Travels in the South

Have you been enjoying our Travels in the South my friends?  Today we continue our travels with Fozziemom and Fozziedad who visited with us all the way from Australia.  Now, the month previous was Fozziedad’s birthday so everyone agreed to celebrate his birthday when he came to the States.

On this date, they all ventured downtown Atlanta to hang out for a bit and then to go to lunch.  Since Fozziedad plays the guitar, mom researched and found a great shop close to the restaurant they would be going to for lunch.  They all went into the store where they got to hear Fozziedad play and were totally amazed and I do believe mom was star struck ❤  Fozziedad is amazing and trust us, he knows his way around a guitar.  Mom/dad said if they lived in Australia they would for sure have to go and hang out when he plays.

After the guitar store visit, they went to eat at one of my mom/dad’s favorite restaurants called Fogo de Chão.  This is an all you can eat type Brazilian Steakhouse.  Now don’t worry.  This place has everything – from the meat eaters to the vegetarians you will be happy here. You first start off with a huge salad bar that has everything that you can imagine.  You can work on that salad first or have it with your meat selections.  As you eat, they bring skewers of different varieties of meat to your table where they then carve it onto your plate.  You choose what you want and how much.  Now I have to tell you a secret.  My mom/dad love this restaurant, especially these little rolls they bring to your tables in baskets.  Mom says they mysterious and magically reappear in the basket every time you ask.  Isn’t that amazing?

Everyone was instructed not to eat breakfast and have to empty bellies for this adventure at the restaurant.  And I must admit, everyone got their fill – even dessert for the birthday boy.  It was an awesome time.  Sometimes when daddy puts me to bed, I ask him to tell me this story about the restaurant.  I can just imagine myself laying up under the table, hooves up in the air like I just don’t care and being hand fed the remarkable steak at this place.  Give me a moment….. okay let’s continue.

Afterwards, the group wanted to go on a further adventure.  You see a couple of years ago, downtown Atlanta installed SkyView Atlanta.  Skyview Atlanta is a Ferris Wheel that is over 20 stories above Centennial Park.  They have individual gondolas that are climate controlled.  Did you hear that?  Climate controlled as in the day everyone visited, it was an air conditioned gondola that they rode in.  Can you believe that?  Ferris Wheels have come a long ways baby.  When you are up in the gondola, mom said you could see all kinds of views of downtown.  It was totally awesome!  And of course no trip is complete without a picture of your memories.

Oh, are you asking where daddy was?  He was guarding the Jeep – snorts with piggy laughter.  Due to dad’s vision, he can’t go up that far so he sat this one out and partied in the Jeep until we got done.   Don’t fear – he had a great time rocking out to Queen.

 

 

Bacon’s Show and Tell

Welcome my friends to November’s Bacon’s Show and Tell.

For November – we are sharing party pictures focusing on Thanksgiving. What did you and your family do for Thanksgiving – or any other big holiday where you are.  Did your family get together?  Did you go out to eat?  Did you cook out?

Since mom and dad were married 11 years ago, they started a yearly tradition of eating out at a special place on Thanksgiving.  They go downtown to a restaurant called Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse in Atlanta, Georgia.

   When you get to the table, there is a disc on the table.  One side is green for go – as in bring the food to my belly – snorts.  The other side is red – as in I’m so full I’m going to blow!  This is one of daddy’s all time favorite restaurants in the entire world.  Talk about a meat bonanza.  They have a huge salad bar with everything you can imagine and then you flip your disc to green and all of these wonderful gauchos come to your table with meat in spears cutting it table side.  Can you lick your lips and say yummy?

  But mom, she loves these little rolls called PÃO DE QUEIJO that are served at the tables in baskets.  Mom calls them heaven on earth and saved herself for these all week long.  They are warm, soft cheesy bread rolls that are brought to your table in baskets throughout your entire meal.  It’s like magic.  As soon as the basket is empty, it is quickly replenished.  Mom/dad wouldn’t admit to how many baskets they went through.  The only thing they would say is that they are back to no bread now.  Makes you wonder huh?  They are made with sweet and sour yucca flour and Parmesan cheese and are gluten-free.

   One of the meats that the serve that are mom/dad’s favorite is called PICANHA which is the prime part of the top sirloin.  Who needs turkey on thanksgiving huh?  Which mom says they do have but this picanha is worth saving one’s self for.  It is also the restaurants signature steak.  They lightly seasoned it with rock salt and slice it thin to whatever degree you want it – medium, well or rare.  As you can see in this picture, dad is jumping head first and asking questions later.  Yes it it that good.

So this is our part of blast from the past in 2004 when mom/dad started this tradition of going out for their holiday.  We hope that you enjoyed it my friends!

 

 

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.