I started at the salad bar. Besides from the normal salad, they had lots of good stuff like various cheeses, olives, crab cakes, meats, tabouli, and soups. They also had some really interesting stuff that I had never seen before such as caper berries (left side of the plate between the pasta and chorizo). Capers are one of my favorite salty foods, so I really liked these. Apparently normal capers sold in supermarkets are immature when they are pickled. If they continue to grow, they become caper berries, which were served here. It was a good salad bar, although it seemed like they had room to serve twice as many items with the amount of space between each dish. Maybe that's for dinner (not that I'm complaining).
I finished my salad and returned to my table to get served meat on swords. My favorite choices were the chicken wrapped in bacon, the sausages, pork ribs, and sliced pork. I'm not a big fan of beef, and when it's not well done, I get grossed out by the blood dripping out of what I am about to eat. It seemed like the majority of the steak and beef served wasn't cooked to my liking, and I only got one piece that was close to being cooked throughly. I have tried a Portuguese Churrascaria in the past, and it seemed all of the meat was automatically cooked to well done, including the steak. I wish they at least came around with some skewers of cooked steak here to give you a choice on how well the meat was cooked. With the exception of the steak being served dripping in blood, I liked everything else. I'd go again...
I've eaten there, also not a huge beef fan but I wanted to try a couple of their cuts. And I only eat beef medium well or well done. I just asked, and they had no problem cooking it more to my liking. In fact they made it clear that for most cuts, they had a few skewers prepared more well done for those who wanted it that way. Just like for my mother, on a low sodium diet, they had picanha (the cut these places are most well known for, usually crusted with salt) available without the salt.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, the salad bar is more "packed" for dinner. With that salad bar you don't even need the meat!
I just discovered your blog today, and I've been reading through it for the past hour or so. Pretty good li'l blog. One thing, though: the word "from" shouldn't follow the word "besides", ever. Instead of saying "besides from that...", you should just say "besides that...".
ReplyDeleteAnyway, like I said, good blog overall. Consider me a regular reader.
Thanks for pointing out my grammar mistakes. I never caught myself with that one.
ReplyDeleteAnything else?
Friend,
ReplyDeleteWhat you are seeing dripping out of the meat is myoglobin, which is normally restricted to muscle tissues, not hemoglobin, which is normally restricted to blood vessels. It is one of the sources of flavor for beef broth, and it is not blood. Call me a scaredy-colonist, but I could never wrap my around the idea of eating blood pudding. Until one day it showed up on a tasting menu in Chicgo. What are you going to do? I was glad that the portion was small and I requested a small glass of white milk.
We all know that most mammals are some 60-80% water. That water is what "balloons" your cells, acts as a lubricant as muscle tissues contract and relax, and allows nutrients and wastes to cross cell walls.
All restaurant beef in America is drained completely of blood. Even beef heart. The liquid that you are seeing, commonly referred to as "meat juices" has never seen the inside of a blood vessel.