Travels in the South

Hello my friends.  Today we are continuing our travels in the south with the visit from our friends Shoko and Kali’s mom/dad from Canadian Cats.  Last week we found Bill and Jean arriving here in the south – you can read all about that posting here.

On their second day here in the south, mom/dad wanted to take them downtown to a restaurant that is one of their all time favorites.  This restaurant is called Fogo de Chao and it’s a Brazilian restaurant.  This is an upscale all you can eat restaurant where they carve meat at your table side.  Mom had been talking to Bill and Jean about this place but regardless of how you describe it, you just don’t get the full experience of it until you are actually there in this beautiful place.

The first thing we need to discuss about the restaurant’s food are these devilish little rolls called PÃO DE QUEIJO.  Oh my southern heavens.  These things are totally awesome – they are warm, soft cheesy bread rolls that mysteriously come to your table throughout your entire meal in bowls.  It’s like the bowl just refills itself over and over and before you know it – three bowls are gone… not that mom would know from experience or anything like that.

The second thing we need to talk about at the restaurant is their HUGE market table salad bar.  This is a picture of Jean’s plate from the salad bar – look at all of the goodies!  Huge green olives, beef steak tomatoes, cucumber salads, imported cheeses, prosciutto, kale, chick peas, artichoke hearts, apple salad – that’s just a start of the goodies.

And just think – this is *just* the salad bar to get your appetite going a bit.  Doesn’t all of the food luck superb?  We all dug in like there was no tomorrow and Lord forbid like we didn’t eat just last night.

Then when you are ready for the real party to begin, you turn this disc over to green on your table.  That tells the gaucho’s that you are ready for MEAT. And then when you want a break you turn your disc back over which is RED for stop I need a break.  So are you ready for some meat my friends?  This is where they bring the spears of meat to your table and carve what you want.  They have top sirloin, bottom sirloin, filet mignon, beef ribs, pork ribs, chicken, lamb and pork.

Here’s a picture of daddy getting some house special.  See how they carve it at the table.  Then you have a special tong that you pull the meat off after the gaucho cuts the meat.  It is delicious.  And you can get whatever temperature you want – medium, well done, rare, whatever – they are there for you and your experience.

In fact, mommy kept telling the house special guy that he was her favorite.  What a suck up huh?

We all ate and ate and ate until our bellies were nice, round and full – overflowing with food and laughter.

Finally the discs were turned to red, the white napkins were waved in defeat.

All of us could barely move… so why not order dessert then huh?  Snorts with piggy laughter.

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There was the matter of celebrating a late birthday in the crowd – Jean.  So we all choose strawberry cheesecake where the restaurant wrote around the plate Happy Birthday.  And Jean was a trooper blowing out her candle and we all jumped in one last time before ending another great meal with great company.

And you know there has to be that *one* picture that is taken to always look back on to remember what a great date this was.. and here it is.