Brasil Churrascaria

Cities evoke different things for different people. For example, Paris is crowded coffee shops, rich sauces, harsh tannined wines, colorful patisseries while it is luxury shops or the French music for another.

When I was going to Brazil I was not thinking about the football or samba, but I was imagining myself going to a big green farm full with cows and lambs - I am sending my apologies to my vegeterian friends though. They wander around on large grasses happily and feeded naturally.

Luckily it was a weekday when we got there so we did not have to get a reservation for the closest good 'churrascaria' named Montana Grill. Churrascaria means a Brasilian steakhouse where various kinds of meat are basically barbecued on big skewers just with sea salt on them. In Brazil,  the meat is mostly roasted on charcoal just like below.

What makes this a true culinary experience is not only the food on fire, but it is actually also the service. Service style together with the food sets Brasilian Churrasco apart from Argentinian 'asado' or South African 'braai'. There is an open buffet to start with but I did not full myself with the starters and got into the mains at once. 

Firstly, you are given a card which is red and green on each side. If it on green side that you turn on, one of the many waiters who are circling around the restaurant by holding big meat skewers on their hand come to the table and tell you what kind of meat he has and what part it is. Different meats from various parts come to you until you flip the card on the red side. I tired so hard not to turn it to red but at some point I had to do so! I think it was after the lamb, the chicken and the cow part 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7 :) . To eat all of these I had to sacrifice some other things of course, such as the chicken thighs, heart. I will not explain scientifically all the parts I have tasted but the lamb with mint sauce on the side and the rump and the hump of the meat was very tender, juicy and deliriously delicious, not to mention the tenderloin, sirloin, the ribs etc. 

Triptip sirloin: bottom of the Rump         Entrecote: tip of the Contra File

Besides, the Bresilian wine which we were offered matched the meat very well with its spicy structure medium body.

After eating all of these, the next day was the detox day in sunny Sao Paulo on a large park on the bike sipping the coconut juice from a green fresh coconut. One small tip about the coconut is that do not dare to throw the flesh away after you finish with the juice or the street vendor would shout at you and you will have to take the coconut back from the garbage and take it back to him!