all the meats were so delicious! everything is good. the bread is wonderful! and service was excellent.

Ok, having been to Brazil many times, and having dined at both of their locations in Sao Paulo, I needed to try Fogo de Chao here. The experience was almost true to form. I’ll describe the differences below.

When you go out for Brazilian BBQ, you’re in for a real treat. A meat treat. Brazilian BBQ generally consists of an all-you-can-eat buffet with salads, and some hot dishes, followed by an endless parade of waiters bringing around meat on skewers large enough to be used as swords. They stop at your table, offer to cut off a piece of whatever they have, and go on to the next table. Done right, the pace is frenetic – there’s so much food coming at you so fast, that you’re guaranteed to overeat.

The only thing between you and overeating is the “farol” (Portuguese for Signal) a colored coaster, one side is green, one side is red. You’re supposed to turn it to red when you’d like the servers to skip offering you more meat. I’ve noticed that they often ignore the coaster and offer you meat anyways. It doesn’t work.

The meats are all offered by their Brazilian Portuguese names: Picanha (a rump steak, a cut fairly unique to Brazilian food, tender and with a wonderful flavor, owing, in no small measure, to a layer of fat around the outside), Alcatra (a top sirloin, also great), Filet Mignon (served in chunks, good, but one of my least favorites), Beef Ancho (a marinated meat), Linguisa (sausages), Frango (chicken), Costello (ribs), and more. While personally, I prefer some over the others, honestly, there isn’t a bad cut in the house.

Fogo de Chao here differs from Fogo de Chao in Brazil in several ways. While the service here is good the service in Brazil is better. The waiters are more experienced (there it’s a career) and much more attentive. In Brazil, they anticipate your desires, and do things like refill your drink without being asked. They have more staff per table. The food in Brazil is also a bit more tasty – range fed beef simply has a different flavor, as do Brazilian vegetables that aren’t factory grown as they are here. And lastly, in Sao Paulo Fogo de Chao is not the most expensive Brazilian BBQ in the city.

Overall, Fogo de Chao is an excellent experience, and the food is delicious. Their meats are yummy and their salad bar is amongst the best anywhere. I do recommend it, if you’re in the area. If you can drive a bit, however, there are other Brazilian BBQs to be found around the Los Angeles area that offer a comparable experiences at a lower price.

All you can eat brazillian bbq… wonderful buffet… i LOVE this place. YES, it’s expensive. But, eat your money’s worth and you’ll be just fine. Their potato salad is TO DIE FOR.

I JUST got back from Fogo de Chao. I’m sitting here writing with a protruding stomach. In fact, as I am sitting on my chair with my legs crossed, and I can feel my belly on my thighs. Isn’t that sexy?

Let’s recap while the experience is fresh on my mind, while the meat juice is still lingering on my tongue, while my stomach is still digesting the nifty collection of meat that is swimming around inside of me.

(burp)

Where was I?

Oh yes. So I made reservations for 4 people two days ago for 8pm tonight and there was no problem. I love it when that happens. I was the first to arrive but being the epitome of the “LA girl”, I was on my cellphone, jabbing away when I pulled into the valet. Usually, I roll down my window and ask how much the valet is and if it’s more than $2, I try my luck in street parking. Today, however, was a different story. I was distracted with my phone so I just rolled up and got out of my car and took the ticket that was given to me. As I walked to the empty sidewalk full of metered parking spaces with my phone in one ear, I broke from my conversation to look back at the valet sign. “SERVICE CHARGE $5.50”.

$5.50 TO PARK MY CAR. My korean ajummaness creeps out and I immediately started txting my party to tell them to park in one of the millions of available parking spots on the street.

However, once seated, we had about 3-5 guys serving us at all times. A lady came to take our picture when she saw me take out my camera. Our main waiter’s previous job was probably in espionage or some high ranking government position cuz he knew exactly when to come over to offer us whatever we desired. At one point, we ordered a second round of drinks to a protege and he only came back with my drink. Then I heard the master of telepathic communications (aka mr. espionage) tell another waiter that we are missing one drink. Another dood comes by with my cousin’s beer. Wow. How did that guy know? I wonder if they have a microscopic chip inside their ear (“Table 8 is missing their Heiney. Greg, did you not hear the man?!” “Sorry sir. I thought he was talking about something else.” “Greg, I’m re-assigning you to Table 29. Jose, I want you in and out of Table 8 with their heiney and an apology.” “Yes sir, yes sir!”)

Then, after we were done gorging ourselves with the pounds of meat (my favorites in order of best to good: beef ribs, pork ribs, filet mignon, top sirloin), we get offered cake from another table (one of my cousin’s friend was celebrating her bday there). Seeing this, and knowing that we were also celebrating two birthdays (the lady asked us why we were there when she took a group photo of us), they offered us two FREE desserts. A molten chocolate cake and a creme brulee. Then the waiter says, “Now you can make THEM jealous.” He was pointing to my cousin’s friend’s table, who brought their own cake. The desserts had “Happy Birthday” written on the plate with fudge / fruit puree (don’t know, didn’t mess it up).

The bill came out to $320 (including tax, tip) for four people (+5 drinks total).

