Fogo de Chao

This place offers kind of a unique dining experience. First there’s a salad bar with all kinds of tasty things – sundried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, grilled bell peppers, plus various cold meats and cheeses. When you’re done with that, you flip over cards on your table (red to green) and waiters start coming by with different cuts of meat. They carve it right at your table.

They offer fifteen different cuts of meat. I think I tried seven and I left stuffed. Everything was cooked perfectly. The highlights were the rib eye and the fillet mignon. The garlic beef and bacon-wrapped chicken weren’t bad either. Nothing was over seasoned; their cooking philosophy seems to be all about letting the flavor of the meat shine through. All the beef I sampled had a nice crust on it and was completely tender in the middle.

Both the salad bar and the meat service are unlimited, and you can flip the card on your table to control the pace of your meal. There are also unlimited side dishes: mashed potatoes, fried bananas, and polenta. I tried the papaya cream for dessert.

I had a small heart attack when I saw the check—it’s probably tacky to put an actual number out there, so I’ll just say it was three digits for two people—but I wasn’t the one paying and I wasn’t the one who picked the restaurant, so oh well.