Are HOT waitresses enough to sell this place?
Written: Nov 06 '04 (Updated Aug 29 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: HOT Waitresses
Cons: Mediocre food at premium prices
The Bottom Line: A great concept but terrible execution - don't bother with this one.
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| carnut2k4's Full Review: Fire of Brazil |
Trying out a new restaurant is always cause for excitement. Trying out a new restaurant that you’ve been building up in your head is even more exciting, although a bad dining experience can send you to the depths of disappointment. When Fires of Brazil opened near my home I was verrrry excited. I’ve been reading about the Brazilian barbecued meat orgies for some time and couldn’t wait to try it out. This style of dining is known as churrascaria. If done right it has the potential of being a truly spectacular event.
Brick and Mortar
This restaurant is incorporated into the local shopping mall. The entrance is on the outside of the mall which makes it feel more like a ‘real’ restaurant. Indeed, valet parking is offered up front. We arrived at 8:30 on a Friday evening and found the place at maybe twenty five percent capacity (capacity being in the range of 150). The lack of patrons was a red flag in my view but it didn’t slow us down. In we went and were whisked over to our table without hesitation.
Politically incorrect sidenote: The first thing men will notice (unless they’re headless or gay) is that chicks from Brazil are HOT! Every female in here is from Brazil and shows off the best ASSets of that culture….back to the review…
While seated at the table and waiting for our waitress to come over I take a long look around to take in the atmosphere. This was my first experience in a Brazilian restaurant and I was half expecting a Carmen Mirandaesque type of decor – whatever that means. What it was, was sophisticated and quite whimsical. The decorator gets an A for effort here. A Terra Cotta tile floor meets walls of varying solids. Most of the walls are Cranberry with a few being Cinnamon and a couple of the small walls are a painfully contrasting Lime Green. A couple of large square structural posts are in the room and finished halfway up with what looks like river stone used as tile and the top half is finished in Teak of all things. The ceiling is a flat twenty foot ceiling made of acoustic tile that has been painted purple. A few Picasso knock offs are strewn about to class it up a bit. A semi separate dining room (seats about 30-40) has a floor to ceiling blood red drape on a track that can be dragged around the whole area to offer a private function room. Comfortable wood backed chairs with bold red and gold upholstered seats are matched to white linen topped four man tables. A full liquor bar is on the far end from me and is completely empty. Loud Pagode music sets the mood. All the tables have a bottle of Pellegrino and a random bottle of red wine waiting for you when you’re seated. These are promptly removed. The white linen tablecloth is the backdrop for black linen napkins and cobalt glasses. The silverware was non-descript and a little ice tong thingy is provided for each person. Hmmm?
Uhhh, where’s my menu?
There is no menu here. The only option is Prix Fixe. Two choices: Salad bar only or salad bar and meat. Pricing is $19.50 and $39.50 respectively – per person. The salad bar is impressive with twenty to twenty five items and the meats are described deliciously. The way it works is you go up to the salad bar, grab a plate and go to town. The prix fixe means all you can eat. When you’re done with the salad the real fun begins. There is a business card for the restaurant on your table with the red side up which is a message to the Gauchos* to leave you alone. Flip it over so the green side is up and it’s game time.
*Gaucho – a waiter walking around with a large piece of barbecued meat and slicing off servings for you at your table.
Phase I
Salad Bar time! I was starving. I ran up and grabbed a plate and started loading it up. Portobello Salad (yum), Special Potato Salad (yum), Roasted Red Potatoes (yum), Hearts of Palms (eh), Peeled Shrimp with cocktail sauce (yum), seafood salad (eh), Buffalo Mozzarella / Tomato / Basil (yum), Tomato and Tuna Salad (was just Tuna out of a can with no mayo – gross!) and a few other items I don’t quite recall. Overall it was very good. The option of the Salad Bar only for $19.50 is expensive – but ironically is probably the best value here. With the Shrimp and the Salmon (which I didn’t sample) you can come close to calling this a good value.
Back at the table a bread basket had appeared in our absence. When I got around to unraveling the napkin I was a bit surprised by what I found. Six rolls each the size of half a golf ball. Flat on the bottom with a domed top. Strange looking little things. As soon as I popped one in my mouth I knew immediately what they were. Pilsbury dinner rolls. You know, the kind in the dairy section at the supermarket in a cardboard tube and as you start peeling back the paper shell it POPS open revealing precut dough that you ‘bake’ yourself. I know the taste of them well. That is absolutely what these little rolls started their life out as. Not what I was hoping for from this restaurant.
Phase II
Green side up – bring on the meat! First some side dishes are delivered to the table as you go green. A bowl of very good steamed rice (not sure what was in it but it was leaning towards sweet), some beans, deep fried yucca and plantains that weren’t fried in the Cuban sense – but more so just heated a bit and then coated in cinnamon sugar (blech). A vinaigrette is also offered for dipping the meats I guessed. And then the parade comes. The Gauchos (all men) swarm in on you the minute they see green. After the first four (of ten types of meat) I had to flip to red to hold them at bay for a few minutes so I could eat. So what do they offer?
Picanha: Rumpsteak flavored with garlic – one of their best in my opinion.
Alcatra: Top sirloin wrapped in bacon – how can you go wrong with that?
Costela de Porco: Pork loin – very smoky and waaaaaay to salty for human consumption.
Frango: Chicken breasts wrapped in bacon – that winning combination again!
Linguica: Pork sausages – again, verry smoky which doesn’t work for me.
Fraldihna I think this was the veal offering. It was as good as the Picanha in my opinion. When the Gaucho offered it to us in his thick Portuguese accent it came out as “Baby Cow?”
There were about five more meats available but we were at our meat capacity. In general I found the meats over smoked and under flavored. I was not too impressed with Phase II. By the way, those ice tong thingy’s are there so that as the Gaucho starts slicing the meat you use them to grab it and put it on your own plate.
Phase III
As we were seated we saw a dessert carried by that we couldn’t not try. Turned out to be Brazilian Coconut Peach Melba. It looked beautiful. At six bucks my hopes were high. A bowl of chipped ice cradles a half coconut – this is the bowl used for the dessert. Coconut peach ice cream is packed in, a few peach slices circle the top of it and then the whole thing has raspberry sauce drizzled over it. Remember the little secret about the dinner rolls…it was only the first in a pattern of food abuse. The ice cream was clearly Breyers peach ice cream. My grandfather’s favorite and I grew up eating it. They mixed in an artificial coconut flavoring to give it their own flair – but I’m sure about the base. The peaches were canned! I was in shock. The best part of it was the raspberry sauce. I suppose the coconut serving dish was a nice touch but at this point they’re just putting lipstick on a pig. My wife says her cappuccino was good and I found my regular coffee to be weak, watery and burnt all at the same time. They managed a crappy coffee trifecta!
The Final Insult
With no liquor the bill for the two of us was just over one hundred dollars. I have no problem paying for a good meal – but this wasn’t a hundred dollar meal. The best thing here was the salad bar and at $9.95 I would probably go here for lunch once in a while – but not at the $19.50 they’re charging. Their price point is absurd for the quality. Look for this one to go out of business within the first year!
www.fireofbrazil.com
Reservations…..nah, it’ll never be crowded
Vegetarians……only if you’re in the mood for MEAT
Bathrooms……..clean
Kid Friendly……no
Hours…………….by location – all are open 5-10 for dinner, locations that serve lunch do so from 11-2:30
Dress Code……..none listed but casual is appropriate
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
carnut2k4
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Member: Jason
Location: in the wind
Reviews written: 99
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Muscle Shoals has got The Swampers
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