Botteco Brazil — Restaurant in Seattle

We were excited to see that this place was opening up in our neighborhood, so I'll start with the good: our waiter was very friendly and welcoming. He was excited about the menu and was attentive and informative, especially as we were the only customers that evening.

The food was pleasant, but unfortunately the description for the Moqueca, the Brazilian seafood stew, was not reflected in the dish that was served to us. The menu description said that the stew would include calamari and scallops; however, in their place was what I recognized as chopped-up imitation "krab" meat, which when stewed had very little texture and was clearly not the advertised seafood. (You can see this in the uploaded photo of the Moqueca from another reviewer, at the top right corner of the dish.) Added to this, the cod was oddly chewy and dry for having been cooked in a stew. The Moqueca's saving grace was the coconut-based sauce, which of course makes everything delicious. However, for the listed price customers should be aware that they are not paying for the fresh seafood that is described.

My advice to the restaurant: be honest with your customers. Seattle locals KNOW seafood. If the Moqueca doesn't include scallops and calamari, then please update your menu to reflect that. It's alright if you're using krab meat in your dishes - many Asian restaurants do this as well and list it in their descriptions - but please don't misrepresent your food in the menu.

That said, we are really rooting for the success of this restaurant and hope that they'll hone their menu after getting their footing in this new location. We would be willing to give the restaurant another try, especially as I suspect that we ended up ordering the two weaker plates on the menu. We didn't get to try the two dishes the waiter originally recommended to us - the Frango à Passarinho (seasoned fried chicken) Bife acebolado (beef with caramelized onion) - but will be sure to do so if we decide to...

I am waiting to see how the food is but so far this has not been a great experience. I walked into a restaurant with one cook, one server and one client besides us who'd already eaten his meal. The server spent quite a bit of time with his Brazilian friend. The ticket went back and nothing started cooking for 10 minutes. One appetizer and one entree ordered. Im now listening to a Buena Vista Social Club song and will likely have spent 30 minutes waiting for food. Literally the only food currently on order. So with this place getting a top rated rating. Im imagining that I'm going to have some other worldly experience. Likely the last time I will dine here. Even if the food is stellar. My chicken appetizer on point. The Churrasco plate played out like a baseball player. 2 for 4. Beans and Rice solid, sausage excellent and the other two meats tough and chewy on a medium rare order. For me despite the high ratings it's a pass. I will stick to the bakery next door, high priced...

We had a pretty terrible experience here. Walking in, it was clear right away that it wasn’t what we were looking for because it had a sports bar atmosphere, with TV on and dingy seating. Menu had no wine options on it. Food came back underwhelming, cheap cuts of beef and nothing at all memorable. Worst of all was the service. Server/host didn’t take any notes, forgot one of the items we ordered, and got one of the orders entirely wrong, giving us a cut with a raw garlic sauce smothered on top instead of the cut we asked for. Server spent our entire meal ignoring us and blabbing with another table in Portuguese. The one red wine option they had tasted horrible. Served warmer than room temperature. Caesar salad tasted like a bagged salad you could find at a grocery store. Granted the place is cheap for a steak place, but I really would never come back and would never recommend. Not at all sure how this place averages...