Let’s not forget the $5.50 valet for the dorks who parked valet (my cousins who took heed to my warning parked on the streets and were already driving home when we, the valet parking captives, were still waiting for our cars 30 minutes later). Gr. Minus one star for that.

Let’s talk about what you’re paying for here: You not only get quality meat and a great salad bar (which I barely touched though I loaded it all on my plate), but they have one of the best melt-in-your-mouth platanos (the fried bananas, which taste more like they broiled it whole and just peeled the skin off later since it was so juicy and melty), and when the green card is faced upright, you have about ten gauchos (waiters with huge metals with meat stuck on it) crowding your table like pigeons around scattered crackers in a park. We were bombarded with the meat. After they left we all looked at each other like..”was that necessary?” We felt so much pressure to eat everything and the meat was starting to cool off. My cousin shakes his head and calls us poor country folks and shows us how it’s done.

He flips his card back to green while the rest of us (still red) look on. Not a second goes by before the pork loin gaucho (poor guy – none of us wanted that one but he kept coming back until my cousin told him to just stoppit) shows up. My cousin tells him that he wants the beef ribs. 3 seconds later a man shows up with the ribs on a platter (no metal stick for this guy). My cousin tells him that he wants a slice of the fattiest part and almost flips out cuz it’s so good. We all cave in and get a slice. This goes on for a while and it was so much better than having a million guys pouncing on us with all that meat. The service is impeccable. We seriously felt like royalty. Was it worth $80 / person? that’s for you to decide. i’ll be back for a bday.

It’s a bit pricey, but for all that meat who cares? The service is PHENOMENAL! The food is FANTASTIC! I love, love, love Fogo. And if you’re in the Long Beach area, I’d try Greenfield’s as well.

:oD Good review ILoveToEat. I agree. I love the way the meat is prepared. Some of the meats were melt in your mouth. There were a couple types of meats that I wasn’t excited about, but were still good. Yes, the salad bar could fill you up and the wine was the best wine pairing I’ve had yet. Save room if you can for dessert.

They were also accommodating for our babies and I appreciated that.

Make sure you don’t eat earlier in the day. There’s just no point. Delicious!

Fogo de Chao definately is like heaven for meat lovers. It´s not the best brazilian restaurant I know because to me it lacks a bit of nice atmosphere but the food itself is definately great!! And that´s why i would always come back! One thing you should seriously avoid thou is going there with a vegetarian or vegan person. Besides the chance of getting groced out by all the blood and flesh as a vegan you don´t have many choices to fill up your belly. Except for the huge salad bar and the vegetable sides there is nothing else which might justify having to pay the same standart price as everyone else. But you have to and this sucks! So conclusion is: VEGAN NO GO AREA!!! (c;

I can never be a vegetarian. Thanks to the fine folks in Brazil, they’ve made a meat experience so heavenly, I believe it has the power to revert vegetarians back from the “other” side to one of mouth watering flavour. Seriously, I need to find a vegetarian at work and drag them along and see if this theory holds any truth.

History on the food, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The idea is that you get this magical coaster, one side is green the other side is red. When the green side is up, as if magic were in the air, Meat Waiters gracefully swoop towards your plate and offer a slice of heaven, straight off of whatever skewer they happen to have. They are traditionaly called Passadors.. Which actually translates to “meat waiters”! (I thought this could only happen in dreams. Don’t pinch me I might still wake up…) These Meat Waiters continue to circulate some of the tastiest cuts of meat (Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Pork) that your taste buds may not be able to handle.

Aside from meat, they have a mean salad bar that you could easily take your fill on.. My words of advice, make all the room you can for the MEAT and some red wine!

This is not a cheap dining experience, but one you definitely check out. An amazing food experience.

I can never be a vegetarian. Thank you Fogo, I love you.

All you can eat Brazilian BBQ. Great service, great food. expect around 60 a person for dinner. The server there are highly trained to cook the meat just right for you.

Fogo de Chao is a Brazilian Steakhouse which means… all you can eat meat! If you come here be very very hungry because it costs $50/person for dinner on a weekend, plus all the meats are delicious so you need quite a bit of room in your tummy.

When you first walk into to the restaurant it reminds you of a Vegas buffet restaurant. It’s crowded and everyone is walking around, it’s pretty loud but still has a nice ambience and decor.

The food here is delicious! First start out with the cheese bread, which are my favorite. They set 3 sides, and if you’ve eaten half of a plate they replace it with a new one instantaneously! Sometimes I think they’re wasting food, but they’re probably trying to fill their guests with carbs first, so I advise not to eat too many of the sides.

The all you can eat salad bar is awesome as well! I can just eat this and not the meat, but again you don’t want to get too full on the fresh cheeses, sun dried tomatoes, roasted veggies, etc.

The Guacho chefs, the men who serve you the meat are very friendly and ask you if you want a particular meat, and that chef will come almost running to your table! All of the meats are tasty, juicy, and cooked just perfectly. I have to say my favorite is the lamb chop, mmmmm

Also, I have to add the staff is awesome! They are attentive and probably ask you every 5 min if everything is ok. The first time I went there, our waiter walked us out and told us not to forget to grab some mints. Now that’s good service!

This place is pricey, but worth it if you can eat a lot. Try going during a weeknight when the price for dinner is lower.