For Valentine’s eve, we went to Amazon Churrascaria – which is a Brazilian steakhouse. I’ve only been to one once years ago, and Mike has never tried it so we’ve always thought about going. Mike had found this place online, the reviews are somewhat mixed. But it’s a lot closer drive than Fogo de Chao in Beverly Hills (no doubt, a better choice, but we couldn’t justify driving 2 hours for ANY kind of meat).
Amazon was average. The walls are decorated with faux stones surrounded by fake vines, trying to give an ambiance (but cuts short) of a Brazilian rainforest. The seats are very dated, reminiscent of a Hometown buffet.
The bad taste started from the door, when we were told the wait would be “a while”, especially since we were told after calling earlier that day that they didn’t take reservations for smaller parties. That was a lie. There were, in fact, a bunch of people there who had reservations and were put on a separate waiting list, which of course, was considerably shorter than the one we were on. We were finally seated after an hour of waiting.
The salad bar was ok… best part were the cheese balls! I couldn’t get enough of those… I was seriously contemplating sneaking some in my purse. LOL. 20 minutes into our meal, the server hadn’t brought our drinks yet. We had to flag down the hostess, who brought us some water almost immediately. OK, granted it was Valentine’s eve and we got there at around 8 – notably their busiest hour, they should’ve anticipated the rush in my opinion. They had ONE bartender working, who was obviously inundated and took forever to get everyone’s drinks served – although I think he tried to make up for the delay by putting a little extra alcohol in my margaritas because I was feeling fanciful after only having 2.
The meat was DELISH (but didn’t make up for the bad service). For those who have never been to a Brazilian restaurant, you are given a small wooden cylinder with one end painted red, and the other painted green. Keep the green side up and the server will endlessly come by with oversized skewers with all sorts of meat. We got rib eyes, flank steak, kabobs, alligator and chicken hearts (I passed on the latter two, but Mike was all for it). When you get full, you flip the cylinder with the red side up. We did that shortly before we saw the table across from us getting served short ribs – then we flipped that sucker back up to green.
Amazon was average. The walls are decorated with faux stones surrounded by fake vines, trying to give an ambiance (but cuts short) of a Brazilian rainforest. The seats are very dated, reminiscent of a Hometown buffet.
The bad taste started from the door, when we were told the wait would be “a while”, especially since we were told after calling earlier that day that they didn’t take reservations for smaller parties. That was a lie. There were, in fact, a bunch of people there who had reservations and were put on a separate waiting list, which of course, was considerably shorter than the one we were on. We were finally seated after an hour of waiting.
The salad bar was ok… best part were the cheese balls! I couldn’t get enough of those… I was seriously contemplating sneaking some in my purse. LOL. 20 minutes into our meal, the server hadn’t brought our drinks yet. We had to flag down the hostess, who brought us some water almost immediately. OK, granted it was Valentine’s eve and we got there at around 8 – notably their busiest hour, they should’ve anticipated the rush in my opinion. They had ONE bartender working, who was obviously inundated and took forever to get everyone’s drinks served – although I think he tried to make up for the delay by putting a little extra alcohol in my margaritas because I was feeling fanciful after only having 2.
The meat was DELISH (but didn’t make up for the bad service). For those who have never been to a Brazilian restaurant, you are given a small wooden cylinder with one end painted red, and the other painted green. Keep the green side up and the server will endlessly come by with oversized skewers with all sorts of meat. We got rib eyes, flank steak, kabobs, alligator and chicken hearts (I passed on the latter two, but Mike was all for it). When you get full, you flip the cylinder with the red side up. We did that shortly before we saw the table across from us getting served short ribs – then we flipped that sucker back up to green.
There’s only so much bbq meat and cheese balls a person can take in one sitting though. After dinner, we headed up to a Wyndham hotel where I got another free room (booked it sometime last year). It was nice to have just the night off from diaper duties, and just spend some time with my hubby uninterrupted. We normally try not to wait to do that just on special occasions (now that we have more help), but Valentines sure presents itself as a good reason to get away. Had a bottle of wine, exchanged gifts, good company. It was nice…
Thank God for the best babysitter in the world – Sissy!
No comments:
Post a Comment