You’re invited to a Brazilian steakhouse for a birthday or work dinner. But there’s a problem. Churrascarias are known for their picanha, their sirloin, and their beef-heavy skewers. But you don’t eat beef. Maybe it’s religious, maybe it’s health, maybe it’s personal – many Hindus, for example, don’t eat beef – but you have a […]
The belts loosen as the plates pile up fast, and somewhere around the third round of picanha, a pretty familiar question tends to come up – whether any of this can go home with you. That makes total sense. The food is very rich, the portions are almost aggressively generous, and a full plate at […]
The cuts come fast at a Brazilian steakhouse – with Portuguese names, confident servers and no time at all to second-guess yourself. One item on the menu tends to give guests pause in the middle of all that controlled chaos – the spicy sirloin. The word “spicy” alone is enough to make most guests stop, […]
Plenty of guests walk into a Brazilian steakhouse expecting happy hour to include that famous all-you-can-eat parade of grilled meats. It’s an understandable mistake to make given how these places market themselves. A churrascaria built its whole reputation on churrasco – skewer after skewer of meat carried right to your table by gauchos dressed for […]
At a rodízio, the servers work the dining room in a steady rhythm – skewers up on their shoulder, tongs at the ready, and they carve right at your table in one clean motion. Beef tends to dominate the early rounds (picanha, alcatra, fraldinha), and by the time the pork cuts finally make their way […]
After a full Brazilian steakhouse dinner (plates of picanha, lamb chops, garlic beef, the whole spread), dessert is usually far from anyone’s mind. And yet servers still come around with small glasses of a pale orange cream that guests seem to finish in about five seconds. Maybe you’ve spotted “papaya cream” on a menu or […]
At a Brazilian steakhouse, what most guests first see on the rotisserie is a skewer of filet mignon or chicken breast wrapped in bacon – and the natural assumption is that it’s a pure flavor move. A little extra greatness, a little extra indulgence. Fair enough. Even so, it’s only half of what’s going on. […]
Most first-timers at a Brazilian steakhouse spend their entire visit zeroed in on the meat – the picanha, the ribeye, the lamb chops that come out on long skewers in what can only be called a grand parade. And then a plate of crispy fried bananas lands on the table and the whole mood changes […]
A beautiful picanha comes out of the butcher paper, and the thick white fat cap just stares right back at you. The knife hovers over it (whether to trim it or leave it, toss it or eat it) and for a cut with such devoted fans, the answer is different for just about everyone. The […]
Outside of Brazil, most diners’ experience with passion fruit is either a faint background hint buried in a combination juice or a thin decorative drizzle across a hotel breakfast plate – and neither one does the fruit any justice. Brazil actually grows a large share of the world’s entire passion fruit supply, and almost none […]
Picanha made its name on the Brazilian churrasco circuit, and beef picanha has since built a devoted following well outside of South America. The cut’s signature fat cap and its rich flavor turned it into a fixture at backyard cookouts and steakhouse menus alike. Lamb picanha comes from that exact same tradition – and it […]
Brazilian steakhouses have a very obvious promise – fire, meat and those endless skewers that never seem to stop. Walk over to the salad bar and plenty of these places will have sushi out for you – and you might find that pairing a little unusual. The story here is an interesting one. Brazil actually […]
