Texas De Brazil Head to Head

Hi all

Last week we went to Texas De Brazil www.texasdebrazil.com at their request to give a head to head comparison with the newly opened Fogo de Chao. Once again I must say when you go to a Brazilian steakhouse go with an empty belly so you can fully enjoy the large variety of meats and other food items that they provide. When we walked out of Texas De Brazil we walked out full and happy having had an excellent meal and busy minds trying to compare the 2 restaurants. Here we go with the head to head.

The atmosphere.

He says: In my opinion, it really depends on what you are doing and who you are with. Texas De Brazil has a warm welcoming feel with rich colors and decorations and seems a place to sit back with friends and family to talk and enjoy a great meal. Fogo De Chao has more of a “date” or business meeting feel. I can’t in any way say one is better than the other in this regards as I said above, it depends on what you are looking for on that day.
She says: The atmosphere at both places was humming and busy. But I do have to give props to our server Stephanie at Texas de Brazil who was very competent, eager to answer any of our questions and made our experience that much more special. The décor is very dark wood and elegant. I enjoyed being by the window so that we didn’t feel closed in.

Salad Bar
Once again calling this a salad bar is really doing it a injustice as there is just so much here to eat and snack on that you could easily and happily spend your whole meal just here (but don’t!).



He says: Texas de Brazil’s “salad” bar was very interesting. It featured grilled portabella which I loved even more than the marinated shitake mushrooms at Fogo, to a great smoke Salmon and several nice cheeses and some lovely grilled shrimp. One thing that set Texas de Brazil’s bar apart from Fogo was a hot bar which had a nice soup (on our night a great lobster bisque) and also a traditional Brazilian dish of rice black beans and Farofa . One item that threw me off was they has some sushi rolls on the salad bar that tasted fine but really seemed out of place.
To decide which was better was a matter of great debate between me and Barb as was the whole evening and I am sure you will notice that throughout this article. In the end even though Fogo had several more items on their salad bar, I have to give the salad bar to Texas De Brazil because of the hot bar with its excellent rice beans and Farofa , although it was a very close call ( I really missed the peppers from Fogo).

She says: First up was the salad bar. There were a lot of items on the salad bar menu that I didn’t know what they were. They had the names of things on placards, but even that didn’t help me to know what I was eating. There was lobster bisque soup, sushi, goat cheese (yum) and much more, but again I didn’t know what some things were and not feeling very adventurous, didn’t sample as much as I could have. To me, that was a little disappointing. I could have asked the servers, but it wasn’t just one or two items, but several.
So, for me Fogo has the better salad bar (they should add goat cheese though!).

Meat
Ok, this is really what it is all about. You come here for the meat, and oh man did they have a lot of it.
The meat at Texas de Brazil was all pretty good with a few stand outs and a few not so much. We will go ahead and list several that we can take a direct comparison with. The sides here are once again the cooked bananas and garlic mashed potatoes. To me, once again the mashed potatoes were good but did not stand out. The bananas however were a bit sweeter with a nice taste of cinnamon. Myself, I liked Fogo’s a bit better but Barb preferred the sweeter taste of Texas De Brazils.

He says: House specialty which is a cut of top sirloin. This was very, very good at both restaurants. Myself, I honestly could not call it. I decided both restaurants were about equal with this cut of meat with the taste and tenderness. Texas de Brazil is a bit saltier in general with their meat due to the way they cook it, but not to a point where it detracts at all from the meal.
She Says: We started just as we did at Fogo with the house special, the picanha. This meat is so delicious and moist and it melts in your mouth. More meat made the rounds, and I next chose the lombo pork, chicken wrapped in bacon and lamb.




Chicken:
He says: I did prefer Texas de Brazil chicken entrée’s more than fogo’s but both were very good
She says: The chicken too was delicious and refreshing. I enjoyed it more than Fogo’s.


Filet Mignon:
He says: Here I found Fogo’s Filet Mignon to be superior to Texas De Brazil both in taste and tenderness. Mind you that Texas’s was not bad and I would be happy to have it on my plate anytime, mmm. But, Fogo’s was a touch better.

She says: Next up was the filet mignon wrapped in bacon. Oh my, this was the bomb as far as I was concerned. It was so yummy, so soft and delicious.

Lamb Chop:
He says: They brought out a nice mint jelly to our table and the lamb chop was tender and juicy and with the addition of the jelly this was a definite yummm . Hands down, Texas de Brazil’s Lamb Chop was superior to Fogo’s
She says: Our server brought over mint jelly for the lamb and never having mint jelly before gave it a try. I must say it was a nice contrast to the lamb and decided that more is needed in the future.

Pork : The best comparison I can come up with is Fogo’s Lombo vs Texas de Brazil’s Pork and Parmesan.
He says: Both are yummy and these are very close overall, both of them being very tender and juicy, but I would need to give a slight edge to Fogo’s spices over Texas De Brazil’s Parmesan. Though I have gone back and forth about this a lot it is sooo close and both are just very good!

