I know you're just thinking of all the churrascarias you wanna try in Rio, but I will tell you, one…read morenot-to-miss thing in Rio is seafood. I mean, the ocean is RIGHT THERE. I don't know why meat became king here. Specifically, you must try MOQUECA. Moqueca is basically a medium thick seafood stew (typically fish, but can be any seafood) served in a clay pot with a side of white rice (not sticky). It tastes and looks kinda tomato-based, but doesn't taste very tomato-y like a tomato bisque, minestrone, or gazpacho. So if you don't like tomatoes normally, you won't find moqueca offensive--I, in fact, dislike tomato-based soups, but this was fine.
I found Nomangue because I wanted to try seafood in Rio, I wanted something close by, and I wanted something delicious. Lo-and-behold, I head to a nearby bank, walk for one minute down the street from my hotel, the Miramar Hotel by Windsor, and I stumble upon a very cute wooden exterior and a big crab logo. SOLD.
It's very modern and clean inside with cute sea-faring based decor and it seemed like a good amount of the staff spoke English. Our waiter spoke little English, but luckily the hubs has decent Portuguese (filled in with Portuguese-inflected Spanish lol). Also, ordering in restaurants is basically just pointing, and if necessary they call the English-speaking staff over. I figured out this restaurant gets a good amount of U.S. tourists because we Americans love photos of food and before we even had a moment to ask about different dishes on the menu, the waiter pulled out an iPad with photos of everything on the menu. BRILLIANT AND A GOD-SEND.
It's a casual restaurant, but the service is like a five-star damn restaurant. The staff is dressed nice and treat you really well and pour your wine and the dishes are presented beautifully, but then you use a paper napkin to wipe your mouth and we fit in with shorts, shirts, and flip flops (aka Havaianas of course). I found this same story in all of South America. Here, we have specific service levels based on the type of restaurant or cafe--sometimes you're served fully, sometimes you're only served partially, sometimes you get your own food, sometimes you get a number and they bring it to you but don't come back, it's all so confusing. There, they serve you at EVERY restaurant like it's a fancy one. LOVE.
We went all seafood and ordered a delicious trio platter of fresh seafood with various sauces as an appetizer and decided on the octopus moqueca for our main course. They served it in full attached tentacle fashion and I'm sure the waiter saw our confused faces and immediately went into "these are Americans"-mode and offered to cut it apart for us like babies. TENDER, TENDER, TENDER is all I can say about the octopus. AND FRESH AND DELICIOUS. And of course very filling. Okay, so I said like 4 things about it. I can't recommend the octopus moqueca enough. We of course paired it with a Brazilian white wine and ended our meal with a cheese ice cream and sliced guava dessert. I think cheese and guava is a thing in Brazil. And it's now a thing in our damn household coz that combo found a new taste bud orgasm I didn't think I had. It was like the number 6 orgasm if we're talking in Monica from "Friends" speak. Total cost in U.S. dollars (at the Nov '18 exchange rate of 3ish reals: 1 usd) for great service, a 3-seafood platter appetizer, a few glasses of wine, fresh octopus moqueca, and a nice dessert = $88, with tip included. Easily over $100 in LA. Not bad, not bad at all!
To top it all off, they had a random guitar player and fantastic singer performing in the corner ever so gently as a soundtrack to our night. Voice ON POINT. Most of the songs I didn't know as they were in Portuguese (and one in French), but they were lovely AF. She did play "Put Your Records On" for us English speakers and unbeknownst to her, I annoyingly made it a duet. I wish we could've tipped her but we didn't see a jar and I didn't wanna seem patronizing or awkward.
LOVED IT ALL. I'm sure there are several places to try seafood and moqueca in Rio, but this is my rec. It's on a street right off Copacabana Beach. And if you stay at the lovely Miramar Hotel by Windsor, this place is a must. Viva moqueca!!
