Braza Churrascaria - Leichhardt

Braza Churrascaria

My partner was dying for Brazilian churrasco - so much so that we got to Leichhardt at around 6 ish and waited around til 8.30 ish, refusing to leave until we finally got a seat. Having more than one churasco place on Norton Street, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the restaurants were all booked out - accepting pretty much no customers without a booking. I guess we were lucky we finally got a table at Braza.

So what is it about churrasco that entices people? It might be the rowdy, lively atmosphere. Or the all you can eat part for $38. Or the fact that you get a wide variety of meat (definately would not recommend this place to a vegetarian). Or, as what my partner falls for, the love of char-grilled, barbequed meat spinning round and round and round on a skewer roast type thing. :P

The deal is, $38 - all you can eat meat. Lovely meat-bringing people come around and around with skewers of different types of meat. If you want it, you say yes - they cut a bit off for you, and you pick it up with the tongs. If you say no, they are (mostly) not offended. There's also this funny egg-timer shaped thing (below). Apparently, putting the green side up means you want food, red side up means no more please. However, throughout the night, the lovely meat-bringing people largely ignored this signal, often brining food when the red was up, and ignoring our table when the green side was up. Hmm...

Green-red stopper

Person comes round with MEAT

Apart from meat, there are also some (vegetarian) side dishes. There's rice, potato salad, green salad, tomato salsa, cassava chips, crumbed banana, roasted cassava flour and brazillian chillies. The rice was just... umm... rice. The tomato salsa - no complaints from my partner. Cassava chips... pretty tasteless ish. The crumbed banana was ... icky >.< Well.. I'm not a fan of banana so I'm biased but even my partner (who does like banana) disliked the wierd texture. The potato salad??? omigosh - sooo sooo sooo yummmy. Mmmm... Soft fluffly potatos accompanied by corn, zucchini, carrots and deep-fried onion flakes. Green salad was nice - just enough vinegarette. Apparently unlimited refills of side dishes... but probably unneccessary - there's just soooo much food~!!!

Rice

Tomato Salsa

Potato Salad

Cassava chippies and deep-fried banana

roasted cassava flour

Vege salad

In terms of meat, there's plenty! Ranging from:

icanha - Rump Cap
Costela - Beef Rib
Fraldinha - Thick Flank
Alcatra - Rump
Linguiça - Sausage
Coração de Frango - Chicken Hearts
Asinha de Frango - Chicken Wings
Sobre Coxa - Chicken Thigh
Costelinha de Porco - Pork Ribs
Paleta de Porco - Pork Neck
Pernil - Pork Leg
Pernil de Carneiro - Lamb Leg
Alcatra de Carneiro - Lamb Rump

There's also seafood - Prawns (Camarão) and fish of the day (Peixe do Dia), and Pineapple, cheese and garlic bread.

Variety of meats on our plate

So how was the food? The beefs and pork were quite palatable. And I absolutely loved the sausages (my bias) and chicken wings and the pork ribs and the prawns. But what really blew me away were the Chicken thigh (OMGness sooooooooo tender and juicy and char-grilled tasting), the beef ribs (WOWnesss!!! words cannot describe) and the fish of the day (the grilling kept all the juices in - which was sooo much better than I expected!!!). Mmm... and we also hung around for the pineapple. The pineapple is a weird and wonderful thing. Beautifully caramelised, yet brings along that citrisy type pineapple tropical taste afterwards.

In restaurants like these - one tip. Don't be greedy! You can end up with lotza meats on your plate but you can't stomach it all at once~ And before you know it, the meats will become cool and then slightly cold. So the tip is to NOT pile your food up on your plate. Instead, get a steady flow of meats (at the pace you eat it) so your meat is the lovely sizzling temperature when you eat it~ But ... can you resist and say NO when your fav cut of meat comes to your table?

I'm glad we hung around Leichhardt for this place. But (unlike what my partner wants), I probably don't need to be back any time too soon. Waaaayyy too much meat LOL

Ratings:
Food - 8/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Value for money -8/10
Overall - 30.5/40

Braza Churrascaria
13 Norton St
Leichhardt
NSW,
tel: (02) 9572 7921