Aarti and I celebrated my birthday at this Brazilian place late on a Saturday night - in true South American style we had dinner starting at 9:45pm. I was excited to try this place right off the heels of my trip to Colombia. The menu sounded great and had a great mix of seafood, meat and vegetables. I'll be the first to admit that I had been drinking earlier that day, so this review might be a bit skewed but I had sobered up by the time I got there.
I opted to go with the lamb sliders ($11) to start and got the black sea bass as my main entree ($28) while Aarti got a mix of different vegetable appetizers for her entrees. She got the Brussels sprout salad ($10), the kale and quinoa salad ($14) and the cauliflower gratin ($12) - all sounded great but I thought the price points were a bit high considering they were vegetable appetizers and not full entrees. The lamb sliders were served on Brazilian cheese bread and a chipotle cream sauce. The cheese bread is a popular bread in South America and to be honest, it's just not my favorite. I think it's a bit too dry and doesn't really have much taste to it. While the lamb patty was great and I enjoyed the chipotle cream sauce that went with it, but I just didn't think that the cheese bread, while being an authentic South American ingredient, really made the slider stand out. I guess call me unpatriotic but it would have been better on a basic potato bun. As for the black bass, it was served with polenta and sauteed broccolini. The fish and broccolini were way over seasoned and very heavy on the garlic - which usually isn't a huge problem, but I just felt incredibly dehydrated and my mouth reeked of garlic after only a few bites. The fish itself was cooked well and in theory the pairing of it with polenta and broccolini would be a winner. It was just cooked with such a heavy hand on the salt that it was kind of hard to finish the whole dish. I didn't get a chance to try any of Aarti's vegetable dishes but on paper they all sounded great. Who doesn't like Brussel Sprouts with a mustard avocado Parmesean dressing or kale with quinoa mixed with shitake mushrooms and feta cheese?
The place is pretty small and narrow and I thought it would be a bit more lively given all the World Cup hoopla, but it was relatively calm on a random Saturday night. It's possible that my earlier drinking impaired my judgement, so I'm willing to give this place another try but maybe more for brunch than dinner. Total bill: $120 for 2 people with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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