Dinner at Espirito Santa in Santa Teresa / Rio

Daytime view of Espirito Santa

We returned from Urca and cleaned up for our 7 PM dinner reservation at Espirito Santa.  According to the map, this restaurant was only about 1/2 mile away from our B&B so we decided to walk it.  We were so paranoid about Rio that we only took our pocket camera and money belt, no watches, no purse, etc.  We had nothing to worry about, there were still families with small children walking around, just the locals and a few tourists hanging out.  Not knowing where we were going, the walk seemed much longer than 1/2 mile, especially since it was mostly uphill on a cobblestone street.  We walked by the old Bonde station which was an interest point in itself although no Bonde is running.

Espirito Santa is an “Amazonian” restaurant serving up all sorts of dishes commonly found in the Amazon region of Brazil, including piranha.  We opted for the frigideiro de camarao.  This comes in a deep dish of cream cheese, shrimp, sliced potatoes, and leeks.  The dish was for 2 people, but it could have easily fed 4!  We took the leftovers back to the B&B to store in their refrigerator so we could eat them for dinner the next night.

We wrapped up dinner around 8:30pm and headed back to the B&B for the night.  Needless to say, the walk back (downhill) was much easier than out trek earlier.  We were pretty beat from a restless red-eye the night before, so when 10pm rolled around we were ready to hit the sack.