Texas de Brazil

As promised, I wanted to share my thoughts on Texas de Brazil. A little background, Michael and I have an 8 month old. If you know me, and you don't know that...well, let's just say you must've been stranded on a deserted island for the past year.

Since having Harper Grace, we haven't had a "date night". We really enjoy being parents and find that if it can't be done WITH her, we don't want to do it.

So, in February, Bruno Mars tickets went on sale. I was so eager to go and talked Michael into going with him. I figured I had four months to prepare to leave Harper Grace. I mean, yes, I leave her at school, but we haven't really left her with friends or family yet. Well, four months passes and I'm not really ready to leave her :) I wasn't really excited about Bruno Mars anymore and figured that, if we were going to spend the night away from the baby, we better both enjoy it. I wasn't really confident I would sell the tickets. I told myself that if I did, it was a sign that we should do something else. If I didn't sell them, we would go and have fun.

The tickets sold FAST...like within 30 minutes. I was so happy to sell them to my friend, Taheita, who is a single mom of two adopted boys (21 months and 9 months). This girl deserves a night out on the town and it made me feel even better that she was the one using them.

I made an appointment for pedicures (my first since October 7) and dinner reservations at Texas de Brazil. I tried for 7 pm, but they were booked, so I went with 7:15.

We called ahead about parking, and they recommended we use a lot or complimentary valet parking. Listen, THAT is what you do. It is behind Texas de Brazil, across the street from MugShots. They are very fast and helpful. Plus, it is free (obviously, don't forget to tip).

Texas de Brazil was SLAMMED. People everywhere. Honestly, I was concerned about our attire because it is "business casual". Well, no need to worry. I saw short shorts, jeans and tennis shoes, dresses, and suits. I was a little shocked at the lack of clothing some people were wearing. (Side note: dear old ladies, please stop dressing like hookers to reclaim your youth. It is gone, long gone, and you look ridiculous).

We arrived around 7:20 (a few minutes late thanks to....yep, concert traffic). Our reservation was for 7:15. Standing inside got annoying, so we went to sit out front. They have nice couches, but they were wet and I got my butt soaked. My fault, it had been raining. The couches were a perfect location to people watch. They were a horrible location if you, like me, HATE the smell of cigarette smoke. At 7:50 I went in to see how much longer. Hello, I'm leaving my baby for the first time. She reassured me that they were getting our table ready. I'm not sure if she just didn't want to deal with me or if they really were. It almost seemed like people who asked were seated more quickly, but I could be wrong. We were seated at 7:54.

Okay, here's the fun part! Our waiter came over to explain the "process" to us. Basically, there is a salad/side bar in the middle of the restaurant. In addition to that, they automatically bring you their bread to your table. You have a token that has a green side and a red side. When you are ready for meat, turn it to green. When you are tired of meat, turn it to red. When you are ready for meat, they also bring you a bowl of garlic mashed potatoes and heavenly bananas to cleanse your palate. (I didn't use the bananas for palate cleansing, I used them for ecstasy)

Aside: their bread isn't really bread. Its almost a pastry and isn't terribly flavorful.

So, the "salad" bar. I was picturing Ruby Tuesday/Golden Corral. Nope. Its very foofy. They have 4 salad dressings (they acted as though it changed, but I'm not sure). It had lettuce, dressing, croutons and bacon. Let me talk about the bacon for a moment (this was Michael's favorite part of the salad bar): the bacon is strips of bacon cooked to perfection. It is so yummy! It didn't have the typical salad toppings you would expect. In addition, it has chilled salads (my favorite was a cranberry couscous), salamis, different cheeses, vegetables and (my favorite) was the pineapple ceviche. That was pineapple thinly sliced and appeared to be lightly grilled. It was so yummy.

This bar also has a hot line. It includes the soup du jour ("mmm...sounds good. I'll try it" anyone know what movie that's from?) which was lobster bisque. It has a black bean stew, rice, mushrooms and potatoes gratin.

But y'all really want to hear about the meat, right? Waaaaaay before we turned our cards to green, the gauchos starting offering meats. I don't know if this was because we were close to the kitchen or what. They serve meat at a medium rare. It is cooked in sea salt to hold in the flavor. That means it can be salty! We tried: filet, filet wrapped in bacon, flat iron, sirloin, pork, Brazilian, lamb, chicken wrapped in bacon, parmesan chicken and the Brazilian sausage. We didn't try everything! They had lamp chops, something that looked like a roast and probably other meats. Michael and I expected to dislike the Brazilian sausage, but it was one of our favorites. Michael's favorite was basically (yes, shocking) the steak wrapped in bacon. My favorite was the filet. I didn't like the lamb much, but I'd never had it before. If you want your meat cooked more or less, they will cook to order (this includes without salt) or just chicken, whatever.

After a ton of meat, we turned our cards back to red. I mean, we turned them to green because people kept offering us meat and turned it to red because I was stuffed!

I only had water, but they have an extensive drink menu and lots of wines. Michael had Coke. This is important- the Cokes come in small bottles. They are $3.00 each.

Finally our dessert tray came for us to view (and alcohol opportunities, again). They had carrot cake, crème brulee, key lime pie, coconut chess pie, pecan pie, Brazilian cheesecake, Mango something, and chocolate mousse cake. We opted for the chocolate cake. Well, Michael said he was going to "help" me eat it. LIE. I helped him because he devoured it! It was super yummy.

I bought Michael a gift card for Valentine's Day, so that helped with our bill :)

It was $42.99 each for the meal (including the salad/side bar, all you can eat meat). We paid $9.00 for Michael's Cokes and another $9.00 for dessert. Our total bill before tip was $114 and some change.

We both feel it was worth the price. Clearly, its a special occasion type of place (think Melting Pot). You certainly get your money's worth in meat alone.

So, there is my Texas de Brazil review. It was a wonderful date night, we had so much fun.