Rio, Rice and Beans : Elaborate <i> feijoada </i> buffets in luxury hotels and restaurants tempt tourists, and locals, to dine on Brazilian history

Feijoada , the multi-dish meal that’s become chic here, reflects the ironies of this geographically beautiful city, where beggars hover near million-dollar, beach-front structures. Originally created as a rice-and-bean pot to feed West African slaves working on Brazil’s sugar plantations during the 18th and 19th centuries, feijoada has evolved into a multi-course event of hedonistic proportions at Rio’s lavish hotels and restaurants.

Merging the ingredients and cooking methods of three continents, the feijoada meal is based on beans and rice, both found in West Africa, usually flavored with pork introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese and thickened with ground cassava indigenous to South America.

While researching a book on African influences on cooking in the Americas last year, I was curious to see how far this meal with the musical-sounding name (pronounced fej-WAH-dah) had been taken. From its origins as a means for stretching leftover pork odds and ends by adding them to belly-filling beans, feijoada has been expanded for hotel and restaurant buffets where black beans are served with a wide variety of meats and other foods.

Where else can you taste pig ears, feet and tails next to pork loin, beef steak and sausages, amid an abundant offering of mangoes, papayas, pineapples, watermelon and exotic tropical fruits?

One-dish and modified versions are offered on various days throughout Rio, as well as at Sunday lunches in private homes, but on Saturday afternoons, well-to-do Brazilians line up with tourists for feijoada buffet extravaganzas served in the world-class hotels along Rio’s famous beaches. The buffets imitate and elaborate on the meals traditionally served at home on Sundays.

At home, families gather around dining tables set with steaming bowls of black beans flavored with pork, garlic and onion, and seasoned with chilies, ground pepper, bay leaves, parsley, oregano and sometimes cumin and dried basil. Also on the table might be bowls of white rice and of sauteed greens ( couve ) and, maybe, platters of grilled pork chops or sliced pork loin. Diners dish up the hearty beans, rice, greens and pork and spike it to taste with a spoonful of hot chili salsa (molho de pimenta). They probably also sprinkle on the toasted cassava meal (farofa) to thicken the beans.

In hotels and restaurants, feijoada --the name comes from feijao, the Portuguese word for beans--is often served with batidas, drinks made of fresh mango, passion fruit, coconut, papaya or lime juice doused with cachaca, a sugar cane liquor something like rum. I found the drink called caipirinha-- limes crushed with sugar and cachaca-- to be crisp, tart and a perfect accompaniment to the feijoada.

Feijoada completa (the full buffet, as served in hotels) typically begins with a sort of non-alcoholic aperitif: a tiny sampling of black bean soup made from beans simmered for hours with salted and smoked meats. Then you go to the buffet, which includes another pot of black beans, plus grilled pork chops, sauteed beef liver, stewed pig’s feet, smoked sausages, sauteed plantains, sauteed greens, pots of farofa, sliced pork loin, hot sauce and platters of tropical fruit.

The meal stretches out on buffet tables in cast-iron caldrons and terra-cotta casseroles--holdovers from the dish’s origin when it was cooked outside over open fires. Assorted cured and fresh meats from the tail to the snout, the hock to the loin are cooked with onions, garlic and herbs and stewed in their own broth.

In fancier presentations, loins and steaks are roasted or grilled. They all accompany the pots of plain white rice and the richly flavored beans. In most restaurants, each of the pots is labeled in Portuguese, and in some places English, so the orelha (ears) can be differentiated from the costeletas (chops) and the carne seca (dried meat) from the pe (pork foot).

Couve, a pot of bright green shredded kale, adds color to the buffet filled with dark brown meat. A bowl of chili salsa fires heat into the robust dishes. Orange slices are a palate-cleansing refreshment. Farofa meal sits in bowls on the table, and diners stir it into the bean and meat sauces on their plates.

The rest of the buffet includes an extravagant variety of salads, cold cuts, vegetables, fruits and pastries. The feijoada is followed by desserts made of fresh coconut, cooked yams and Brazilian chocolate. At the end, an espresso-size cup of excellent, sugar-sweetened cafezinho (coffee) is the perfect chaser to the afternoon of feasting.

