Restaurants - restaurantes - are ubiquitous, portions are very large and prices are extremely reasonable. A prato comercial is around $3, while a good full meal can usually be had for about $10, even in expensive-looking restaurants. Cheaper restaurants, though, tend only to be open for lunch. One of the best options offered by many restaurants, typically at lunchtime only, is self-service comida por kilo , where a wide choice of food is priced according to the weight of the food on your plate. Specialist restaurants to look out for include a rodízio , where you pay a fixed charge and eat as much as you want; most churrascarias - restaurants specializing in charcoal-grilled meat of all kinds, especially beef - operate this system, too, bringing a constant supply of meat on huge spits to the tables. In many restaurants you will be presented with unsolicited food the moment you sit down. This is the couvert , which can consist of anything from a couple of bits of raw carrot and an olive to quite an elaborate and substantial plate. Although the price is generally modest, it still has to be paid for. If you don't want it, ask the waiter to take it away. Brazil also has a large variety of ethnic restaurants , thanks to the generations of Portuguese, Arabs, Italians and Japanese who have made the country their home. The widest selection is in São Paulo, with the best Italian, Arab and Japanese food in Brazil, but anywhere of any size will have good ethnic restaurants, often in surprising places: Belém, for example, has several excellent Japanese restaurants, thanks to a Japanese colony founded fifty years ago in the interior. Ethnic food may be marginally more expensive than Brazilian, but it's rarely exorbitant. The bill normally comes with a ten percent service charge, but you should still tip, as waiters rely more on tips than on their very low wages