She says: The lombo was this wonderful boneless pork piece wrapped in parmesan cheese. It was delicious. It was juicy and rich in flavor and went down very easily.


This is where they cook the meat even after the meal when we went in this room I started to get hungry again with the wonderful smells.


Sausage:
He says: a wash for me here both are good and tasty and a bit spicy
She says: I didn’t try the sausage here. I’m not a huge sausage fan, and it just didn’t appeal to me that night.
Desserts:

Between the three of us we tried out three deserts.
1. Mousse De Maracuja (Passion fruit mousse). This was similar to the dessert my Father had at Fogo but I think done better. Of the three desserts at the table we all kept going back to this one. It was sweet and tart and just delicious!

2. Cheesecake: Very good with beautiful plating and a nice crust.

3. Crème Brule Tasty with a firm top and a lemony taste to it this was very good as was all the desserts but not really a stand out when compared with the other 2 desserts.

She says: Of course, by the time dessert comes around you are so stuffed, but you just can’t say no and so we didn’t. The desserts were good, all three of them that we partook of. But again, this is a steakhouse and so dessert wise; it’s a wash for me. They were all good, all filling, all decadent all fattening!

Overall Impressions:

He says: Two things I really want to mention about our evening at Texas De Brazil. The introduction to how a Brazilian steak house works and what we were in store for was made better and more interesting by our… hmm don’t want to call it a server maybe a host is a better word as ( her name) she was more around to make sure everything was going ok and to explain what things were etc regardless what you call her she was fantastic and made the meal that much more enjoyable with her knowledge and friendliness. Also Elena asked for a drink that the bar did not know but the assistant manager did and that person went ahead and made it for her and from all reports it was fantastic.
She says: I don’t know if I can really say one way or another which Brazilian steakhouse to go to. They are both very good restaurants with wonderful selections at both. Each place has it’s own uniqueness and overall feel, but truly I think it depends on where you are and where you’re going. If you’re going downtown, I’d suggest trying out Fogo de Chao. If you’re going on a shopping excursion, I’d pick Texas de Brail. Or, if you just want a great meal try them both!

Wow ok this is so very hard to do when you enjoy both meals very much and everything is close its hard to say one is better than the other so you know I don’t think I will. I don’t think you can possibly be unhappy with either restaurant and indeed I bet you will leave full and happy. As I said at the beginning I think it really depends on what you are doing for the evening and maybe more importantly where you are.

Wanted to put in a quick update note. It has been about a year since we wrote this post and time has made a winner more clear for Barb and I, though we enjoyed both when we think of going to a brazillian steak house fogo de chao is the one we crave so I think will make me say Fogo was the overall winner




As always thanks for stopping by our Colorado food and dining blog if you have any questions or comments feel free to ask them here or contact us at barb or jonathan @milehigheater.com


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Fogo De Chao

Hi all
This past Wednesday we were invited down to Fogo de Chao (www.fogodechao.com) the night before it opened to try out its offerings. I will be honest that when we were invited, the first thing that went through my head is, “Wow, that’s only a few blocks away from the Rodizio Grill. Either the folks at Fogo are crazy for setting up so close to another very popular Brazilian steakhouse or they must think they are just that much better and I was very interested to find out which it was.

If you haven’t been to a Brazilian steakhouse before, it is a pretty interesting set up. When you first enter you see several servers moving around the room very quickly. They carry different meats on skewers from table to table and it seems to be a bit chaotic. But after you watch it a bit it actually resembles some well choreographed dance. The basic concept is it’s an all you can eat steakhouse….




Yes, yes I know most of us think of all you can eat type places and just know the food is going to be fair at best, but somehow that is not the case here. The meat is brought to your table and carved tableside for you and somehow it is always served nice and hot. There is also a large salad bar (though by calling the one at Fogo a salad bar is doing it an injustice). The salad bar is all you can eat as well, which makes a big problem as far as I am concerned. The darn salad bar had so many things I wanted to try it made it hard to save room for the meats.
Part 1: The “salad bar”

After we sat down and our drink orders were taken they brought us some hot cheese bread.


He says: These were hot and with a nice bit of gooey cheese in the middle. After enjoying one of those we headed over to the salad bar.
She says: The small cheese biscuits on our table were divine. I could have easily filled up on them.




He says: Wow, this is not your normal everyday salad bar the first thing we ran into was marinated shitake mushrooms followed by several different peppers, fresh heart of palm, artichoke, incredible sun dried tomatoes, asparagus, fresh ball mozzarella cheese, 3 different cheeses, some very nice salmon (yes on the salad bar) and other meats, fresh bread and of course 3 or 4 different salads. Another nice touch was some nice Olive oil and Balsamic sitting on top of the bar. I am not going to go through each item but everything was very good with the stand outs for me being the red peppers which were sweet with a nice but not over powering rush of heat at the end, he wonderful asparagus, and the shitake mushrooms… mmmmm mushrooms.

