Brazilian Grill

I'm a churrascaria virgin. If you don't know what a churrascaria is, so are you. A churrascaria is (c'mere, Wiki) a Portuguese or Brazilian steakhouse, specifically barbeque as that word is used to describe items cooked on or over a fire (versus American barbeque that usually describes food seasoned in a particular way that will cause generations-long feuding in some parts of the country). Several servers, each bearing skewer of different grilled meat, circulate among the diners and portions are sliced or slid off the skewer right at the table. A card at your side lets the servers know if you're ready for more (green) or can't take any more (red).

Oh, and there's a salad bar with the standard stuff, plus slightly more exotic things like marinated mushrooms and grilled eggplant. A steamer table nearby contains the extras – roasted potatoes, truly spicy shrimp, rice, black beans, garlicky chicken, braised collard greens.

Sounds good, right? Well, like so many other deflowerings that make you wonder what the big deal is, this wasn't. Oh, parts were good, even great. The star by far were the caipiranhas – the cachaca and lime cocktails were perfectly sweet (which means not too), perfectly strong (which means very), and none of that club soda stuff mucking up the works. The bacon-wrapped tilapia was tender and rich. The skirt steak was excellent. The sausages were short, plumb revelations of fennel-enhanced porkiness. The winner by far was a prime-ribesque stack of three steaks that was sliced into thin, buttery ribbons of rareness, juice and fat.

But the pork ribs were, how do I put this?, inedible. They looked edible, they smelled edible, but the eatable part of being edible was missing. And anything that was wrapped in bacon (with the exception of the tilapia) was extremely greasy because the bacon had somehow steamed instead of actually cooking, let alone crisping. I left a pile of pallid strips on my plate and I have been known to fix bacon in the middle of the night out of sheer need.

The space is quite nice. Nothing exists of the former (beloved) La Margarita, not even the walls, of which the remaining ones are now painted a warm mustard. The bar and tables are sleek-on-a-budget, but the entire feel would have a kind of funky, homemade elegance. If it weren't for the lighting. Wow. The steam table, salad bar and wide-open space already makes it feel like a cafeteria. Installing a gazillion 80-watt heat lamps in the ceiling completes the illusion.

So, okay, I'm not here just to complain. I'm here to help. Here's my advice. Turn down the megawattage, tell your servers to stop standing around looking bored (so what if the restaurant is empty? It's a restaurant, I guarantee there's something to do somewhere), ease up on the bacon, lose the pork rib vendor, and reconsider the $27.50 per person price tag until the whole thing improves drastically or you'll never get anyone back. Just don't mess with the caipiranhas.