SON MIS LOCURAS

I’m a meat eater.  I forego anything if beef is an option.  I suppose it’s part of the reason why my favorite restaurants of late are churrascurias.  Where else do you get large slabs of skewered beef presented to you by smiling men for as long as you want?  While all of these places have all you can eat salad bars, like I said, I’m a meat eater, so I go straight to the beef.  My caveat is that I’ve not been to many churrascurias in L.A., but so far here is my ranking of the five I’ve seen:

1) Fogo de Chao–(on La Cienega in Beverly Hills).  It’s a chain, yes, but although the priciest of those I’ve been to, its meat is the most consistently good.  It’s easy to get a reservation and a pretty quick dinner if you’re going out.

2) Porto Alegre–(Paseo Colorado in Pasadena).  Relatively new and still trying to figure out issues like how too staff itself, but the meat is good and the staff goes out of its way to make the dining experience enjoyable (e.g., by consistently asking you if there’s some type of meat you want sent out).  They are, however, still figuring out their menu, so some items you like one night, may not be there the next.  Not a huge problem, but makes for disappointment if you really wanted some of that roasted pineapple with cinnamon. 

3) Gauchos Village–(N. Brand, Glendale).  They have live music on Thursdays, Carnaval decorations all around, and the best caipirinhas I’ve had (as well as what seemed like the widest selection of Brazilian drinks at any of the places on this list).  All of these things combine to give Gauchos Village the most comprehensive of Brazilian themes.  However, their selection of meat on the night I was there wasn’t particularly comprehensive and the meat wasn’t as user-friendly as at Fogo or Porto Alegre.  It was you get what’s there, rather than how you like it.  Additionally, I often felt like I had to wait a long time to have the meat skewers come by my table.  While my plate was rarely empty at the other places on this list, at Gauchos Village, it often seemed to be (and I wasn’t eating that fast).  While these differences in the dining experience drop this restaurant to number three on my list, Gauchos Village did have the best scene of any of the churrascurias and provided a pleasant evening out with the most reasonable pricing of any of these restaurants.   

4) Green Field–(N. Azusa Avenue, West Covina).  The giant waterfall that covers the large front window of this place makes me a little seasick, but that’s just me.  The service here is fast, the meat is tasty, but you can tell the meat’s quality is lower than at Fogo De Chao.  It’s just not as tender.  Like I said, for consistently good meat, spend the money and go to Fogo De Chao.  Another oddity of this place is that it packs its salad bar buffet with decidedly non-Brazilian dishes.  Fettucine, spaghetti, chicken wings and other stuff are there for the taking.  While those things definitely allow big eaters to get their money’s worth (I think it’s a mid-$20 range all you can eat), it doesn’t work for me. 

5) M Grill–(On Wilshire east of Western).  It is number four only because there are only four choices.  It was my least favorite of the churrascurias I’ve seen.  The meat was pretty bland and many of the cuts seemed to lack even the most basic sprinkling of salt.  Additonally, the different cuts of meat were not grilled so that customers could choose how they wanted their cuts done.  The other two churrascurias were quite conscientious about presenting skewers with well, medium, and rare meat.  That touch makes it really easy to feed many tastes at once.  Additionally, the night I was there the traditional capirinha drink was made with vodka, not cachaca, for whatever reason.  The salad bar was also always missing the items advertised as there for the evening, even if the place wasn’t full.  The overall feel of the place was that it was trying to skimp on inventory at the expense of diners’ experience.   

© Laura Genao 2006