Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Marius Degustare, Rio De Janeiro

Yes, he posed for this shot, but all my other pictures were crap

I would imagine that when one comes to Brazil, it would almost be a capital offense not to come to a churrascaria sometime during your trip. Tonight, we made our way to what I heard was allegedly one of the best in the city (290 Av. Atlantica, 2104-9000). I was quite disppointed upon walking in though to find the decor all touristy/plasticky...in a Pirates of the Caribbean meets the Rainforest Cafe kind of way. The spread included such things as sushi (and I was a bit surprised to see that they didn't have any of those red/green disks on the table to signal whether you were full or not). Uh oh...I hope we didn't fall right into the mouth of a tourist trap.

Beans and riceWell, having tactfully steered clear of that unnecessary filler, I kept my plate clean aside from some the standard beans and rice. And the good thing was that the meat generally still turned out on the better side, with some cuts nicely salty and tasty from the crispy fat.

I was, however, a bit bummed by the fact that it wasn't as spectactular as I had hoped for, and that the caipirinhas could have used more sugar. There didn't seem to be any of that crispy cheese or pineapple that Barbacoa excelled at either. That being the case, I would actually vouch for Barbacoa over this place. Unfortunately, I won't have time on this trip to try other spots in town to compare, but needless to say, my first churrasco experience in Brazil fell short of of what I was hoping for.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We had our IT/Work Christmas Party at a place here in Phoenix called Fogo e Brasa, a Brazllian churrascaria. We ran through the gambit of meats on a sword until I thought my intestines would explode. All pretty good cuts, but only the chicken was seasoned with sometrhing other than salt and pepper. All in all, pretty good, but kind of bland after a while. And since the company was buying, I drank my weight in caipirinha's and Brazillian beer. And no embarassing tales happened afterwards...(Too bad, would have been fun...)

Anonymous said...

I had the same impression as Travelling Hungryboy, in that Marius Degustare was very touristy, and the food was not as good as we had at Porcao in Ipanema. I also found the waiters at Marius without personality, the exact opposite from Porcao. We were very disappointed.