Restaurants
Rio 40
Rio 40 on St. Clair West is a favourite for Brazilian cuisine with a little Italian thrown in to appease the locals. Best-loved for it's huge steaks, the restaurant also features dishes like fried cassava, pizza and pasta.
Sikh New Year at Nathan Phillips Square.
By Harsh Singh.
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Monday, February 13, 2012
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Partly Cloudy -5°C
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And.... did YOU????
Tell us, pray.
The food tastes amazingly authentic(my Brazilian boyfriend agrees). The service has always been friendly, the food delicious and the atmosphere is comfortable and romantic. I find the price is good, no more than $18 for an entrée, plus this is Brazilian food, so share a few bunch of starters with your friend or family!
Grab a caipirinha(or guarana if you want non alcoholic drink), a delicious plate of linguica(sausage) and macaxeira(deep fried cassava) or an amazing picanha with buttery farofa, and finish it off with sweet lovely passion fruit mousse.
I guarantee it will be a very enjoyable night.
Since there is no actual review from blogTO, I thought I'd make one. I am brazilian, so I'll give my own opinion as an unimpeachable expert on Brazilian Cuisine.
I've gone to Rio 40 over half a dozen times in the last 4 years. I did not enjoy it much any of the times that I went, but sometimes nostalgia hits hard and it's reasonably close to every place I've lived, so I went and will continue to go.
My pricipal problem with the place is that there are none of the truly exceptional and unique hallmarks of brazilian cuisine. There is no Feijoada, Vatapá, sautéed collard greens, or truly anything from the north and northeast, only the Moqueca, and little from the south east and south.
They mostly have only different types of meat or fish with a side of rice, beans, vegetables, farofa (fried cassava flour), and french fries(not particularly Brazilian). In other words, the very lowest and pedestrian type of Brazilian food, the kind of thing millions of Brazilians eat because it's cheap and easy to make, not the kind of thing Brazilians eat on special occasions or in good restaurants.
I can say confidently that I've had better of that kind of food in scummy cheap little restaurants in brazil than in this place, which would be fine if it weren't for the high prices it charges. An example: around $20 for a picanha entrée with the aforementioned sides(a picanha is a brazilian cut of beef which is not that expensive) and the size of the steak is not very impressive for that price.
Conclusion: Its main draw seems to be expatriates like myself who go for nostalgia's sake. It's okay for what it offers, but it is not a good example of brazilian cuisine, which is very extensive and varied. Its prices are also not good. It's like an american restaurant in Japan that only has $30 cheeseburgers.
TL;DR: It's an overpriced restaurant with mediocre dishes that can only barely call its food brazilian.