Fogo de Chao, the restaurant where people lose their minds over delicious meat that melts in your mouth and never stops coming until you say stop. But do you have the willpower to say stop? If you haven’t been there it deserves one visit in your lifetime. I’ve been twice now and failed the test both times. I went once with a vendor years ago so when my husband wanted to go there for our anniversary so I knew what to expect and how I would feel afterwards but he had never been so why not?
I would highly recommend getting a reservation when you go. There’s really no time limit as to how long you can sit there and eat and many in fact have strategies on how to get the most meat into their bodies before losing their dinner. We did go ahead and get a reservation and it was fairly crowded already at 6:30 pm on a Saturday night. There are no menus, it all works the same. There’s a salad bar of exotic things that you may not even know how to identify and there’s the paper coaster that has two sides, green which means feed me, and red which means I can’t take anymore. You can flip it back and forth as much as you like but when you flip it to green be prepared for a swarm of waiters running around with meat on skewers asking you if you want what they have and it can get pretty chaotic.
We decided to go with one of the strategies that I read on a review. You eat some meat first, take a break with the salad bar to ease the grease that’s settling in your belly and to cleanse your palate and then hit the meat again. Probably fifteen minutes after we turned out coasters over we had a pile of meat on our plates. The waiter even asked us if there was a particular meat we were looking for and once we told him we were looking for lamb it wasn’t five minutes before he delivered they guy with the skewers of lamb chops and leg of lamb. Freaked out by the amount of food we had acquired in such a short amount of time we decided to turn our coasters over to stop the madness.
We both tried Filet Mignon, top sirloin, sausage, chicken, lamp chops, leg of lamb, beef ribs and the best of the bunch, picanha. All of the meats were tender, juicy and melted in our mouths. We haven’t eaten this much since I don’t know how long and since we started trying to eat right and working out we really haven’t eaten much red meats so this was a huge pile of sinful food on our plates. It wasn’t long before I needed a break so we turned the coasters over and tried out the salad bar. I had some salmon (excellent), tomatoes, asparagus, cheese and a couple of other things. It helped and I could see the brilliance in the strategy but I couldn’t take anymore. I’m a lightweight and knew that I wouldn’t get my money’s worth because I just don’t eat like that anymore. Peter tried one more piece of meat but he threw the towel in half way through it.
Believe it or not they have a full list of deserts for you to eat, as if you could eat anything more. The last time I went the waiter suggested this papaya smoothie that supposed to help with the digestion of all this meat you just put into your belly. I remembered it being good and so we decided on getting some. It did deliver. It was light (which you are thankful for after all that grease) and didn’t leave a sweet aftertaste and I think it really did help.
So we left with our hands on our belly’s moaning about why we did that to ourselves. I knew when we decided to go there that it would be an epic fail of a day with our diets. I told myself all those little lies such as oh it’s our anniversary we deserve it, one day epic fail is ok once in a while… You know where I’m going. Chances are you’ve said it to yourself before. For me, the food was amazing until my stomach had enough but the way the waiters worked was the most amazing to me. If you are reading this and work there, or know someone who does, I’d love to hear about how this place is managed. It was truly amazing. If you are one of those waiters running around with the skewers of meat, thank you for your hard work. The way you weave in and out of the crowds, navigating between the red and green coasters and keeping an eye out for the head waiters who are trying their best to get the meat their visitors are hoping for and you doing it with a smile if simply amazing.
If your diet doesn’t allow you one day of sinful epic fails then avoid this place at all cost but if you want to experience something that will make your mouth water over delicious meats and your eyes dance and wonder over how they make this machine work so well, then this is the place to visit. For me, I’m trying to get back on my diet wagon as I write this. Wish me luck!