Fogo de Chao

The Wife took me to Fogo de Chao for a lovely birthday dinner a couple weeks ago.  I had first heard about this place on Bill Simmons' podcast and had been very curious to try it.

They have a tutorial on their website to let you know how they run the dining experience.  You pay one flat charge per person and essentially stuff yourself with heaps and heaps of food.  There is a very upscale salad bar that was quite good.  I would have gone back for more but I just took one bite of the items I wanted since the big draw of Fogo is the meat.

Once you're done with the salad bar portion, you flip a card over on the table and the Meat Swordsmen come up to your table quickly and frequently and offer you different cuts of meat - Picanha, Filet Mignon, beef ribs, lamb, bacon wrapped chicken breasts, Parmesan encrusted pork loin, sausage and a couple other ones.  They also bring you cheese rolls, polenta, garlic mashed potatoes and caramelized bananas.  And they keep offering you meat and side dishes until you flip the card back over and throw in the towel and/or vomit at the table.

I liked that there was one flat fee for the experience, and it's all you can eat.  I tried to eat light during the daytime but even I got stuffed in a short period of time.  It is pricey (about $56) so you feel like you should eat your money's worth. A beer was reasonably priced at about $5 so at least they don't screw you over on drink prices, too.

The big downside is that with so many meats to try, you're tempted to try one of everything to see what you really like, but by the time you try them all, you're full. My advice - the picanha (house specialty top sirloin) was hands down the best. Skip the chicken because...well, it's chicken.  You can have that anywhere. I'm not a fan of ribs, the sausage was okay and I personally can't really tell the difference between cuts of beef. Stick to the picanha, parmesan pork loins and lamb. The polenta was excellent and the cheese rolls are super good.

Another downside is there are no take home boxes so a lot of the food gets wasted! I kind of understand that because anyone could load up 10 slabs of filet mignon and then ask for a to go box but still...I always feel bad about wasting food. (Ask me about the week old mushroom pasta leftovers I ate that ended up making me sick sometime.)

Overall, a good dining experience. It gets hectic because there are a TON of people walking around (going to the salad bar, Meat Swordsmen roaming around, etc.) so it's not exactly a romantic destination. I'd go there maybe every other year just to experience it again but not more frequently than that at that price.