Mom’s Birthday Lunch – WOW!

Today was a great and wonderful day for mom with her birthday.  Daddy took her to one of their favorite restaurants called Fogo de Chão (pronounced fo-go dèe shoun) for lunch downtown Atlanta, Georgia.  This place is superdelicious even from this oinker’s point of view… not that *I* would know first hand.  For some reason, I don’t think they would be too accommodating for me to walk in and order lunch.  Then again.. they might if *I* was lunch but that’s not going to happen okay! Snorts – I’ll just live vicariously through mom and dad with their fantastic lunch date.

When you first get seated at your table, there is this round disc that is next to each plate.  Just like a stop light – flip it to green for “Come on Gauchos bring me some meat” or flip it to red for “Hold back cowboys – I need a moment” – snort. 

But, I’m getting way ahead of myself.

 

After you get settled and order your drinks, you can go visit their magnificent salad bar.  And trust me, I say salad bar but mom and dad said it was a culinary experience.  There’s everything on that bar!  Aged parmesan, aged manchego cheese, artichokes, fresh mozzarella, smoked salmon, shiitake mushrooms, all kinds of different breads, potato salad, apple salad, tomato/cucumber salad and huge green and black olives.  Mom said they even had fried bacon strips on the salad bar. I admit that this scared me for just a few minutes and had me shaking in my hooves.  Fried bacon – that would be me?!  But, mom calmed me down and explained that it wasn’t this type of piggy.  You know, the loveable, snuggable, huggable miniature pot bellied pig.  I’m not for eating – just loving 🙂 winks

After you get your fill of the ‘salad bar’, the wonderful gauchos will bring some awesome side dishes to your table.  They include crispy polenta, garlic mashed potatoes and caramelized bananas.  They also bring these delectable little cheesy rolls they call pão de queijo to the table in little baskets.  Mom says they are heavenly.  She and dad went through THREE baskets of them.  I was shocked!  But, I told mom that it was her birthday and we *all* know that there are absolutely no calories on one’s birthday, right?!  And I must admit, these rolls are out of this world.  Someone – looking around – brought this oinker back one.  Now I understand why they had three baskets – oohh yummy!

Now it’s time to flip that little card to green and bring on the meat!  Gauchos start flocking to your table to carve meat right in front of you.  It’s amazing!  This is daddy getting one of his favorites called Picanha (pronounced pea-CAN-ya).  Picanha is top sirloin, so juicy that it literally almost melts in your mouth!  Daddy says it’s even better when there is a some ‘fat’ on the edges that are caramelized from the heat of cooking over the fire.  They have all kinds of meat that are served.  They are:

• Filet Mignon which dad says is THUD delicious – either bacon wrapped or without bacon
• Beef Ancho (pronounced beef AN-cho) which is rib eye
• Alcatra (pronounced al-CAT-ra) which is top sirloin
• Fraldinha (pronounced fral-DIN-ya) which is bottom sirloin
• Cordeiro (pronounced cor-DAY-roo) which is lamb.  You can get lamb chops or leg of lamb  Either way is succulent with a little bit of mint marinade on the side!
• Frango (pronounced FRAHN-go) which is chicken.  You can get chicken legs or bacon wrapped chicken breasts.
• Costela de Porco (pronounced co-STELL-a gee PO-co) which is pork ribs.
• Lombo (pronounced LOM-bo) which is pork loin.  This is encrusted with parmesan cheese coating before roasting over an open flame.
• Linguica (pronounced lin-GWEE-sa) which is sausage.

And mom’s favorite is Costela (pronounced co-STELL-a) which is beef ribs.  Mommy says this gaucho has the hardest job of all of the gauchos at the restaurant.  Not only does he have to carve the meat, he has to hold the cutting board as well.  That is some job – right?!  But mommy says it’s all worth it because the meat just melts in your mouth.  And, she loves the beef ribs with a side of horseradish sauce.  Yummy!

 

 

 

And then to top off the meal – they brought mommy birthday flan with happy birthday written on the plate.  So sweet, huh?  Mommy and daddy said it was so great – not too sweet.

So you see, mommy had a terrific birthday lunch.  I’m glad I could share the pictures and fun with you.  Mommy would be for some reason she is sleeping.  She said she ate too much – snorts.  The amateur – double snorts.