Cabo Frio offers numerous dining option for every taste and budget. Local Brazilian cuisine, seafood restaurants, pizzerias, steakhouses, vegetarian options, and more - you can find all them in this welcoming city.

Eat

Brazil's national dish is feijoada, a hearty stew made of black beans, pork (ears, knuckles, chops, sausage) and beef (usually dried). It's served with rice, garnished with collard greens and sliced oranges. It's not served in every restaurant; the ones that serve it typically offer it on Wednesdays and Saturdays. A typical mistake made by tourists is to eat too much feijoada upon first encounter. This is a heavy dish — even Brazilians usually eat it parsimoniously.

The standard Brazilian set lunch is called prato feito, with its siblings comercial and executivo. Rice and brown beans in sauce, with a small steak. Sometimes farofa, spaghetti, vegetables, and French fries will come along. Beef may be substituted for chicken, fish or others.

Excellent seafood can be found in coastal towns, especially in the Northeast.

Brazilian snacks, lanches (sandwiches) and salgadinhos (most anything else), include a wide variety of pastries. Look for coxinha (deep-fried, batter-coated chicken), empada (a tiny pie, not to be confused with the empanada - empadas and empanadas are entirely different items), and pastel (fried turnovers). Another common snack is a misto quente, a pressed, toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich. Pão-de-queijo, a roll made of manioc flour and cheese, is very popular, especially in Minas Gerais state - pão-de-queijo and a cup of fresh Brazilian coffee is a classic combination.

Drink

Brazil's national booze is cachaça (cah-shah-sah, also known as aguardente ("burning water") and pinga), a sugar-cane liquor known to knock the unwary out quite quickly. Mass-produced, industrial cachaça is cheap and has 40% alcohol. Rural, traditional cachaça made on small distilleries usually has about 20% alcohol, but is highly praised nationwide for its superior taste. This also means it's far more costly, but it's worth each Real. It can be tried in virtually every bar in the country. Famous producing regions include Minas Gerais, where there are tours of distilleries, and the city of Paraty. Pirassununga is home to Caninha 51, Brazil's best-selling brand. Outside Fortaleza there is a cachaça museum (Museu da Cachaça) where you can learn about the history of the Ypioca brand.

Well worth a try is Brazilian whisky! It's actually 50% imported scotch - the malt component -and approximately 50% Brazilian grain spirit. Don't be misled by American sounding names like "Wall Street". It is not bourbon.

Brazil is known worldwide for its high-quality strong coffee. Café is so popular that it can name meals (just like rice does in China, Japan, and Korea): breakfast in Brazil is called café da manhã (morning coffee), while café com pão (coffee with bread) or café da tarde (afternoon coffee) means a light afternoon meal. Cafezinho (small coffee) is a small cup of strong, sweetened coffee usually served after meals in restaurants (sometimes for free, just ask politely). Bottled filtered coffee is being replaced by stronger espresso cups in more upscale restaurants.

Chá, or tea in Portuguese, is most commonly found in its Assam version (orange, light-colored). Some more specialized tea shops and cafés will have Earl Gray and green tea available as well.

Mate is an infusion similar to tea that is very high in caffeine content. A toasted version often served chilled, is consumed all around the country, while Chimarrão (incidentally called mate in neighboring Spanish-speaking countries) is the hot, bitter equivalent that can be found in the south and is highly appreciated by the gaúchos.

Nothing beats coconut water (água de coco) on a hot day. (Stress the first o, otherwise it will come out as "poo"! (cocô) ). It is mostly sold as coco gelado in the coconut itself, drunk with a straw. Ask the machete-wielding vendors to cut the coconut in half so that you can eat the flesh after drinking the water.