When they come into this shoebox of a pizzeria that still looks like the pé sujo (“dirty foot”) bar it previously was, clients often ask: But where’s Chico? That’s because they’re expecting Santa Teresa’s most beloved pizza chef to be a rotund and cherry-cheeked grandfatherly figure, perhaps in a red or green apron to make the point hit home. The toothy-grinning and somewhat lanky real Chico is instead someone who likes wearing running shoes to work so he can sprint out of his kitchen to greet the passersby on this cobblestone street for which he feels such affection he turned down a proposal to move to California. (More on that later. It involves Sylvester Stallone.)

At Bar do Momo in Tijuca, there are many things to celebrate, but the two dishes starring jiló are particularly magnificent – and show how this little gastropub punches well above its weight. A green, meaty, slightly bitter cross between an eggplant and a pepper, jiló was brought to Brazil from West Africa during the slave trade. At Bar do Momo, the vegetable is served two ways: One is the jiló recheado, not unlike a chile relleno, stuffed with beef and mozzarella cheese that melts into a savory broth. The other is the only Brazilian guacamole worth your time: made from tangy pickled jiló, red onion, tomato, lime, cilantro, and Brazilian dedo de moça pepper.

Before thousands of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants arrived in Rio at the beginning of the 20th century, colonists organized the old city according to geography, chance and Spanish and Portuguese planning conventions. This meant stores in the same category – ironware, shoes, musical instruments – were grouped together, sometimes even allotted their own street. If you needed wholesale fabric, you headed to a different road than if you needed a new kitchen pot. When hard fortunes amidst the breakup of the Ottoman Empire brought residents of the regions surrounding Syria and Lebanon to Rio, many put down roots in an area then called “Little Turkey” on Alfândega Street, near the port

Carmen and Eduardo’s story could be an allegory for the rise and uh-oh moment of Brazil’s new middle class – except their tale is a real one, one that ends with a really nice savory fried pastel that’s become a midnight munchie hit with their neighbors in Rio’s iconic City of God (Cidade de Deus) favela. The pair’s life together started early; they met when Carmen, now 30, was just 12 years old; moved in together when she was 14; and both converted to evangelical Christianity and married in a church when she was 18. They came to the City of God, well-known from the book and film of the same name, looking for a more economical housing option.

The popular saying that Rio is known more for its bar culture than for its café culture has serious counter-evidence in the old city. Beginning in 1808, when Portuguese emperor Dom João fled Napoleon and relocated his imperial court to Rio, European architects, businessmen and intellectuals followed him and attempted to show that their society could thrive in a tropical land. Many stayed on after the royal family returned to Portugal in 1822, and over the course of the 19th century filled the old city’s cobblestone streets with neoclassical row houses, Baroque revival churches and a Beaux-Arts theater. Into this mix, Frenchman Charles Cavé founded a bakery in 1860 in a pink Victorian building as frosted in white trim as the pastries it purveyed.

Anyone with observant eyes and a rumbling stomach will notice how newcomers to the city – and their snack foods – are cropping up like the pink beijo-turco flowers that grow in Rio’s forests after a heavy rain. There’s Hasan with his eggplant esfiha pastries amongst the popcorn vendors and candle-lighters at the Nossa Senhora da Glória church of Largo do Machado; energetic and trendy Armin with his falafel in Botafogo; tired Hafez with his boxes of savory snacks, trying to find shade on the Rua das Laranjeiras. Brazilians didn’t need to be told to like Arab food, and now they’re getting a fresh wave of that culture’s already iconic snacks. The bready esfihas and bulgur wheat kibe may be to Brazilians what chicken tikka masala is to Brits, a formerly foreign food now amongst the country’s most ubiquitous for drunk munchers and rushed lunch-breakers alike. Arab migration dates back over a century in Latin America, and Brazil’s Lebanese diaspora is the largest in the world, with a population as high as 10 million. Some 10 percent of Brazil’s congress is of Arab ancestry.

Geography-challenged foreigners often come to Brazil with a vague, ill-informed hope of finding good Mexican food. In Rio, that only happens at Ipanema’s Azteka. In fact, there are few restaurants we find as compelling in the touristy beachside neighborhood as this one, focusing on Tex-Mex cuisine adapted slightly for Brazilian palates. The breadbox-sized eatery was established by Miguel F. Campos and his Bulgarian wife, Aglika Angelova, a professional piano teacher, after the couple scouted out a new country in which to start a new chapter of their lives together. The two met at an organic pizzeria in Chicago.

