| rev:text
| - Today, I am giving Fogo de Chao the honor of being my 100th Yelp Elite review.
I ate here on Aug 31, 2017 for the very first time, for summer price of $45 instead of the $52, including prime cuts: lamb chops, filet mignon, ribeye, and beef ribs. We were a group of 9 Wild Dining MeetUp Foodies. The moment I put in my mouth, the lamb chops, ribeye, and filet mignon, my eyes rolled back into my head, in that "to die for" moment, that I KNEW WAS EXPERIENCING THE SAME "HEAVEN" THAT OTHER YELPERS DESCRIBED. The meats were cooked very very RED, which is very hard for other restaurants to GET RIGHT(for ME) when I order "rare or medium rare" at other restaurants. But here at Fogo, I can look at the color and pick where I want him to cut. They KNOW how to cook these prime cuts, to me, savored only when very red/rare for most of the inside of their red meats. To cook such premium meats medium and well-done is to me "the poor cow gave us his life only to be vulcanized".
ONLY here can I have all three expensive cuts of lamb chops, ribeye, filet mignon ALL on the SAME plate, at the same time! How cool is that?
Yet, some of the other meats such as bacon-wrapped beef cubes, pork ribs, were as some disappointed Yelpers described, dry and over-cooked, leaving parts even unedible cos it is too hard (like plastic) to eat. But not necessarily every time, maybe next time they come to the table with same item, that batch may not be not cooked as dry.
I only tasted 4-5 items at the Market Table salad bar, as I came for the premium meats. But the marinated mushrooms, green beans (sweet and tender with no strings), hearts of palm, and smoked salmon with capers were ALL SOOO GOOD. However I only ate those at the end of my dinner and I was alone, after everyone at my table.
When I got home, I realized I do not recall tasting the beef ribs, which employee Danielle, said was her favorite Fogo meat. Next day I called the restaurant and was told by the manager, that you have to ASK for the beef ribs. They do not bring the ribs to each table like the other meats, because they make very few, maybe only 15 ribs, because it takes 5 hours and they take up too much room on the grill, so other meats cannot be prepared.
The service was mostly wonderful. Fogo seems to have picked the most upbeat and enthusiastic employees, like Danielle and Kaylee. I do have one complaint about the service that makes me almost want to give 4 stars to this Yelp review. Nine of us sat at a long table at the far rear of the restaurant, meaning 4 of us had our backs to the wall with enough space for someone to walk behind us. ALL of us had our discs turned up to green, the entire time we dined there because our host said if we didn't, they would not even approach our table. But SEVERAL of the meat servers only asked the people sitting across from me with their backs to the center of the dining room, what they wanted and cut for them. But they did not ask the 4 of us with our backs to the wall, instead they quickly went away as if we did not exist before I could say "Hey how about US?" It was almost as if "they RAN away". Yet there was room for them to come behind us and ask each of us who had our backs to the back wall. After a few times of them "running away" after serving the 5 across the table from me, I said to my neighbor, "Hey they didn't even ask US and ran away." She said, "I am noticing the same behavior".
So the next day, when the manager told me about why I did not see the beef ribs, I told him about them "running away". He said that next time I come in, he would put us at a "better table, more toward the center". I also said I was not the host at this dinner, another person was, and he waited for me and others at the front door, and showed us where our table was, and I have no knowledge how that table was "assigned to us". I said that it shouldn't matter where the table is in the dining room, that all diners should be given the same service wherever they sit. Also people at the same table who had their backs to the center, were served the meat, but people who had their backs to the rear wall, were not. At least they could ASK us, like they ASKED the people sitting across from US. He agreed and said that he would address this issue with the servers, and thanked me many times for my "feedback".
As I am typing, the "getting it right with the ribeye, lamp chops, and filet mignon and enough of the other "heavenly" foods I ate here and the good service of the other employees, still outweighs this "running away" behavior, so I still feel good enough about giving Fogo 5 stars for my 100th review. Why even the paper towels in the ladies room were "gourmet", having seen this type towel only at one other upscale place, the Phoenician Hotel.
I hope that I will not have the "running away" in my future visits, where I plan to come for full menu and EAT THE BEEF RIBS for weekday lunch for $35, in the future.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)