Some Good Meals

Despite my being sick, Clay and I still tried to get out a bit. On his day off this past Sunday, we walked down to a new (to us) Churrascoria, Porcao. We had heard it was one of the better in town and we really had a great time! We got there around 2pm and put our name on the list, then went to the bar to wait. The bar is a little more than a bar though. It's a separate room with tables and it's own wait staff to bring drinks, empadas and clear dishes. There was also a anti-pasta bar with cheeses, breads, mini sausages, chicken hearts (blech!), hard boiled quail eggs and black bean soup. We could have filled up before even going into the main dining room, but thank goodness we didn't!

Churrascorias are, if you haven't been to one, a kind of Brazilian barbecue restaurant on steroids. There is every kind of meat you can think of, brought to your table on large skewers by servers who cut slices for you. You each have a card on your table, one side is red - meaning no thanks, and the other is green - meaning bring me the meat!!! (Exactly like Fogo de Chao in Houston if you've been). There is also the biggest and best salad bar you have EVER seen. 

We ate sooo much food. The salad bar had, wonderful sushi, fresh fruit and veggies, various personal salads (caprese, ceasar, corn, etc), and some wonderful warm seafood (paella, shrimp, crab cakes in sea shells). YUM. The meat selections were roasted hen, barbecue pork ribs, lamb, various sausages, and more cuts of beef than I think I could list. I think I had: brisket, flank steak, top round, filet mignon, and I'm sure there was more.

I also went on Saturday with a friend to have traditional Feijoada at a new (again, new to me) place that does it every day! (Normally Feijoada is strictly a weekend meal. But with the name Casa de Feijoada, you have to bet that's all they do and they do it well!) It's a popular place because after we showed up at about 12:45 a long line formed outside. Feijoada is a bean stew with all kinds of meat that has been slow stewed together. You also get rice, beans, farofa, kale, yucca, orange slices and hot pepper sauce along with the stew pot. It's kind of a make it the way you like it meal so you can take as much or as little of all the sides as you want. This will be a definite stop when my family comes to town in two weeks! I can't wait!