Checking out Brazil Churrascaria

As a belated birthday treat for kh, we went to check out Brazil Churrascaria on Saturday. It was quite a colourful experience since we had no prior knowledge to how this whole “buffet” concept works. A nice aunty waitress explained to us how to go about getting our food.

No photo taken on that day as it was almost impossible to take pictures of the food since our plates were constantly topped up with meat, meat and more meat.

Step one would be to take our empty plates and head for the salad bar. The salad bar is not all greens and raw. There is certainly a wide variety of food just at the salad bar alone. Besides the usual greens, pasta and potato salad, there was also pulpy pomelo sacs, fried banana fritter (which resembles nothing like our local goring pisang) and many fruity accompaniment which we don’t know their names but just ate anyway. The salad bar was good as a meal so we were careful not to heap our plates too much or we would not have enough space for the meat which would come later.

When we returned to our seats, 3 different types of sauces, together with miniature cheese bread was served. I simply LURVE the miniature cheesebread! After we had settled down, the meat came raining onto our plates.

“A friendly Passador (meat waiter) will come to your table with a large skewer of one type of meat and starts slicing pieces onto your plate with a sharp knife. While you're finishing it, another skewer will appear at your table with another type of meat. This continues for the rest of the night until your stomach surrenders and refuses to eat anymore.” - Makansutra

There were many different selections of succulent meat and we didn’t get sick of the taste of them that quickly as the different types of meat were marinated with different sauces. We didn’t get to try any of the fish for we were already very full by the time the fish skewers came. I particularly like the beef topside (medium rare on the inside and oh so juicy) and chicken hearts.

There was this ang mo Passador who was very cute. Armed with his skewer of chicken hearts, he approached us and enquired if we wanted what sounded like “chee3 sin2”. We could not make out what he was uttering but we saw what looked like chicken hearts (we heard that dish was good) and so nodded enthusiastically. He then dropped four little hearts onto our plates each. I thought he was speaking in the Brazilian tongue while kh figured he was trying to say “ji1 xin1” (chicken heart in Mandarin). We later concluded that it might be some Brazilian language after all. Afterwards, the same ang mo came with his grilled pineapple and announced “huang3 li2” in the most ang mo accented Mandarin instead of “huang2 li2” and pork ribs as “pai3 gu2” instead of “pai2 gu3”. With that, we confirmed that he was speaking in Mandarin.

We had a 2nd change of plates as our meal got too meaty and we were dying to finish the slices of meat on our plates so that we could go get the greens to balance it off. This time, I heaped my plate with green lettuce, blanched broccoli, some deliciously fried leaves, huge scoops of pomelo sacs and some tomato to add a splash of red to the otherwise bland greens and white. I personally liked the pomelo as a balance coz it isn’t those really sweet kind and it has a neutralizing effect for the overtly tasty meats. The lettuce tasted like it was drenched in pesticides and the broccoli was too filling. Also good would be the grilled pineapple slices for they served as refreshing interval breaks from the meat.

The Passadors did not approach our table as often as before and we were wondering if it was due to the colour of our plates. The 2nd change of plates were yellow instead of green. After a few more slices of meat, we could not down anymore meat and decided to wait for the chicken hearts. So far we had each eaten eight (they came in multiples of four) and had not seen any skewer with chicken hearts for a long time. When that cute ang mo appeared with some other meat, kh asked if there were anymore chicken hearts and he promised to get them for us. He soon forgot about us as he appeared with the hearts but did not come anywhere near us. He served all the new diners instead. Guessed our plates were really colour coded after all. Once again when he appeared at our table with yet another chunk of meat, we enquired about the chicken hearts. He smiled, went into the kitchen and pushed down all the little hearts from the skewer onto our plates such that I had 7 and kh had 6. Excellent service but who knows, he may be waiting for us to eat chicken hearts till we puke and die. In the end I got so sick of the chicken hearts that I shoved the remaining to kh.

The total bill came up to $96.74.

Food: * * * *

Ambience: * * *
(Buzzing crowd and totally non conducive for conversation since waiters approach your table every few minutes. But that is how it works.)

Service: * * * * Warm, friendly and hospitable

Price: Reasonable if you are a meat-lover or huge eater.