While the hotels and two restaurants mentioned below may not be as authentic as home-cooked meals of this kind, they make up in abundance and/or availability what they might lack in authenticity. And all are found in locations where tourists feel relatively safe--regrettably an issue in modern-day Rio.

Although it’s a little less luxurious than some of the other hotels, my favorite feijoada is the Caesar Park Hotel in Ipanema. Stepping out of the elevator and into the third-floor dining room, my husband and I were greeted by a smiling hostess dressed in white lacy flounces and a sparkling turban--the traditional dress of a woman from the Brazilian state of Bahia. She led us into the parlor to sip an appetizer cup of rich, salty black bean soup and to offer us a choice of batidas.

Inside the formal dining room with a grand view of the beach below was a 10-foot buffet with oversize floral arrangements flaunting an abundance of banana palms and birds of paradise. On either side of the centerpiece, rows of cast-iron caldrons issued enticing aromas. Whether dishing up their food or sitting at their tables, the well-dressed patrons--mostly Rio natives, I was told--were laughing and clapping to the fast beat of musicians belting out seductive sambas.

The price of the feijoada completa was about $22, although prices can fluctuate wildly due to the volatility of the Brazilian cruzeiro. Caesar Park was among the most expensive of the places I tried, but it was worth it because it felt almost like experiencing the meal at someone’s home.

The legendary Copacabana Palace Hotel is the place to tread in the footsteps of the rich and famous, and at about $24, the Copacabana’s feijoada is a bargain when you remember that you are dining in the shadows of Lana Turner, Ali Kahn and Tyrone Power, who were known to patronize this classy establishment. It still draws an international clientele.

The dress is casual/elegant and diners are decidedly well-appointed. The white of the facade of this landmark 1920s masterpiece is duplicated inside the Pergulia Restaurant, where white latticework and tablecloths provide the backdrop for earthenware casseroles on wrought-iron stands. The dining room opens up to an outdoor eating arena on the ground floor next to the swimming pool. It was there that we drank batidas made from passion fruit and coconut milk and sipped bean soup out of terra-cotta cups, while eating torrado de alho (tiny toasts sprinkled with garlic).

To music with a bossa nova beat, we filled our plates from eight-foot round tables decorated with orchids and ferns. In addition to the beans, rice and meat, which included smoked tongue and chateaubriand, there were banana fritters, fried plantains and a dessert display that could have come from a French patisserie.

A little further up the wide street that separates the famous beach from the high-rises is my third choice for feijoada . Passing between the sidewalk curio, beach towel and T-shirt stalls makes for a colorful meander on the way to the Rio Palace Hotel, with its jungle-like atmosphere, complete with indoor waterfalls and potted banana palms.

The 40-foot-long buffet that draws tourists from all over the world is decked out with orchids and oversize stuffed parrots that add color to the long line of bubbling stainless chafing dishes. The feijoada price is about $18 and we finished the rather ordinary--but still tasty--meal with slices of pineapple and bowls of tapioca, while gazing out at the view of bronzed bodies on white sand and gently lapping surf.

In Copacabana is another hotel restaurant with praiseworthy feijoada . Cafe de la Paix on the first floor of the Meridien Hotel has a wide variety of foods, some of which were not exactly authentic but good, and a family-friendly atmosphere . . . for $15 per person.

Upon arrival, a hostess dressed in a wildly ruffled dress painted in primary colors met us at the door, poured our batidas from a pitcher and filled little cups with soup before we even sat down in the busy, booth-lined dining room. Families with small children abounded and later we found out why. Because it was Easter week, the adjacent bar was being turned into a puppet theater with scary and humorous animal stories for the children.

Two buffet tables awaited, laden with more feijoada , including an impressive selection of vegetables, Westernized for tourists.

On the hot buffet, black cast-iron caldrons holding the beans and rice, the sausages, fresh and cured cuts of pork and beef, sauteed greens and fried plantains were set on woven grass mats. Each pot had labels in Portuguese and English. On the cold table, hand-crafted terra-cotta bowls held pates, salads, avocados, mangoes, cheeses and sliced meats, corn, carrots, pumpkin and black-eyed peas.

