A “Family” Dinner at Fogo de Chao

July 26, 2010 | Laura 5

Carrying on an ages old tradition, authentic Brazilian gauchos at Fogo de Chao roast fifteen different cuts of meat over an open flame and bring sizzling skewers to your table.

The gaucho, who wears a button-down shirt with a fancy red ascot around his neck and dark pants tucked into tall leather boots, asks how you like your meat (rare, medium, well), then expertly carves a slice and invites you to pluck it onto your plate using silver tongs. You’re given control over the fast-paced, continuous tableside service with a small, round chip; place it green side up to signal the gauchos to bring more meat, place it red side up to signal them to stop.

As I scoped out dinner choices near our hotel, the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel, Fogo de Chao caught my eye. Many moons ago in Atlanta I enjoyed Fogo on a business trip; I remembered the good food and excellent company, but more than anything, the lively steak house experience was seared into my memory.

On vacation, I tend to avoid franchise restaurants in favor of local flavors, but the last thing I wanted to do is to select a local joint for Paul and I that left our boys, 8 and 10, no other option but a kids’ menu with a selection of food substitutes such as mac n’ cheese, hamburgers, and chicken nuggets.

Because no matter what authentic and delectable food choices are in front of them, my kids, and their small little brains, will find that blasted kids’ menu and order from it every time.

¡BASTA! My boys would LOVE the gauchos with their trays of tender, juicy meats or I was going to skewer and slow roast their scrawny bodies myself!

From this, the Grand Experiment was formed: was Fogo a “family-friendly” restaurant and would my kids, the pickiest on the planet, not only tolerate it, but LIKE it? Could we actually enjoy a nice family dinner where no one fought, whined, complained, protested, or was sent to bed early? Could we have a meal that, by the end, was greater than the sum of its parts?

It was a tough call going in, but by the end, all signs pointed to yes!

We headed to Fogo’s after grabbing a pre-dinner drink at La Tasca Spanish Tapas with our long-time friend Wayne. As a native son of Baltimore and a wine connoisseur, Wayne was there to show us around town and the wine menu. With his uncanny ability select a complimentary wine and describe a vintage to its fullest biochemical detail, Wayne’s the guy you want along when you do gourmet. The advantages to his expertise are many, but as we’d find out later, they do come at a price. Did I mention they come at a price?

I reserved us a table through the Fogo website, so when our party walked in, we were immediately shown to our table. At least three different waiters appeared out of the mist to pull in our chairs. This unexpected courtesy added a dash of anticipation. It also sent a message to the kids that we were somewhere special. I helped my youngest get comfortable and introduced him to the baffling concept of how to unfold a white linen napkin across his small, bony lap. Then I prayed my children would not embarrass me the rest of this meal.

Our Brazilian waiter, who started his Fogo career in Sào Paolo, invited us to water, tap or sparkly. He then explained the concept: enjoy the salad bar as long as we like; when we are ready for the gauchos to serve us meat, turn our chips to green.

Honestly, the idea of a salad bar was a little ho-hum at first. Then I beheld its glory. This wasn’t your Aunt Trudy’s salad bar; this was a sumptuous buffet of gourmet salads and fresh cut vegetables with an array of fresh, hard cheeses. Aside from the extremely fresh selection of traditional salad bar items (lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers), the bar offered a string of exotic flavors such as smoked salmon, prosciutto, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, perfectly steamed Asparagus and artichoke bottoms, and olives. Mouth-watering sides such as chicken and tabbouleh salads rounded out the offerings.

Wayne drank in the wine menu while we nibbled our salads and watched gauchos criss-cross the dining room. The boys were offered (and accepted!) a natural Brazilian soda produced from the extract of guarana.

Soon, platters of carmelized bananas, fried polenta, and garlic mashed potatoes were served. The polenta squares were crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside—simply amazing. The boys devoured the bananas but passed on the rest, which left more for us tall people.

I could have drowned in the salad bar and never come up for meat. But more importantly, the salad was an out-of-the-ballpark hit with Max, my eldest. The words, “This is the best salad I ever had!” flew from his lips as he smacked his gums and stabbed green, leafy things with his fork.

My younger son Jack, however, refused to touch the salad – even the tried-and-true cucumber slices which in my house are the only things that pass as “vegetables.” While his refusal reassured me that aliens had not abducted BOTH children and replaced them with robotic facsimiles, I feared the worst.

But soon enough, however, Jack found true love with the pão de queijo (warm cheese bread made from parmesan), which masqueraded on the table as a basic dinner roll. The rolls were crisp, soft, warm, cheesy, and dangerously good.

Jack nibbled copious volumes of cheese bread and was the first to flip his chip to green, the “bring meat” color. He waited anxiously, his eyes darting towards ours in search of cues on what to do next. In two seconds flat a gaucho appeared and offered Jack a filet wrapped in bacon.

