On Thursday, the last night we were in Atlanta, the company tooks us all out for dinner. They took us to Sal Grosso, a churrascaria restaurant.
Churrascaria, for those of you who have never had it (like me, until Thursday night) is basically barbeque, Brazilian style, that originated with gauchos, South Brazilian cowboys. I had heard generally what it was about, but was not prepared for the reality. I had been told, “There will be men with swords and huge chunks of meat.” That’s sort of like saying that a BMW Z4 is four wheels and an engine- it’s true, and even descriptive, but it doesn’t really capture any of the essence of the experience.
We arrived at the restaurant, and the waiter took our drink orders and then suggested that we all go to the buffet so we’d have plates when the meat arrived. Now, my training instructor had referred to the restaurant’s “awesome salad bar,” so it sort of set the tone for the evening when much of the “salad bar” actually contained meat and cheese. And beans. There was indeed some actual salad with vegetables, but it was fairly minimal.
So I settled back in at my place at the table with my plate of beans and meat and cheese and very little vegetables, and then I saw the “gauchos.” They were almost universally tall, good-looking men with limited English skills, wearing black “gaucho tuxedos,” which seems to mean “Black button down shirts with band collars, and fringe-y pants.” The youngest was carrying a tray of baskets of bread and fried bananas (mmm, fried banana), but the rest of them were carrying these huge metal spikes on which were impaled large quantities of meat. The waiter had said there were 18 different choices- pork ribs, two kinds of filet mignon, chicken, Brazilian sausage, mahi-mahi, sirloin, lamb chops, leg of lamb, etc. They came around to each of us in turn, offering us whatever it was was on the particular spike. If you accepted, he would slice off a small serving of it with a MACHETE while you held the other end of the slice with your personal meat tongs. Each one was unfailingly polite, which was nice, but also expert with his BIG FREAKING KNIFE, which was even better.
So to summarize: Eighteen smiling, attractive men with accents carrying big spikes and swords, appearing next to you every minute or so, asking if you’d like some meat. Oh yeah, and the babyfaced one saying, “Fried banana, missus?”
It was an enjoyable dining experience, and I haven’t even told you about the food yet.
Oh, the food. I have never eaten that much meat in one sitting before. The buffet was indeed excellent- I had the black beans and some chickpea salad that were really outstanding. There was a tortellini salad that I thought was sort of out of place at a Brazilian restaurant, but it was good nonetheless, and of course I did manage to get some fresh vegetables- asparagus and cucumbers, as well as some cheese and bread.
But then, of course, was the meat-on-spikes. I didn’t get to try everything, because even thin slices start to pile up after a while. But of what I did try, it was universally excellent. The stand-outs were the top sirloin and the leg of lamb. It’s hard to do lamb justice, but this was just about perfect. I didn’t get to try the pork ribs, but the people at my table who did said they were the best ribs they’d ever had. Of course, they were from Boston and Providence, so you can take that with the proverbial grain of salt, but since everything else was so good, I have no reason to believe the ribs were not, in fact, top-notch.
The margaritas I had were also very good- the company bought two rounds for everyone- and helped to wash down the insane quantity of my fellow creatures I had just consumed. It’s good to be a carnivore, baby.
There’s also a churrascaria place in Rockville that I want to try now, but since Sal Grosso is a chain that actually started in Brazil, I’m a little worried that Green Field Churrascaria won’t be as good and I’ll be disappointed.
And the soup smells really good. And my tummy feels better.