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Staff Writer
At Fire of Brazil, you can feast on meats carved off skewers at the table by gauchos
Carnivores who like to trip the meat fantastic surely will rejoice in the recent opening of a churrascaria. These steakhouses are ubiquitous in Brazil and common in Georgia — seven of them keep Atlanta's expatriate Brazilian population fed — but had yet to venture into the all-you-can-eat domain of Nashville, until now.
Churrascarias evolved on the wide, cattle-covered plains of Argentina and Brazil. That's where the rough and tumble cowboys called gauchos would ride in their poofy pants and jaunty kerchiefs, and cook whole sides of beef over an open fire.
Today, churrascarias bring that experience to your table, though the gauchos tend to be decidedly less rugged and more Mexican. It's best to hold off using your Portuguese until you determine your meat carrier's nationality.
Fire of Brazil, a chain based in Atlanta, now is spreading like fire on pampas, with seven more in the works throughout the country. Each restaurant combines a gargantuan salad bar with a parade of faux gauchos sporting giant skewers of flame-kissed meat.
Your server, not your gaucho, takes all drink orders, and this is where you say you would like a caipirinha (say ki-pe-reen-ya), Brazil's tasty national drink of cachaça (distilled from raw sugar cane), muddled with lime and sugar ($6.50). Our server also took painstaking care to scout out all the garlic-laced dishes on the salad bar and in any meat marinades for a very appreciative dining partner.
You're instructed to enjoy the salad bar, and then you're shown the small cards at each place setting. One side is red and says ''Não obrigado'' (No thank you) while the flip side says ''Sim por favor'' (Yes please). This is the merry gaucho's signal to stop, drop and carve some meat at your table.
Sweet samba music plays as you survey the salad bar, laden with hearts of palm, mango slices, giant spears of asparagus and garlicky tomato and mozzarella salads. Steamed mussels and peel-and-eat-shrimp call to seafood lovers. Your eyes widen as you take it in, but you remember the waltzing meats and moderation takes over. For $19.50, the salad bar alone is worth a trip.
But then comes the relentless parade, not quite as flashy as Rio's carnaval but just as gluttonous. Crisp-skinned sausages, bacon-wrapped chicken, lamb chops, leg of lamb, pork loin, beef ribs, and then all the Brazilian cuts, one after the other. Fraldinha (bottom sirloin), picanha (c-shaped, fat-backed, garlic-rubbed rump pieces), filet and alcatra (top sirloin wrapped in bacon, and my favorite).
Stop! Bastante! Pare! I flip my card to red, dizzy with protein. But then the leg of lamb approaches and my swollen fingers flip back to green. I can't resist.
The gaucho stops with a knowing look, plants the tip of his meat-covered lance onto the protective plate and slices a piece. I secure it with my tongs before it falls and quietly turn back to red.
Our table somehow found room for dessert, but it was a stretch. The flan ($5.75) was remarkably dense, much more than the typical evaporated milk variety. Creamy and light, the papaya cream ($6) was less interesting and not worth the calories at the end of such gluttony.
If meat's the thing, then the $39.50 price tag is downright reasonable, if only for the better cuts of beef. Management needs to instruct all the gauchos on the meaning of rare, though, as it was hard to find on some of the cuts that must have been returned too often to the fire of the kitchen. More than a few cuts came by on the dark and dry side.
In the end, patience and the ability to say ''Não obrigado'' is the best strategy to find the variety and level of doneness you want. And don't be afraid to ask for something you saw on the menu.
Food writer Jim Myers is The Tennessean's restaurant critic. Reach him at 726-5961 or jimyers@tennessean.com. Reviews are written from anonymous visits. Negative reviews are based on two or more visits. The Tennessean pays for all meals.