The Brazilian Steakhouse - The 80/10/30 Rule

Have you ever experienced the Brazilian Steakhouse (a.k.a. Churrascaria)?  It's meat served in the traditional Brazilian "gaucho" style.  Which loosely translated means you eat until you can't fit into your pants.  (A few links to excellent ones at the bottom of this post.)

You have a coaster at your place setting with one green and one red face.  When you turn the coaster to green, gauchos come to your table holding different cuts of meat on skewers (turn it back to red to make them stop).  Everything from top round steak to filet to sirloin to bacon-wrapped pork.  They place the point of the skewer next to your plate, hand you a small pair of tongs, and slowly cut your piece right off the skewer, which you catch with the tongs and put onto your plate.

That's the general idea.  Here's how it falls into a "buffet" category.  First off, while you might not be moving, it is a buffet in my mind, because it is an all-you-can-eat assortment of flavors coming directly to you (and let's face it, isn't that the ideal buffet anyway?).  Second, you can sample, you can pass on certain cuts (more on that later) and you never place an order.  Third, there is typically a large and beautiful salad bar that is meant to provide "variety" to your carnivorous decadence.  And that, my friends, is where it gets tricky.

Now, we start talking strategy.

I adhere to a few general rules in a place like this.

1. Flip to Green immediately.  Seriously.  You're here.  What are you waiting for?  Salad is for later.  No appetizers, get right to the meat.

2. Pass on anything non-cow.  The churrascaria style is traditionally extra salty; anything but beef becomes very dense and difficult to finish, and therefore a waste of your plate.

3. Focus on your pace and abide by the 80/10/30 rule.  Eat to about 80% capacity.  Take a deep breath.  Go for a quick walk around the salad bar.  REMEMBER TO WALK THE ENTIRE BUFFET before touching a plate.  Give yourself some leafy greens, nothing too filling.  Eat about 10% of your capacity on your salad.  Give it another quick rest.  You're good for another 30% on the meat.  I swear.  It works.  Now you're giving it 120%!

4. Dessert is optional.  Frankly, I believe that if you have room for dessert in a place like this, you misplayed your plate.

I've put the 80/10/30 rule to the test in a few different churrascarias, and it works perfectly.  Just when you think you're done, you surprise yourself.

Of course when you're done, you slip into a "carni-coma."  Hopefully, you're not driving home.

Excellent churrascaria in Philadelphia: Fogo de Chao

Excellent one in New York: Plataforma

Both noted as "favorites" of this blog

Eating for 3

My wife and I are pregnant. It's our first, I'm thrilled, and I have already started strategizing my new buffet approach.

Clearly, this part of the pregnancy adds a whole lot of new dynamics to my life, most important of which is that my strategy for running a buffet needs to change.

She has a love-hate relationship with food right now (as opposed to my love-love relationship). That means that if we were to both go to a buffet, I would have to pare back my own plate, and definitely not put anything on it that she's putting on hers, because without fail, she won't finish and I'll be compelled to polish off her plate (I hate an unfinished plate). So imagine the horror if I were to have taken a full serving of roasted red bliss potatoes and then have to eat hers too!

Instead, I see it more like splitting my own well-built plate over two dishes, putting on hers all the stuff I know she'll eat. Then, when she says "Oh God, I'm done. Please take this away," I'll be able to swoop right in and have managed a perfectly planned plate, just across two dishes.


Ok, I've got it figured out. BRING ON THE BABY!