I have mentioned them before without going into too much detail.  I have been to three types: self-service, churrascaria and a normal a la carte restaurant.  There are lots of snack bars (a snack is called lunch whatever the time of day) and a few MacDonalds.

There are not many bars in the conventional sense. Most of the self-service places are midday only. In the evening they open as a cross between bars and restaurants. Flavia says that Brazilians do not drink while they eat. They certainly eat while they drink! There is always a food menu and quite substantial portions of food available; these are put in the middle of the table and everyone shares the meal. The food is often fried and is the sort of thing you can easily stab with a fork. It is mostly a bit unhealthy for my taste.

Serving a customer

The other sort of restaurant is churrasco which is the Brazilian barbecue. Their appetite for meat in general and beef in particular is only challenged by the Argentinian asado. The film clip of the home churrasco below gives you an idea of the scale.

In a churrasco restaurant you usually pay a fixed amount to eat. There will be a generous salad bar and fruits and sweet things for dessert. Mostly the customers eat meat, lots of it! The waiters will bring a selection of chicken hearts, sausages, chicken wings to stimulate your appetite. Later he will bring a large skewer about a metre long on which half a dozen joints will have been impaled and roasted. You point to the joint that takes your fancy and he will cut a few thin slices which you take with a pair of tongs. The meat is usually very good quality with no seasoning or marinade apart from salt.
There is a sort of unofficial rationing in that the waiters with skewers work their way around the room so you eat at the speed they serve you. They are very generous so it is only the Homer Simpsons of this world that will worry about it. Very often there is a self-service section of the restaurant and the remainders of the joints which are less than perfect will be served there.

Like feijoada and the beach, churrasco is part of the heart and soul of Brazilians.  I am still trying to work out how most of them look remarkably fit and slim!

Hmm … I seem to becoming fixated on food