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| - What a disappointment!
My husband and I went to Samba last night, and when we walked in, we noticed that there weren't many people (most of the seats were empty), and there weren't that many gauchos running meat skewers - only two, which should be far too few for a Friday night... except there weren't too many people here.
We've been to countless churracarias in the US and Brazil, so we are well familiar with the concept: there's usually a fabulous salad bar full of fresh fruit, salads, cheeses, cured meats, pickled veggies, and more. Occasionally, there'll be a hot dish bar. Samba fell short here - no fruit, no cold cuts, no vinagrette (a Brazilian chopped salad, as clasically churassaco as having potato salad or baked beans at an BBQ joint here), etc. It was very small - maybe 12 main options at the salad area, with two soups, rice and beans, mashed potatoes, and feijoada in the warm dish area. There was an ok selection of cheese (but hey, it's Wisconsin, I would expect that), and the balsamic goat cheese was pretty good. The rest of the salad choices were meh at best.
When I returned from visiting the salad bar, the first guacho was serving my husband some picanha and one of the flank steaks. I was able to snag a piece, and it was not terrible - but nowhere near as good as I expect. Unfortunately, that was the best piece of meat I had all night. As the meal progressed, the meats become worse and worse. Everything starts getting an eggy taste that got stronger with each meat.
The pão de queijo eventually arrives .... but seems to be missing the cheese entirely.
Eventually, we decided that we'd had enough, even though we weren't at all full, and that we'd find something to tide us over on the drive back to the hotel. $80 for unsatisfactory food, and a waste of time... we could have just gone to a traditional American steakhouse for that price, and gotten better food & service. I wish we had.
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