Confessions of A Naughty Girl

Fogo de Coma

Oh how I love being on the other side of my industry. The perks are endless, and the food is soooo good. And really, food is the most important factor to me in any facet of...well, anything, so I am happy.

Today we went to lunch with a magazine rep. My co-worker had the incredible taste to choose Fogo de Chao as the site for this particular schmooze. And I was so, so, so happy. Three years in Chicago of begging anyone and everyone to go to Fogo de Chao with me so I could try it, since I have heard crazy stories, and my dream came to fruition here in Atlanta, today. Yet another one of those "things to do before I die" criteria that I can check off the running list.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Fogo, let me enlighten you. Fogo de Chao is a Brazilian steakhouse (or "churrascaria"), with a chain of restaurants all over the US and Brazil, but located only in big cities. The name is Portuguese for "Eat Like A Fatass". (Okay, not really. According to our blonde waitress with two brain cells that were fighting one another, it means "fire in the hole" or "stop, drop, and roll" or something to that effect.) Basically, it is an all-you-can-eat meat buffet. A Golden Corral for the upper eschelons of society, if you will.

Basically, to go to Fogo, you have to love animals and think that they're delicious. You have to take that animal on your plate and f*cking own it. You have to be able to stand the smell of meat, emanating everywhere - from the spit it was cooked on, to the pores in your skin that it seeps through after you've eaten. In other words, you have to be me. Because if heaven exists (although I surely won't be going after my Jesus Loves Porn post earlier this week), it will look like Fogo de Chao.

Upon arrival, you are handed plates and directed to the salad bar, which has fresh mozzarella salad and cremini mushroom salad, among other delicacies. (Fun Fact: cremini mushrooms are actually baby portabella mushrooms that were picked before they ripened to full-size. Write that down.)

Once you have finished (note to self: filling up at the salad bar is not a good strategy), you return to the table, where you are given a little chip that looks like a coaster. One side is red, and the other is green. I'll let you figure out what side means what. It's time that I stopped babying you.

As soon as I flipped that f*cker to green, a team of five servers accosted me with slabs of meat on a stick, gyro-style. Which, as previously discussed, is the best thing on earth. Today, for example, there were 15 different types of meat - things like bacon-wrapped filet mignon, parmesan-crusted lamb shank, and the house special, which, after four slices, will thoroughly enjoy its eternal spot in my gut. As if the heavenly meat wasn't enough, they serve sides of fried polenta and whipped mashed potatoes. Is this great, or what? So the servers offer up the meat, and once you accept, you take your tongs (provided at each place setting), and rip the meat off of the metal spit while they slice it off for you. It is so primitively delicious I can't even stand typing this post without salivating.

Knowing that this restaurant is the type of place that you shouldn't go into without a strategy, I tried not to focus on the salad bar too much and focus on the meat. And at first, it was fabulous. They started bringing meat to our table and it was like Lord of the f*cking Flies. The five of us lunchmates would have seriously stabbed one another for the first piece of medium rare top sirloin. But two hours later, as we sat, meat remains on our plates occasionally dotted with specks of leftover potato, I felt sicker than when my senior prom date made me ride the Magnum at Cedar Point by myself while he rode with his friends. Asshole.

I think it's fair to say that each luncher consumed a small farm animal of some sort. It was cavelike, it was gluttonous, but it was the best lunch I have ever had. Seriously. Oh - and it was topped off with a shared slice of chocolate mousse cake with vanilla ice cream on the side. Which really should have been ordered as "a slice of 'Just ordering for posterity' with a side of 'I don't think I can come back for another six months'".

And just when I thought things couldn't get any better - our magazine rep gave us each five DVD's as a thank-you gift for buying the magazine for our client - Napoleon Dynamite, Dodgeball, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and two other shitty movies that I can't remember off the top of my meat-laden head.

Tomorrow I have to work off my farm animal with my new personal trainers, Barry and Levi, who have promised to make me look super hot ASAP. (I'll explain the backstory in the future gym post, which I have postponed again tonight for some unknown reason.)

posted by KA @ 9:56 PM