Confused by the chunk of real, delicious food before him, Jack shook his head no. Next, a gaucho appeared serving leg of lamb off the bone (cordiero). Jack said no, probably wondering why, if he heard the word “bone,” a fried chicken wing was nowhere in sight. Next up: pork ribs (costelo de porco). Jack shook his head no a third time.

Uh-oh. I took a deep breath. Visions of dollar bills flying from my pocket pierced my cortex.

We sweetly coached Jack to accept the house special, picanha, which is an exclusive cut of top sirloin seasoned with sea salt, then watched him chew out of the corner of our eyes. One chew turned to three, three turned to six, six to ten, followed by a pleased swallow.

He liked it! He liked it!

After that, Jack’s culinary groove was ON and he paced out the rest of meatfest like a long-distance runner, proudly conspiring to devour no less than six additional cuts of meat with double dips of his favorites.

“I ate five kinds of meat, Mom!”

“Awesome, Jack. I LOVE this garlic-coated sirloin.”

“Oh, let me try it!” he said, and leapt to my side for a bite.

“That’s SOOO good. Now I tried six kinds of meat, Mom!”

Meanwhile, Paul and I mindlessly approved Wayne’s wine selection and then watched our waiter enter the glass-encased wine room just meters away. He slid the tall, rolling ladder to the far left and climbed up four steps to reach our bottle.

“O, what price doth this reach portend?” I thought wryly.

I’d later find out.

For this first bottle, our lovely friend chose a deep-plum French Bordeaux that checked in at (are you ready?) a mere $126, which is more than this Cleveland girl normally spends on an entire case.

But when Wayne tells us in sensuously biochemical terms how the tannins in this exquisitely well-balanced 2001 Chateau Ducru-beaucaillou St. Julien would perfectly harmonize with the proteins in the beef tenderloin we’d soon enjoy, we’d be IDIOTS to NOT buy a $126 bottle of wine. Right?

Oh, who’s kidding? We were IDIOTS for dining with a wine nut at a restaurant that has its own temperature-regulated wine cellar!

Did I mention that the bottle of Bordeaux was only our FIRST? There’s a lot of meat to eat a Brazilian churrascaria, so a single bottle will not ‘do.’ Thankfully, Wayne was merciful the second time around and chose a $42 bottle (2004 Marques de Riscal Rioja Reserva) off the “bargain rack.”

I refuse to calculate how many Two-buck Chucks that would buy me back in Cleveland.

But as a friend of mine says “Life is too short for cheap wine, bad cheese, and boring vacations.” The Fogo experience is about throwing caution to the wind and enjoying a hedonistic evening of rich flavor and new experience. So I tucked away the calculator and indulged in how our high-end libations perfectly washed down our high-end cuts of meat.

Max finally finished his salad and began the meat course. He, the Contrarian’s contrarian, was unusually adventurous, testing one new cut of beef after another. He loved the picanha (prime sirloin) and relished the costelo de porco (pork ribs). He also gushed over the filet wrapped in bacon, but that is not surprising since this boy would dip his ice cream cone in bacon bits if he could (who wouldn’t?).

The continuous tableside service was definitely CONTINUOUS, if not overwhelming at first. Paul said, “It’s like they rappel from the ceiling when you flip that card over.” Or like spiders dropping from the ceiling in a haunted house. But at Fogo, there’s no need to scream unless it’s in pure, culinary ecstasy.

As I suspected, the authentically good food was easy for the kids to appreciate because, just like Saturday morning cartoons that flip by at ten frames per second, the gauchos kept things moving. Max said:

“I LOVE the way this restaurant works! This restaurant is AWESOME! Can we come back here again?”

There are his real words. Not once did I have to tell him to stop banging his fork on the plate OR to stop tipping his chair onto its side. NOT ONCE! This may well have been the first time I didn’t want to slug my kids during the evening’s repast.

A clean plate and happy ending.

Throughout the meal, we laughed and enjoyed a shared experience over good food and good drinks in a lovely atmosphere, like REAL families do on nighttime television dramas.

And for that reason and more, Fogo de Chao passed the test as a family-friendly restaurant.

One note of hindsight: It would be more relaxing if everyone in a party was allowed to finish their salad before anyone else flips their cards to green. That would stay the gauchos while you enjoy your salads and work up to the main event.

________

If you go: Fogo de Chao has 17 locations at major cities in the US. Dinner prices were $46.50 for adults and $23.25 for kids. Salad bar only for $24.50. We already discussed the wine. Find them on the web at www.fogo.com.

Special thanks to Fogo de Chao for hosting the food portion of our meal.

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I am a writer and digital communications consultant based in Rochester, New York. My passion and speciality is the promotion of worldwide birding travel, which I fulfill through independent travel writing, destination sales with Nikon's Birding Adventures TV, and via the development of digital communication materials for destinations and tourism partners. Contact me anytime.