Big City, Big Dinner

This past Saturday night, during our weekend of holiday fun, Rob and I treated ourselves to a meal at Fogo De Chao.  I don't know if any of you are familiar with the place (they have locations across the U.S.) or their style of service, but it's definitely an experience.

We had heard great things about this place in the past and were just looking for an opportunity to visit.

The lowdown: First you visit the absolutely incredible salad bar, which features some out-of-this-world choices.  They're basically trying to fill you up on salad so you don't eat too much meat.  Yeah, I had their number.  But it didn't stop me from filling my plate...

I mean, seriously.  If you were facing down a salad bar which featured gorgeous veggies, smoked salmon, proscuitto, and all sorts of yummy cheeses...


Would YOU be able to pass it up?

Especially if there was a giant wheel of parmaggiano reggiano just sitting there, waiting for you to dig out a piece or three?

I mean, seriously.  Look at that and tell me you wouldn't do the same darn thing. 

(Incidentally, I need one of those wheels of cheese for my kitchen.)


Moving on.  Once the salad course is finished (by the way, they do offer the option of just ordering the salad bar, which in my opinion would be totally worthwhile for a nice lunch), it's time to bring on the meat.  Each person at the table is given a disc - one side green, the other red.  You start off with the red side up.  As soon as you flip to green, though...

The bombardment begins.  I was trying to get a good picture of the process but those gauchos are so fast.  They come to your table with meat on a long skewer.  They explain what the meat is and ask if you would like some, then ask how you like your meat cooked.  You tell them and they slice some off for you.

This happens over and over again until you explode.  The end.

Okay, maybe it's not quite that dramatic, although I'm sure it could be if you didn't flip your disc to red prior to your expiration.  There's 15 different types and cuts of meat, from filet mignon to sausage to chicken drumsticks to bacon-wrapped chicken to sirloin...and on and on...

It was utter carnage.  And we did not even get halfway through the offerings - I know I saw a table of folks eating what appeared to be lambchops but we didn't get that far into the process before we gave up.

Oh, did I mention that they offered garlic mashed potatoes, polenta and fried plantains as well? It was heaven, I tell you.  Absolutely heaven.  And I'm not ashamed to say that I took full advantage of the sides, even though I know that they, like the salad, were meant to fill me up.  Hey, I'm not trying to eat a whole cow here.


As I said, we flipped our discs to red long before all of the choices were offered to us.  We were smart, and I was proud of us for that.  No need to go overboard.


Oh wait.  You say there's cheesecake?

Oh...I see...well, I'll have to try some...

Look how it glistens...

They actually offered at least a dozen choices for dessert, and each choice sounded more amazing than the last.  But you can't go wrong with cheesecake.  And we were not disappointed.

There's also a tremendous wine list, but since the wines were only served by the bottle and I'm the sole wine drinker, I passed.

In all, we were glad to have taken the chance on Fogo.  Would we return? Yes, but we agreed after the meal that it would probably be more fun to go with a group of people.  For the money we spent, we could have had a really fantastic meal at Morimoto, which I adore more than life itself, and we would have felt as though it was worth the cost.  At a place like Fogo there's almost a feeling of pressure to eat your money's worth - and frankly, I don't feel as though we came anywhere close.

Still, it was yummy.  And I got to carve chunks out of a giant wheel of cheese.  So it was a good night.