MEE is a one Michelin star ‘pan Asian’ restaurant on the ground floor of the Copacabana Palace Hotel’s original building, beside the hotel pool. It’s Rio’s only starred Asian restaurant, so it’s quite popular with the Cariocas.  As both Mr A and I are very fond of Japanese food, and the ‘pan Asian’ menu seemed to carry more Japanese dishes than those of other Asian nations, we decided we had to give it a try, during our visit to Rio in April 2022.  MEE is only open for dinner between Thursdays and Mondays and it offers a tasting menu and a la carte. We chose the tasting menu at BRL484 each (about £76), plus a ‘wine flight’ at BRL429 which included some sake, which, of course, is a rice wine.  In addition to standard tables and booths, it’s possible to sit at ‘the counter’ which is a common feature in Japan, and where Mr A and I always enjoy sitting.

Our first dish was Korean barbecued beef fillet with apple, spices and rice, sitting on a lettuce leaf. We ate it by hand, folding the lettuce to make a taco-style canapé.  Flavour was pretty good, but this was a rather simple dish from a Michelin starred restaurant, and I felt they could have done better. 7/10

Next came a tartare of bluefin tuna, sitting in a prawn cracker and topped with flying fish roe.  I approached this dish nervously because I hadn’t eaten the endangered bluefin tuna before, and I felt quite guilty eating it now.  This hand-eaten snack tasted very pleasant, but I couldn’t pick out any distinctive flavour of the tuna because the cracker overwhelmed it. 6/10

Next came a very interesting and unusual dish of toasted brioche topped with sea urchin flavoured rice, raw scallops and more flying fish roe.  This time the flavours of the seafood came through loud and clear. The dish was delicious and I loved the popping textures of the flying fish roe. 9/10

Our fourth dish was a selection of nigiri sushi, featuring Japanese omelette with nori, torched Kobe A5 beef, and more bluefin tuna.  This time I could taste and appreciate the beautiful flavour of the tuna, and the beef was beautifully tender and flavoursome too. 9/10

Dish number five was a duck wanton in a rich duck broth. The pasta of the wonton was very al dente, even chewy, but the duck flavours were well balanced with Asian herbs and vegetables. 7.5/10

Dish six was grilled octopus with baby corn, carrot, tomato, edamame beans and an octopus ink tree-shaped crisp.  This dish gave me another moral dilemma, because I’m currently avoiding octopus because the animals are so intelligent. But I hadn’t chosen this, it was just part of my tasting menu, so I went ahead and ate it.  I noticed that the octopus ink crisp had a lot more flavour than things made with squid ink, and, I’m sad to say, the octopus was delicious and tender. 8/10

Described on the menu as “curry verde do mar” meaning green curry of the sea, this dish had a large piece of sea bass, a scallop and a grilled squid, with broccoli, green beans and courgette in a lemongrass-heavy green curry sauce. But I couldn’t detect any chilli at all, which was a big disappointment. This was not a green curry. The bass was nicely cooked, but the squid was so rubbery it was inedible. 4/10

Our main course was pork belly with crackling, pumpkin puree, pan choi and a kimchi puree.  I didn’t really enjoy this dish because the pork was under-seasoned and everything else was a bit boring and uninspired.  7/10 It didn’t strike me as ‘Asian enough’ to warrant being on the tasting menu.  I found myself becoming tired and irritable, so I decided to end my meal here.  They did kindly take a bit off the bill because I was missing the two desserts and the wine accompaniments.  I think I was expecting MEE to be more Japanese, but after the raw fish elements it veered off into the hard to define area of ‘pan Asian’, where they seemed to lose focus.  We watched the chefs prepare some top quality raw fish for some a la carte diners, and I felt we should have just gone a la carte to focus on the Japanese specialities.

Although the head chef looked Japanese, he was actually a non Japanese speaking Brazilian from Sao Paolo.  The chefs in front of us worked in silence, so we had no interactions with them, which took away one of the key reasons for dining at the counter.

So overall I was somewhat disappointed with MEE. It certainly wasn’t a patch on the previous night’s meal at Cipriani.  7.5/10