Delicia Restaurant

Don’t go for the service. Don’t go for the scene. Don’t go for the ambiance. Those suck. To be fair, Brazilian culture in general is seriously laid back, so you just have to let go of your American notions of service and you’ll be fine. The place kind of reminds me of a «soccer café,» you know, those little cafes full of old men drinking espresso and watching soccer. It’s a basement-​level restaurant and the rec-​room style paper decorations don’t really let you forget it. The food is pretty damned authentic, though, and the prices are decent for the amount of food you’re getting and for the neighborhood. It can be hard to find good, homey, affordable food in an unpretentious, uncrowded environment in this neck of the woods. I keep this place in mind whenever i’m in the west village, hungry, and i’ve got time to kill.

I left this restaurant after a more-​than-​three-​hour dinner experience, and NOT in a good way. I couldn’t wait to tell the world how terrible it was, and then I must have repressed the memory because here I am Unilocaling about it weeks later.
I’ll start by saying the number one problem at Delicia is pitifully horrible service. The waitress did give us a disclaimer that it was just her and the chef the night we came (a Saturday) but even so, we were sitting there for OVER AN HOUR just between our appetizer and entrée courses.
There were 6 of us in the group, and a few other groups in the restaurant but it wasn’t packed. The waitress brought us water and our pitcher of, as others have correctly pointed out, severely watered-​down batidas. A pitcher is supposed to be a good deal that gets you drunk, not a watery mess! I mean, I guess it tasted fine but maybe a little more alcohol would have made us not mind the 80-​HOUR WAIT for our food.
We ordered some fried fish ball appetizer and got our bread. The fish balls tasted like fish sticks. I think they were cod… and were fine, and there was a not-​too-​spicy tomato sauce on the table.
However, while the appetizers didn’t take too long, the entrees took FOREVER to come out. The waitress barely checked on us (probably b/​c she knew there was no point) and occasionally the owner would come out and try to sweet talk us, which would have been a nice, homey touch to the place but really we were all thinking, «Why aren’t you in the kitchen making our food? We’ve been waiting for EONS!»
They did provide us with crayons and a paper tablecloth, and we got so bored and hungry that we started playing hangman. We had almost gotten all the way around the table by the time our food fiiiiiiiinallly came. (When it arrived, people from another table were looking over at us with a ravenous glare in their eyes… like they were about to have a shit fit about it. Well, that’s what I would have done if their food had come out first!)
Turns out, when multiple people order the same dish, they combine it onto one plate so it’s family-​style. But they fucked up the order and only brought one of a dish that two people had ordered… at least they didn’t charge us for it.
Now to the actual MEAL: my friend and I both got this coconut curry with shrimp and squash and tomatoes. It comes with rice, beans, and this weird powdery dry stuff that you can sprinkle on top. The flavor was good but incredibly salty… too bad we had finished our pitcher HOURS before!
The entire experience took more than 3 hours. It was a hot day, the outdoor seats were taken and the inside was kinda stuffy. I can’t tell you how glad I was to get out of there at the end (past midnight).
Oh, plus each dish is $ 16 and the portions aren’t particularly large, so it’s really overpriced, in my opinion. Especially when they combine it… it’s not clear you’re getting double the portion.
I have to say, this was a huge disappointment. The décor is funky, they randomly have a stuffed giraffe on every table, and there’s an empty table in the middle with books on it, plus tons of weird books in the bathroom, and floss! It had a lot of potential but with the kind of service that makes you want to sneak out for a Gray’s Papaya while you wait, and prices double what they should be, this is a place to avoid.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

We went into this meal with the intention of taking forever, and getting plowed. Our goals were met, and exceeded! The first three of us to show up finished off a pitcher of the Batida De Maracuja followed by a pitcher of the Caipirinha. The Batida De Maracuja was fantastic, if extremely simple (passion fruit juice and cachaca, blended with ice) as were the Caipirinhas. Plus, at and about 6 FULL glasses for $ 25 they are a damn good deal.
The food was excellent as well, and the pacing was actually perfect for us. We ordered appetizers with our drinks when we got there, lingered over them for at least an hour, and when we ordered the next few courses they arrived pretty promptly – no more than 20 minutes later, as did the subsequent side dishes we ordered over the following two hours.
The older woman who served us (as opposed to the younger one, who was totally standoffish) was amazing, and we took to calling her Mama about half way through the meal. Plus, they have books like «DRUGS AND YOU» in the bathroom and crayons on the table!
I don’t know why you WOULDN’T want to spend four hours here!

long wait bc of the small staff — but memorable meals there with the bestest of buddies. ideal place to dine on a cold wintery day

I have been here twice and enjoyed the food a lot. It’s homey, authentic, basic and satisfying. The caipirinhas and batidas were watered-​down – that was the only downside for me.
I found the service to be friendly and unintrusive.

Great food. Delicious food at Delicia. Quite chaotic, though. The staff is not really coordinated– the waiter we had was only on his second day, so I will give them a bit of a break. But, we ordered appetizers which came after the main course. Not the place for the best service, but the atmosphere is almost like being in someone’s home– the bathroom has books and things like dental floss and moisturizers on the shelves.