On Fridays, Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20 drops by with Serious Grape. This week, she discusses the scenario of drinking wine alone while traveling for business—minus the hotel room's plastic tumblers. The McCormick & Shmick's bar at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Photograph from Paul Keleher on Flickr If you are a business traveler like me, dining alone on the road can be more than a bit depressing. This is especially true if, like me, you drink a glass of wine with dinner each night. Room service might be able to produce competent hamburgers and fries, but I can't face an industrial-strength "wine glass" full of warm red wine with a piece of plastic wrap on top and...
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"Cariocan food comes in three vastly different varieties. First there's the churrascaria, a pricey all-you-can-eat meat engorgement program. Then there's the option of 'fine dining' but this consists in the main of incredibly pricey and uniformly disappointing stabs at haute cuisine. Then there are buteco. Dingy, tucked into a tiny storefront, a simple counter with stools atop of which fat Brazilian men are perched, butecos frequently serve the best and cheapest food you'll find. Invariably fried and seafood heavy, you won't lose too many pounds eating at these places but what you lose in life expectancy, you more than make up with cultural authenticity." Gridskipper put together a guide to Rio's ten best butecos, each one with their own speciality....
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