ijgordon

Okay, so we ended up at Olympe Friday night (Valentine's). A pain to get to for an 8pm weekday reservation given the traffic around Lagoa (we ended up 45 minutes late due to that and a cluster getting down from Corcovado and back to the hotel that evening). We emailed them to push the reservation later when we were stuck in a huge line for the train but they said no. Then when we got to the hotel around 7:45pm we had the concierge call and see if they'd still be able to accommodate us late, and at that point they said it was okay. Cute place, very good food. We did the 5 course tasting menu.

Saturday daytime we wandered through Leblon, and walked into Sushi Leblon for a late (for us) lunch. Sure you're paying somewhat for the name, but quality was very good and we had some interesting things I've never seen in New York (e.g., truffled quail egg sushi, a few things with foie gras). The hotel concierge had recommended a few other Japanese/sushi restaurants, including Soho in Marina Gloria, and Gurume in Ipanema.

Saturday night we did Esplanada Grill in Ipanema. I realized in the taxi I accidentally made the reservation for Sunday night. We played dumb, but they didn't even check the reservation as it wasn't that crowded. I like the "couvert" setup though at R$44/pp it wasn't cheap. But the cheese bread was yummy! And I don't think you get the farofa and vinaigrette otherwise. I think it also included a nice garden salad, not sure, they served it to us and it wasn't itemized on the bill. We had one picanha and one beef ribs (which was intensely rich!). I'd probably take a USDA Prime Dry Aged porterhouse over this, but it was good still. My stomach is thankful we didn't do a full-on Rodizio.

The last night, Sunday, we didn't make reservations. My plan was Casa de Feijoada but we decided that would be too much food. We really like the area in Ipanema where Esplanada Grill was -- lots of cute restaurants that were hopping on Saturday. So we ended up going back there and went to Gero, which is Italian (part of the Fasano group). Really cute restaurant in this brick building. The place was nearly empty on Sunday night, I guess not that many people go out, or all the weekenders had already left?

Thanks all for the various advice. I was a little bummed we didn't make it to Aprazivel, the concierge said it was great and didn't think the location was an issue if you take a taxi there and back. But I do like to walk off a meal afterward.