My last visit to Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse was for a press event celebrating their new cocktails, this time celebrating a 20-year-old’s birthday with his family. Old friends from my Connecticut days.

He, of course, chose the churrasco experience ($74.95) served rodízio style. A perfect way to satiate a growing boy! That’s continual service of their fire-roasted meats carved at the table whenever the server sees your card on your table turned from red to green. It’s served with the Brazilian sides of warm cheese bread, crispy polenta sticks, mashed potatoes and caramelized bananas. That main event offered bacon-wrapped meats, sausage, filet mignon, lamb chops, pork chops, chicken and sliced bone-in ribeye, top sirloin and bottom sirloin.

The rest of us chose the market table and feijoada bar with a single entree. Two chose the pan-seared salmon ($38), topped with chimichurri sauce with asparagus, while I shared the two-inch-thick oven-roasted, parmesan-crusted cauliflower steak (a tad undercooked) and a chickpea salad ($39).

The continually re-filled market table includes fresh and roasted vegetables, smoked salmon, cured meats, imported charcuterie and cheeses, seasonal soup, candied black pepper bacon, fresh fruit and all sorts of salads, including feta and watermelon; sesame cauliflower, sliced apple, chicken salad. At dinner, the market table and feijoada bar costs $35.95, at lunch, it’s the pre-theatre best bargain at $18!!

I had learned about Feijoada when researching and writing Beans, one of my six cookbooks. This Brazilian national dish consists of black beans stewed with meats and sausage and served with rice, oranges, malagueta hot sauce and farofa, toasted cassava or yucca flour.

Because it was a birthday, we had ordered a serving of thick and creamy New York-style vanilla cheesecake  ($11.75) with a graham cracker crust drizzled with a strawberry sauce, topped with a candle!

I do highly recommend.

Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse
Midtown
40 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 969-9980
fogodechao.com/