Fogo De Chao - San Jose

My salad plate 

I have heard about churrascaria for quite a few years now. A churrascaria is a place where meat is cooked the churrasco style which is roughly translated from Portuguese for barbecue. In short it's widely known as Brazilian style steak house. There are some restaurants that specialize in all you can eat style. One of them is Fogo De Chao,

I have heard about all these Brazilian buffet for quite a while but couldn't bring myself and hubby to go there. Me being cheap just didn't want to pay $50 to have all the meat I can eat. Beside I am not much a meat eater these days. That's why I was so excited when my boss decided that our office would go out have dinner there. Yay.

We got our reservation for at 7 pm on Friday evening. The place was smaller than I imagined. The tables at some area were too close to each other. Seemed a bit crammed. But they also have patio seating. So on a nice warm day it's probably nicer to sit outside.

Pao de queijo - cheese bread made of tapioca flour

We were brought a small plate of pao de queijo which are round cheese bread. I have purchased these bread before from Costco and they weren't as salty. These bread were too salty and not as cheesy as the ones I got from Costco. And then we all started from the salad bar. I picked mostly veggies from the salad bar to compliment the meat. I did pick a few slices of smoked salmon which I regretted later on. Too salty.

prawn cocktail

My meat plate - chicken wrapped with bacon and pork loin with parmesan cheese

So we were given two rounded sign. Red means no meat, while green means bring me meat. Then those guys with skewer of meat would come and offer you what they have. I got chicken breast with bacon (frango), pork loin (longo) and chicken hearts. Then I also got a slice of beef sirloin (picanha). Most of the meat were dry except for the picanha which was tender, juicy and buttery. So make sure you try that if you're going to fogo. Recognize the meat from the way it is served. The better cut ones were served by the sliced while the less quality cut was served by the piece.

carving meat 

Just when we were almost done, a waitress stopped by to offer prawn cocktail. These were huge prawn - look at the picture. The taste was okay only. I would have preferred them grilled and served the Thai way with chili garlic sauce. ha..ha.. But that's me.

All in all it was a good experience. I don't think I would ever go back.

Fogo De Chao
Santana Row, 377 Santana Row #1090, San Jose, CA 95128
(408) 244-7001
www.fogodechao.com