Fogo De Chao

Oh, my.

Last night we had a rare treat. Brent's aunt generously offered to have all 3 kids come and spend the night. Woo hoo! We decided to take advantage of the situation and planned a nice evening out, with dinner and a movie... well, actually since we had to make our reservations last minute, it was movie and a dinner as our reservations were not until 9 PM.

Brent had been wanting to see Death Race. It had the dude from The Transporter in it, which I'd enjoyed, so I thought "what the heck". I'm pretty eclectic in my movie tastes, but I tend to squirm a bit during those with loads of gratuitous violence and mayhem. This one, I actually really enjoyed. Wow, that sounded bad. It's apparently a remake of an older movie from the 70's that I never saw. Without going into details, it's kind of a "The Fast and the Furious meets Gladiator"... though not as good as either of those, it still kept my attention for an hour and a half, and I left saying, "that was pretty good".

We'd made reservations for a place that opened up last year in downtown Minneapolis. We've been hearing RAVE reviews about it, and thought it was time to check it out. Fogo de Chao DID NOT let us down, wow, I think I have a new favorite. Fogo De Chao is a churrascaria, which is a Brazilian Steakhouse.

When you are seated, you first had the option to head to the salad bar, which I will tell you is AMAZING. Be careful not to fill yourself up, although I could easily do so with all the wonderful things they have. My personal favorites were the wedges of baby swiss cheese, fresh crispy asparagus, marinated palm and artichoke hearts, and OF COURSE the makings for fresh caprice salad (fresh mozzarella balls, sliced tomatoes, and basil). Heavenly.



After we each had a modest plate from the salad bar, the real fun began. I know of a few of my readers are vegetarians, so I hope this doesn't gross you out too much, but I loved it :)

At your table you each had a special "coaster" that was red on one side and green on the other. If you turn it to green, you pretty much immediately have a string of gauchos presenting their hot sizzling spits of various cuts of meat directly to your table. You can say yes, or pass and go on to the next. They carve it table side and you use a little set of tongs to grab it from them as they slice. It's all you can eat, and as soon as you have enough on your plate, you flip your coaster over to red. When you're ready for more, flip it back to green. flip. repeat. flip repeat, and so on until you're DONE.

All the meats were absolutely wonderful, although I was full well before I'd had to chance to try everything that I'd wanted. I got a lot of my taste preferences from my Dad, and this meat was hot, rare, and well seasoned, just how I like it. There was no steaksauce (A1 sauce is an atrocity in my mind), and after the meal I asked Brent if he'd considered asking for it (he has ruined many cuts of meat by pouring that stuff on, much to my chagrin). He said that he didn't cause he didn't want to get kicked out :).

My personal favorites were the filet mignon (of course), Frango (wonderfully seasoned chicken drumsticks), and Beef Ancho (the prime part of a ribeye).



They also brought a few additional sides to the tables. There was a fun chewy bread that had cheese baked inside, which was enjoyable. Buttery toast with paremsan, which was nice. The mashed potatoes were just "eh" and I chose not to waste any of my carbs on them. I thought they were fake, but Brent was tacky enough to ask while were leaving and they assured him they were not, so they must have just been overly whipped. He just wanted to settle a score with me, but I was mad at him for asking :). They also had fried bananas, which I was skeptical of since I kind of have a "thing" against cooked fruit (except applesauce) - I did try a tiny bit. The flavor was strong, and they were hot, and not really my thing.

All in all it was wonderful food and a very nice evening. We'll definitely be back, but at $47 a person, it'll be a special occasion type of place for us.

We're off to pick up the kids in a little bit, and then I'm going to try to talk Brent into going furniture "looking" - we desperately need a new kitchen table set and bedroom set. Have a happy Sunday!