Made in Brazil

We went to Made in Brazil for dinner last night, and various people have mentioned they wanted to know how it was.

Here's the part where I remind you that I not only lived in Brazil for 2 years, but I lived in the part where this style of food comes from. The comparison I use is that me living in St. George and having been a few times to Famous Dave's Barbecue doesn't make me a good judge of authentic American barbecue. I'll leave that to people who have been to the South and experienced backyard slow cooked barbecue and been to the small, local barbecue restaurants. Same thing with the Brazilian food. Just because the meat is on a stick, doesn't make it authentic.

Authenticity:
Brazilian places like this don't really have a menu. You get the buffet of sides and they bring the meat to you, but they still have a small drink menu, which they gave us. And right at the top, it says something to the effect of "This is a churrascarria (pronounced "choo-ras-ka-REE-ah") . . . " Wrong! Right of the bat, they had two problems. First, it's spelled churrascaria, and secondly, it's pronounced "shoo-hahs-ka-REE-ah". But from there, things improved greatly. Guarana is a well known Brazilian soft drink, and they have two brands. Antartica is more familiar in the US, but they also have Brahma on tap. Brahma is evidently the second best selling guarana in Brazil and has a very different taste, but it's still good. Guarana is no more specific than "cola"; not all colas taste like Coke, and that's ok.

Churrascarias (a place where you get churrasco ("shoo-hahs-ko") which is the meat) always have a buffet. The point of the buffet is to trick you into eating less meat. A traditional churrasco will have a few sides. Some rice, some beans, a potato salad, tomatoes, bread, cucumbers and that's about it. But when churrascarias come to the US, they feel a need to fancify things up. So we end up with (last night) pickled potatoes, crab salad, broccoli salad, green olives and a variety of other things offered. I don't mind them adding these things, but I don't eat them, because I'm going for an authentic meal. Made in Brazil did have a nice selection of more authentic foods, which included: fried yucca (excellent!), fried bananas, fried rice balls, rice, beans, stroganoff, and farofa (yucca flour).

The meat was good. It wasn't perhaps as salty as I would have liked, but it was still good. They had a good variety (which is smaller if you go for lunch, but lunch is cheaper) including chicken hearts (which they cooked just for me), grilled pinapple (I realize this isn't a meat), sirloin, chicken wrapped in bacon, and other yummy things. Shannon even tried a small piece of chicken heart. You'll have to ask her about it.

Service:
I thought the service was excellent. They were friendly, but more importantly, the people the brought the meat around remembered what we wanted. When we mentioned to one that I was waiting for some chicken hearts, he even told the other guy. Interestingly, one employee came and started talking to me in Portuguese. I asked if he always assumed people spoke Portuguese, and he told me he could tell that I did based on what I was eating.

Ambiance:
Nice. It wasn't at capacity, which helps, but I liked it. It was clean, etc.

Price:
Churrasco is never cheap, as it focuses on meat which is brought to your table and cut just for you. But the price is reasonable for a churrascaria. I think the dinner is 18 bucks. Lunch is less (15ish?). We won't be going back often, but birthdays only come back once a year.

In Conclusion:
I'd go back often, except for the price. This is why we don't eat out anywhere very often. I'd love to go again, and enjoy taking people and telling them all about the foods. So, if you want to hire me to spruce up your Churrascaria experience, I'm available.