Another place that would work for families or for anyone remotely concerned about Rio’s safety for tourists is the restaurant in the new Sheraton Hotel, built on the beach side of Avenue Neimeyer, on the road to Sao Conrado, south of Ipanema. Secure from the street intensity of Rio, the Sheraton is a world unto itself. It would be possible to check in here, enjoy the food and drink that beckons so many tourists to Brazil, take in a spectacular view of Ipanema Beach and never be touched by the intense poverty of the streets or the pastel-painted favelas (slums) clinging to the hillside across from the hotel.

In an airy setting with a 180-degree view, the coffee-shop-style restaurant stretches in tiers leading up from the buffet. We sat on the level nearest the buffet that is surrounded by brass railings and larger-than-life plaster Bahian statues illuminated by tiny lights. The atmosphere is informal and the buffet carries on from noon until 4 a.m., with all the accouterments, including piped-in sambas and classical piano concertos. The food is not exceptional, but all the dishes are included and it costs about $22. The main draw is its dramatic and beautiful setting.

If a Saturday feijoada doesn’t fit into your itinerary, there are options.

The restaurant Casa da Feijoada in Copacabana serves an abbreviated version daily. Leonarda Miranda Braga, who returned to Rio in the late ‘80s after living in California for five years, opened this neighborhood restaurant to cater to feijoada lovers who want a table-size version any day of the week. The restaurant will even deliver to your hotel room in take-out containers. Open noon till midnight, the tiny establishment serves “feijoada traditional” for about $11, which includes a cup of black bean soup followed by a divided terra-cotta platter offering fried pig skin, mixed meats (order all or just the kinds you like), beans, rice, farofa, sauteed collard greens, fried yucca sticks and sliced oranges.

On Fridays there are two options.

One is worth going to as much for the setting as for the food. It’s the Assiriurs Cafe do Teatro and it could be in Paris. The fresco tile walls and floors, Art Deco mirrors and intricately carved pillars, all in colors of cocoa, cinnamon, guava and mango, contribute a cool relief to the noontime swelter in this Rio landmark on the ground floor of the famous Municipal Theatre. A place to dress in suit and tie, heels and silk, Cafe do Teatro is a must-dine spot and the Friday feijoada for about $11 is one way to do it. Although I missed eating it, I did make it in for a drink and to admire the beauty of the setting.

The other place for Friday feijoada is the Golden Park Hotel in the Gloria district, about a 10-minute taxi drive south of downtown. It presents a classic feijoada buffet that caters to business people from nearby offices and out-of-towners staying at the hotel.

The price is around $10. The buffet in the center of the low-ceiling room is set with 20 or so cast-iron caldrons. Each is labeled in Portuguese so the cuts of meat can be differentiated because all the meats, except the ribs, are boned. I love the low-key and serious approach to the dishes, dining with the local office workers and the impeccable service of the staff.

After the feijoada, a stroll is imperative. We joined couples and families for a promenade along the wide storefront sidewalks, fronting the hotels. After all, as anyone who has visited a Rio beach knows, keeping in shape is another Brazilian ritual.

GUIDEBOOK

Finding Feijoada

It’s served at these Rio restaurants:

Caesar Park, 460 Avenue Viera Souto, Ipanema; from the United States, telephone 011-55-21- 287-3122 or (800) 228-3000.

Copacabana Palace, 1702 Avenue Atlantica, Copacabana; tel. 011- 55-21-255-7070 or (800) 237-1236.

Cafe de la Paix, Le Meridien Hotel, 1020 Avenue Atlantica, Leme; tel. 011-55-21-546-0866.

Rio Palace, 4240 Avenue Atlantica, Copacabana; tel. 011-55-21- 521-3232.

Sheraton Rio, 121 Avenue Neimeyer, Vidigal; tel. 011-55-21- 274-1122.

Casa da Feijoada, 10 Rua Prudente de Morais, Ipanema; tel. 011-55-21-267-4994.

Golden Park, 374 Rua do Russel, Gloria; tel. 011-55-21-205-8150.

Assiriurs Cafe do Teatro, Avenue Rio Branco, Municipal Theatre, downtown Rio; tel. 011-55-21- 262-4164.