Downtown Dinner at Brazzaz, Brazilian Steakhouse

Tonight, Liz and I met up with her family over at Brazzaz (warning, music and cheesy Flash) for a fancy meal downtown. Known as a “Brazilian Steakhouse,” it’s a all-you-can-eat sort of place, with a wide assortment of meats. While the salad bar was pretty great, this is by far the place to be if you’re a hungry carnivore.

The evening out was a bit of a birthday gift for Tricia, and a nice way to spend some time with everyone. Tonight there were no kids, and just a lot of adults… and a lot of plates of food.

The restaurant works like this: each person has a little disc next to their plate. If you want food, you flip the disc so that the orange side is up. All around the restaurant, guys with skewers of meat (garlic steak, lamb, sirloin, filet mignon, pork tenderloin, chicken, shrimp, sausage, etc) are circulating… stopping at every table where someone has a disc flipped up.

Basically, people will keep coming by until you flip your disc over, to the “No thanks” side.

Here’s an example of the disc (and waiter) in action. And for the record… Darryl is not drinking a piña colada – he’s tasting Tricia’s (non-alcoholic) piña colada.

Tricia, Katie and Dan being served up. Smart strategist that he is, Dan opted not to visit the salad bar at all. Liz told me that Dan just sat down, looked up and asked for a plate.

My plate, chock full of carnivore goodness. Note the small vegetable to meat ratio.

And man oh man, those sausages were SOOO good. Mmmmmm.

After an incredibly indulgent, long meal… they rolled out the dessert menu. Rather than give us menus, the waiter just brought out this entire tray and took orders.

Katie, Tricia and Julie – watching as Tricia got her birthday dessert (the candle is a bit hidden behind her drink).

The end of my evening – a bit of tiramisu and an espresso.

All in all, we were in the restaurant for about 3 and a half hours. I had a martini at the onset of the evening, and that started the night off pretty well (I was smart enough to avoid eating the delicious blue-cheese stuffed olives).

By the end of the night, I was pretty full. Stuffed, but not at any point of pain. I forget who I talked to about this… but I think it was Chris who warned Liz and I about the “meat sweats.” Thankfully, I didn’t suffer too much from that.

A really nice, long, indulgent evening. If it weren’t so darned expensive, I’d look into having guys with skewers of steak and chicken roaming around my apartment, 24/7. I suppose the constant coronaries might make it difficult to get things done, but… small price to pay.