She says: Fresh cut cheeses, smoked salmon, tuna salad, beets, peppers, and more. We knew there was a lot of meat to come, but we couldn’t help ourselves. I know I gravitated to the beets (haven’t had fresh ones for years and reminded me of my youth) and tuna salad.

When we finished enjoying that, we were given fresh plates and my father (for a steakhouse seemed to be a good place to bring dad)ordered some wine which they seem to have a great selection.


While we were waiting for his wine to come they brought out 3 small dishes which were refilled several times during the night. The first plate had cooked bananas on it which they recommend taking a bite in between bites as a palate cleanser. The second had some mashed potatoes and the third some fried polenta with parmesan cheese on top. The potatoes were good but nothing really special. The polenta, now that was yummy with a nice little crisp texture and a wonderful taste which in many other places would have made a nice starter. The bananas, now those I really really liked. YUM and definitely had it more often than in between meats.


Part 2: Meat!

At a Brazilian steakhouse when you are ready to have meat brought to the table you turn over a coaster at your table from red (no more please) to green. Once green is turned over you normally wait a few minutes before it’s properly noticed, then the meat comes. Each time we did this the servers appeared like magic with one of 15 different cuts of meat on a skewer. When they arrive they will ask how you like your meat (medium, rare, etc) and cut you off a piece based off that. Then they are off and another server comes in to offer you another item. When you have enough on your plate you turn your coaster back to red and enjoy your food until you are ready for more.




I am not going to go over everything we had that but will mention the high and lows.
He says:
Best: “Picanha” which is the house specialty. This is a sirloin cut and seasoned with sea salt. I also enjoyed the Filet Mignon. Both of these cuts of meats were incredible and melted in your mouth. It was tender and perfectly cooked. I have been to very good steakhouses that did not have meat this good and the ones that did have meat this good you could defiantly not keep on asking for more!

Other memorable cuts were the” Lombo” pork loin filets crusted with parmesan. These were also incredible and would be something I would recommend seeking out purposely if you do head out there.

The other meats with one exception were all very well cooked and prepared and we made sure to try each one (even if towards the end we were asking them to cut the smallest bit they could). It is amazing to me that they can serve so many different items table side constantly and keep them hot and perfectly cooked. Some sort of magic if you ask me.

Only one item to me was not very good. That was the costela de poreo (pork ribs). I found my cut to be a bit dry and so did not enjoy them but to be fair both Barb and my father who came along with us enjoyed it.
She says: For me, the filet mignon was cooked to perfection. It melted in my mouth. If I would have only had the filet, I would have been very happy. But, to be fair, I did try the other meats as well. I have to agree with Jonathan about the lombo. Here’s the description from the website: The pork loin is sliced into filets and encrusted with a rich Parmesan cheese coating before roasting over an open flame. It was tasty and delicious. My third favorite was the Picanha, which Jonathan already mentioned. The side dishes were pretty basic, but I can always eat good mashed potatoes with onions. The polenta was alright, but I didn’t find it as good as Jonathan did. The banana was very good too, and I could have had more of it. The servers were fantastic and on top of everything. Once a plate was empty or just low, a new one was brought out right away. I wonder what kind of training takes place for a restaurant of this caliber.

Part 3: Dessert

When we finally turned over to the red side of the indicator for the last time and prepared ourselves to go we were asked if we wanted to try dessert. We looked at each other and decided, “What the heck!” Any thought of diets or portion control had been blown away that night.



He says: Suffice it to say the desserts were of the same quality of the meal. So good in fact we actually polished them off completely even after that huge meal and that is a compliment indeed. My father could not quit talking about the coffee that he had with dessert, not being a coffee drinker myself I cannot say, but for him to praise his coffee it must have been darn good.
She says: When they first offered dessert, I had half of “no” out of my mouth before Jonathan and Ed were saying “yes”. We each got something different so we could try each others. I got crème brule which was delicious. Jonathan had molten chocolate cake with ice cream and Ed had Fogo de Chao’s Signature Papaya Cream. All the desserts were very good, but we were so stuffed by that time, I think I could have walked home.

We can see now why they felt confident enough to place Fogo de Chao where they did. In our opinion it is at a higher level than its close neighbor. From the prompt attentive wait staff to the perfectly cooked meats and great salad bar only one thing really comes to mind when we both think of that night…… YUMMMMMM.

Next time you’re in downtown Denver, and in the mood for some great meat, give Fogo de Chao a chance. I don’t think it possible you could leave disappointed and you defiantly won’t leave hungry.
Thanks again for visiting our Colorado dining blog. If you have any questions or comments feel free to write us either here or at jonathan or barb @milehigheater.com.



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