Meat and potatoes (but mostly meat)

As I mentioned Friday, Paul and I planned a little soiree Downtown to celebrate his book being shipped out for editing. And when I say soiree, I mean we drove Downtown for dinner ... then came home to play video games with my little bro-in-law. ::grins::

But, hey, that's pretty much the perfect evening for a couple of geeks. :)

We had dinner at Texas de Brazil. I know I've mentioned it in my blog before, but I don't think I've described the place in any detail. First of all, it's a self-proclaimed Brazilian churrascaria. I don't know how authentic it is, because I've never been to Brazil. I do know that most of the meat-carving waitron seem to be straight from Brazil. It's odd (I mean, heck, even our Chinese delivery guy has a Southern drawl), but it certainly adds to the ambience.

The huge salad bar is awesome (salads ... plus ginormous asparagus, sushi, sliced fresh wheels of parmasan, bamboo shoots, jasmine rice, grilled Portabello, and soup -- yesterday, lobster bisque).

And then comes the meat. Lots of it. Dudes wearing gauchos tucked into their boots carry around meat on swords. Yes, swords. And they carve it at your table. It's an Atkins dieter's (or a big blue monster's) wet dream.

Fourteen kinds of meat. Fourteen. I mean, yeah, they bring you a big ol' plate of garlic mashed potatoes, polenta sticks, fried cinnamon bananas, and the best pao de queijo I've ever tasted. But the focus is definitely the meat.

You've got your filet mignon wrapped in bacon, filet mignon not wrapped in bacon, garlic top sirloin, barbecued ribs, parmasan-crusted chicken, parmasan-crusted pork, lamb, Brazilian sausage (Paul's favorite) ... and, okay, I can't remember the rest. But they're all good. And did I mention they're served on swords? ;-)

Today was the first day back at work after the three-day weekend, and lunch was cold instant mashed potatoes (which bore a slight aftertaste of the Lemon Joy soap used to clean my bowl). For some reason -- I don't know why -- it just didn't measure up to last night's dinner.

I think it's because you can't serve mashed potatoes on a sword.