our experience here was not too pleasant. Anyhow peruvian restaurants we visited afterwards in our...

Th host who received us spoke English and it was a pleasant surprise. He was very accommodating and translated the menu for us and suggested vegetarian options for us.

We tried the chicken empanadas which were very bland - no taste. We tried the cassava fries/ frito which were cooked good but didn’t have the spice we were looking for similar to the cassava fries at Port of Peri Peri in US.

We had the cheese 🧀 tomato 🍅 and basil 🌿 pizza which was ok. We also tried the Portuguese pizza without ham. This pizza 🍕 has a unique taste with the boiled eggs 🥚 and I would highly recommend to try it. The chef didn’t add the green pepper topping on the pizza even though it was listed on the menu. When I brought this to their attention they tried to convince me that oregano is green pepper. Later on they came back and said they are out of green pepper 🫑 and they can add yellow pepper or red pepper 🌶 . Finally I had a pizza which looked like a subway- a pizza with free red pepper on it. I expected them to bake a new pizza with all toppings on it.

We had some of the left overs to go and I was surprised to see that they charged us for the to go boxes too. Not sure this is the norm.

The drinks were good. We had the margarita, Brazilian lime cocktail, and Brahma...

What a disappointment for our last meal in Rio. We were tired after a long day of sightseeing and went around the corner from our hotel for dinner. Big mistake.

The setting is attractive, and the staff are friendly, but the constant procession of servers trying to sell you appetisers on a plate or a skewer, or expensive liquor shots, is tacky and annoying. The waiters hover over the table, waiting for you to order, which is most off-putting.

My Caipirinha tasted watery, and funnily enough, the 1/2 bottle of wine I ordered wasn't available, so if we wanted wine, a full bottle was the only alternative.

The feijoada was extremely salty, and the seafood in the fish stew was clearly frozen, given the mushy texture. It was also under seasoned.

The final insult was the bill, where they 'accidentally' charged us for four people instead of two. It was rectified after I pointed it out, but it's fairly clear that this establishment will try to get away with whatever it can with...