Brazil: Comida

We've been looking forward to Brazil ever since starting this challenge. James's sister, Faith lived in Fortaleza for 5 years and was keen to see whether London could offer anything close to the real deal.

There were a couple of restaurants to choose from, but we settled on Comida, a Churrascaria restaurant in South Molton Street and booked ourselves a table for Friday night. It was an unseasonably warm evening for April, people were sitting outside, but we took our table inside. The decor was nothing to write home about, fairly basic with small formica tables for 4 and a buffet along one side.

But at the heart of the restaurant, what we'd really come to experience - the flaming grill, chock full of skewers of meat.

We started with a round of drinks - Brahma beers, Caipirinha cocktails and a fizzy Guarana drink, popular in Brazil:

We unanimously opted for the "all you can eat" buffet, the waiter took our order and then wandered off. It wasn't immediately obvious what to do next, but after a few minutes trying to work out where to get the plates from, caught sight of another table starting to help themselves to the BBQ accompaniments - various carbs: rice, beans, potatoes and some limp salad leaves. Faith warned us not to load up too much on the buffet sides. It turned out to be good advice.....as the meat had started to arrive.

Let's start gently, with a couple of chicken legs and some chorizo style Brazilian sausage. So far, so good. Tasty with a very distinctive BBQ taste. Then our waiter started bringing out the big guns....large skewers with beef and lamb joints, which he sliced onto our plates at the table.

 

                                 

   

By this stage of the meal, the waiters had worked out that Faith can speak fluent Portuguese and this broke the ice for some high jinks. I'm sure he was joking with that knife....

You really can get your money's worth at a Churrascaria. The meat just kept coming until we couldn't face another morsel. Next time I go to one of these...I probably won't bother with any of the side dishes, and also make sure I'm ravenous. That steak was gooooooooood.

Now for some scoring:

Food: ****

Value for money:****

Atmosphere: ***