Arataca boasts a title so extraordinary that, were it more widely known, we would expect the modest Copacabana snack bar to be covered with colorful Nossa Senhora do Bonfim blessing ribbons so that generations of pilgrims could light white, tapered candles and lay baskets of offerings at its sidewalk entrance. That designation is: First Açaí – the Amazonian superberry – served in Rio de Janeiro. Local lore says that the slushy, purple drink was first served here 59 years ago, and it was a hit. Nowadays, you’ll see cariocas all over the city with the drink’s trademark ink-stained teeth. Arataca was opened by two immigrants from the northeastern state of Pernambuco. One was in the military and, in his travels through Brazil, he developed a taste for the highly unique cuisine of the country’s north, particularly that of Pará state, considered the gateway to the Amazon region. Pará is also the cradle of the Amazonian berry açaí, which is sold in barrels at riverside marketplaces in the commercial and political capital of the state, Belém.

In the anything-goes lead-up to Lent, Carnival in Rio is as much about public inebriation and bawdy public displays of affection as it is about extravagant costumes and entertainment. It’s also a time when freelance moneymakers can largely evade municipal guards by dressing up in costumes as fanciful as any carnivalgoer while they sell their homemade alcoholic concoctions unlicensed. Carnival is early this year – Ash Wednesday is February 10 – which means the city’s sinning is in full swing from now onward. Culinary Backstreets scouted out some of the alternative alcohol options you’ll find on the streets this time of year, ones both classic to hundreds of themed street-party blocos and some that seem to be one-of-a-kind offers.

Watching residents of Paquetá Island between the turnstiles and gate to get their ferryboat home from Rio’s central Praça XV port is like watching horses chomp at the bit before their stable doors are opened. The 5,000 proud homebodies of Rio’s little car-less island in the center of Guanabara Bay are anxious to get back to it, often pulling tall shopping carts stacked with beer and snacks. There’s only one small grocery store on the island and what gets here, gets here by boat and human hands. The ferry is a destination as much as a journey for those who want to appreciate one of Rio’s most unique little corners. You’ll question the quiet here and remember that this city of 14-lane highways is set to a constant soundtrack of engines and “PORRA!” (Pronounced POU-hah, this is a ubiquitous carioca curse you’ll hear when someone’s mildly upset or surprised, a much saltier version of “damn it!”)

Though Brazil is rich in mother earth’s most colorful produce – like passion fruit, guava, papaya, collard greens and sweet abóbora pumpkins – residents of Rio nonetheless have a steady love affair with hot dogs, which are pronounced “HOH-tchee DOH-geey,” or literally translated into Portuguese as cachorro quente. Vendors across the city pile the bunned favorite with a set of toppings as elaborate as they are consistent from one cart to the next: hard-boiled quail eggs, green peas, corn, potato straws, stewed onions and Parmesan cheese. “Tia” was a young mother of three with a husband whose blue-collar salary as a cop meant life was a hustle in their working-class neighborhood of Freguesia. “I had to take them all to school, prepare breakfast, the school uniforms,” she said. “I got no rest.” Her hot dog vendor days began in 1982, when her daughter was a newborn, and she had what she now says were two decades of busting her chops before the cachorro quente da Tia would become one of the most in-demand snacks in this periphery neighborhood of Rio. “Thank God,” she says of her success in her hot dog business, which now encompasses both a quiosque and a store, with 16 employees in total.

Tapioca—a chewy pancake and tasty street snack staple in Rio made from yucca root, which is widely used in Brazil. One of the many humble, delicious snacks to be found while wandering Rio's streets.

You get to Bar do Alto by taking a zippy mototaxi up the snaking streets of the Babilônia favela and then walking 10 minutes up jagged staircases that eventually bear right. On the route, you’ll pass by slices of life that make favelas a museum of Rio, where the city’s symbols and icons are on display in the bare and human way that’s made possible by close quarters of self-made dwellings. There are the evangelicals raising their voices in weeknight prayers. Shirtless men with leathered skin that speaks to long day jobs, now tipping back tall evening bottles of beer. Children playing soccer as overheated cops in bulletproof vests slump on nearby benches.

Editor's note: As Rio gears up for the 2016 Summer Olympics, CB has been exploring the backstreets of the city's Olympic Zones in search of gold-medal eateries. This is the first dispatch in the series. Barra da Tijuca was meant to be the best of Rio without its worst. Sandy beaches with no pickpockets. Top-notch shopping with no annoying squawking vendors. Playgrounds with no worrisome outsiders – because those playgrounds are inside gated condominiums with guards who sometimes have pistols tucked into their belts. The Avenida das Américas is 14 lanes wide, enough space for everyone to have their own car and leave the bus lanes to the white-uniformed maids and servicemen and women who bustle into Barra each day.

Editor's note: To give 2015 a proper send-off, we're taking a look back at all our favorite eating experiences of the year.