The botegos of Botafogo, the entire world talks about it. I love especially one. The first one, in Voluntarios, at the corner with the Praia.
It is a small place, annexed to the more microscopic bar of the world (the minibrigadeiros one!). During the day, it sells food to go, it begins to fry at 7 am, them you go and for a few reais you choose what you can have in the quentinha, rice, beans, chicken, deliciously smelling and roasted, soft and juicy meat.
OK. The night comes. In the mid-afternoon, it begins to extract, it seems from nowhere, tables and chairs, dozens, hundreds and holds all the sidewalk, up the street light, then it turns around the corner and occupies the whole praçina of the newspaper shop, and in the weekend (have I written for you about the weekend of Botafogo?) it crosses the street and also fills the square next to the parking, and on the summer weekends (delightful, the summer weekend in Botafogo!) it gets below the highway, sharing the space with the small cart seller burgers.
And slowly from 6 afternoon, you see that the first tables are busy, so carefree, almost casual. And maybe you go to the Mundial, maybe you’re getting out of torradas and requejao (Polenguinho forever!) for tomorrow’s breakfast. And when you come back again, all tables are already occupied and the first dozens of empty bottles of beer already stand out, among millions of words, spoken and heard.
I love this botego, it fills my nights even though I stay at home. I open the window and until 2, 3 am, I let millions of words enter by my window, and I have a beer with the guys down there! (I still think this micro-botego is actually the entry of a black hole, a real black hall, and that the bar owners have a contract with the owner of the black hole for heap there one hundred tables, ten thousand chairs and the millions of bottles of beer that serve to the botafoguense nights! Who knows how many refrigerators, in that black hole … Yes, it cannot be other than this!)
