The best things I ate on vacation in Rio 🇧🇷

My first time in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil was unforgettable! From sight-seeing to beautiful beaches and welcoming people, it was truly the best experience of my life. Most importantly, I got to eat some of the best food! Here are my Brazilian foodie favorites I ate in Rio:

💚 BREAKFAST: my favorite breakfast I had was this beautiful homemade breakfast spread at the beach in Angra dos Reis . 🏝️ This spread included the infamous Brazilian cheese bread pão de queijo, fresh butter, watermelon and mango, scrambled eggs, linguiçinha (mini sausages) mashed yucca (similar to potatoes) and a delicious orange cake. Everything tasted so fresh and I could not get enough! 🍳

💛 LUNCH: my favorite lunch was right when I got off the plane! We ate at the Na Brasa Columbia Barra in Barra da Tijuca and it truly was a mix of me being hangry after a 9 hour flight and the food being so yummy. I had roasted chicken, French fries, farofa (smoky flavored cassava powder) rice and molinho (balsamic and tomato sauce). The chicken was so juicy and all of the flavors paired perfectly! 🍗

💙 PICANHA: if you think you’ve had the best steak of your life, you haven’t tried picanha fresh off the grill. 🥩 I ate this meal SO many times, and I truly didn’t get tired of it! This particular meal was fresh off of a local person’s grill in their backyard in Angra dos Reis and you could tell it was made with love. I had juicy picanha steak in a garlicky chimichurri with a side of rice topped with farofa. I still think about that steak till this day!

💛 PIZZA: Brazil isn’t typically known for their pizza, but this was the most interesting dish to me. Why? Because cariocas love to eat their pizza with condiments like ketchup, mustard and mayo. 🤢 The condiments weren’t for me, but I did love this pizza at Urca right before we took the gondola up to Sugar Loaf Mountain! 🍕

💚 PASTELS: pastels, or Brazilian beef pastries, are truly an unmatched savory snack. They are similar to Hispanic empanadas, but the shell is a bit more hollow and crispy, which I LOVE! We stopped at a snack stand on the way to the beach to get these beef pastries and fresh sugar cane juice in Itaguaí . They were grinding the sugar cane right in front of us, and it was so fresh!

💙 EMPADÃO: empadão is like the pie version of an empanada. They’re always filled with something fun! My snack pie was filled with pulled chicken and heart of palm, which was such a yummy combo. I was able to find this yummy snack at a rest stop in Rio de Janeiro .

💚 AGUA DE COCO: if you didn’t drink out of a coconut, did you really go on a tropical vacation? Sipping this ice cold coconut water straight from the source on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro and it was the ultimate tourist moment for me. It was so refreshing, especially on a 90 degree hot day! 🥥

What’s the best Brazilian dish you’ve tried? 🤔🇧🇷

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