Copacabana in the Rain

Fasano al Mare - 2 stars
Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro

Fagulha - 1 stars
Rua Santa Clara 18, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

In many ways, I am a very fortunate person. You know those articles about jet-setting executives who get to go to exotic places and stay in nice hotels? Well, that's me ... if only a tiny bit. At home I drive a 1999 Chevy Prizm, I wear the same suits I bought 11 years ago when I started my first job, and most of my trips are to places like Louisville, Birmingham (Alabama, not England), and Gainesville. But this week I got to come to Rio de Janeiro, the kind of city that many people dream about but few Americans ever get to visit.

I got to live a little bit of "the life:" I stayed in the J. W. Marriott hotel on Copacabana Beach, which is one of the most expensive hotels I've ever stayed in in my entire life (including McKinsey), the others being in London and Moscow. The first night, our host took us out to dinner in his BMW 540 - which would be unremarkable, except that it was the first time in my life that I rode in an armored vehicle with bulletproof glass. We went to Fasano al Mare, one of the best restaurants in Rio, and the most expensive restaurant I've eaten at since I went to Bouley back in 2004 (the lobster, for example, was about $100 US). Unfortunately, it was a restaurant that specializes in seafood, and I considered using the excuse that I didn't want to insult our host by not eating seafood, but in the end I had gnocchi with tomato sauce and tiny cubes of breaded and fried eggplant, which was pretty good (the eggplant was much better than it sounds) and was only $35 or so. I also had a decent tomato-basil-mozzarella salad, and an unexceptional lemon pie ($14). The prices, of course, are partly due to the collapse of the dollar, which now buys about 1.7 reais, or less than half what it used to.

Besides that, though, it was basically all work: 9 to 6 at the client's offices in Centro (downtown), a quick and mediocre dinner (pizza one night, a strange rectangular tomato-mozzarella crepe the next, and a grilled cheese sandwich in the airport the last), work in the hotel room until midnight, and then up at six the next day to work some more while looking out the window at the gorgeous, enormous, nearly-empty beach and the waves rolling in from the Atlantic. I even started drinking coffee again, not only because I needed it, but also because waiters kept bringing little cups of espresso into our conference room. Apparently it is impossible to have a meeting in Rio without coffee, and there was a camera in the room that they used to see when anyone might need one. (The whole executive floor is continuously surveyed by cameras, less for security than so the executives can be tracked down by their assistants easily.)

I had a list of exactly three things I wanted to do: (1) walk on the beach, (2) go to Corcovado or Sugarloaf (two famous hills around the city with great views), and (3) go to a soccer game at the Maracana - and I did exactly none of them, except a quick walk down to the water one night with my colleagues. There were not one but two soccer games at the Maracana on Wednesday night, one with Fluminese and one with Flamengo, and our hosts even found a set of VIP seats that we could have used, but I decided to work instead - one of those decisions that is easy to criticize, but meant the difference between 6 hours of sleep and 2 hours of sleep. I planned an extra day in Rio after our meetings, but it rained all day, and besides I had a conference call all afternoon.

The food overall was OK at best, due to a combination of not speaking the language and not eating animals. There are a bunch of kiosks right on the edge of the beach in Copacabana where you can get beer, snacks, or meals, but despite (or because of) the fantastic location the food seemed unremarkable. The highlight for vegetarians is probably the restaurants that sell food by weight, like Fagulha in Copacabana, where I had lunch the last day. There's a big buffet, and everything is the same price per kilogram, so you can pick whatever looks good. Unfortunately, most of what looks good has meat in it, and you have to do some guessing as well, but you can still make a decent meal out of black beans, rice, various potato dishes, and salads.

But I shouldn't complain, and I am glad I came, even though I'm about to get on a 9.5-hour flight in coach back to the U.S. All the people we met were incredibly friendly and welcoming, and did everything they could to make our stay enjoyable. I walked around downtown Rio and look out over the bay. I watched people playing beach soccer at night and making moves you rarely see in the U.S. I learned a tiny bit of Portuguese. And I drank a caipirinha (sugar cane liqueur, lime juice, and sugar - too sweet) at one of the shacks on the edge of the beach, even if it was in the rain.