As Suanie Sees It

What is a churrascaria?

A churrascaria is a Brazilian or Portuguese steakhouse. Churrasco is the cooking style, which translates roughly from the Portuguese for ‘barbecue’. However, in order to avoid confusion, it is important to state that in the rest of South America other than Brazil, the ‘barbecue’ method of cooking meat is known as asado.

Distinctly a South American style rotisserie, it owes its origins to the fireside roasts of the gaúchos of southern Brazil traditionally from the Pampa region, centuries ago. In modern restaurants, rodizio service is typically offered. Servers come to your table with knives and a skewer, on which are speared various kinds of meat, be it beef, pork, filet mignon, lamb, chicken, duck, ham (and pineapple), sausage, fish, or any other sort of local cut of meat.

Source: Wikipedia.org

I thought we should get that explained and be done with

Many many days ago, The Paul, The Spongefox and I zoomed around for a bit to look for a place to have dinner. They decided on a place I’d never been to before; even though it was a bit out of my budget, I agreed because they said it was one of the things I’d have to do before I die. Or something to that effect. Or I just totally made that up, but who cares IT’S MY BLOG AND I’M A LIAR OMG

Once we were seated, the manager (I think) came over and explained how the whole thing works. For the half buffet, you get to clear the entire salad bar. For the full buffet, you get to clear the entire salad bar, AND their storage of meat barbecued Brazilian style.

We opted for the full buffet, and so we helped ourselves to the salad bar while waiting for the chefs to come round our table with meats. I took note of the following dishes offered at the salad bar:

Coleslaw, green salad, macaroni, rice, potato salad, fried aubergines, kidney beans, mango kerabu, diced tomatoes in garlic and basil, wedges, deep-fried lady’s fingers with sambal, some meat and other stuff. There were altogether 18 dishes, I didn’t take any photographs because I couldn’t really be bothered

Then came the meat ……

The chefs, some Brazilian and some not, came around the tables with a long skewer, and if you want ‘em, they’d carve you a slice there and then. Actually it was a bit scary — I kept thinking the guy was going to cut me or something — the carving knives looked bloody murderous. But they were real professional (and tolerant of my lame jokes).

I took note of the meats offered: Chicken, chicken gizzard, chicken liver, chicken sausage, smoked chicken ham, grilled prawns, fish fillet, lamb shoulder, lamb cutlets, roast beef, garlic beef, beef tri-tip, beef topside, and another cut of the cow that I forgot which.

The non-meat type also served on a skewer were: bread with sour cream (warm, crispy) and grilled pineapple (very sweet).

They were all AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To quote The Spongefox,

This Brazilian meat is like orgasm in my mouth…

My favourites in order of preference: beef topside (tasted like the best ’siu yok’ in town, grilled prawns (damn fresh!), garlic beef and lamb cutlets (extremely tender). The photo below shows the beef topside that I still yearn for at this very minute….

For dessert we had Caramelised Banana — oven-grilled banana served with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.

I thought it was okay only.

But the beef… the prawns… the lamb………. *slurpssssssssssss*

Not a cheap affair though. The full buffet costs RM48++ per person, and the half buffet costs RM30++. Dessert was RM9++, a glass of Coke was RM5++, and a glass of water was RM1 ++. Not sure if they charge every time they refilled the water — we had one glass each.

But if ever you feel generous and would like to ’spend’ me some Brazilian bbq, this is where we’d go yeah

CARNAVAL CHURRASCARIA
77 Jalan SS22/19
Damansara Jaya
Tel: 03-7725 2252
Opens daily for dinner (6pm-10.30pm)

I also added the restaurant on Wikimapia here.