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Surely, if you are smart enough to open a Brazilian restaurant in Williamsburg, you are smart enough to come up with a better name than "Favela." Call me crazy, but I don't think you could get away with a soul food (or Polish) restaurant called "Ghetto." If Brueghellian illustrations of savage economic inequalities have become available as themes for restaurants, then I'm voting for Travis Bickle, or anyone else who can deliver a real rain. 
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That's why it's called Williamsburg, I guess.
Posted by: Marco | Sunday, 27 January 2008 at 10:39 AM
there's a Favela in astoria as well. same owners?
Posted by: hess | Monday, 28 January 2008 at 02:03 PM
ah, so tempting to knock williamsburg, a totally cliche and obvious angle on the name of this restaurant. i bet you hardly had to think about this, wasn't that easy!
a favela does refer to a shantytown. however, many many brazilian people live in favelas. do you honestly think they would see it as a derogatory term?
and, as a matter of fact, if i was in a foreign country and there was a restaurant called, "ghetto," "suburb," or "outskirts," i'd probably check it out.
but nevermind that, let's jump on the 'williamsbashing' bandwagon! we don't live there and we think the people who do look and act funny! so let's make fun of them! brilliant!
PS- go to hell.
Posted by: freedom | Monday, 28 January 2008 at 10:04 PM
I think you could easily get away with a soul food restaurant called The Ghetto.
Posted by: will | Wednesday, 30 January 2008 at 12:21 PM
sorry, freedom, but in this case, just because williamsburg is easy to make fun of doesn't mean the Cod doesn't have a point.
while the poor of brazil may not (and should not) be ashamed to live in the favela, how can the choice of that word for a name of a restaurant be anything more than cultural slumming?
sure, all the cool kids have seen "City of God" and/or "Bus 174" and really *know* how rough it is for Brazil's poor. the drug dealers, the bad cops, the violent crime--it's exciting! it's life or death! all with a samba beat & plenty of hot sex thrown in for good measure. yeah, well, count me out on the co-optation of brazil's underclass, thankyouverymuch.
Posted by: Allison | Wednesday, 30 January 2008 at 09:55 PM
http://tallulahbankhead.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/introducing-miss-slum-a-new-restaurant-in-williamsburg/
i completely agree with you...it's just weird way of glamorizing poverty.
Posted by: tallulah bankhead | Sunday, 03 August 2008 at 01:16 PM