Fogo de Chao

In April, my dad came to visit and treated Brandon and I to a fancy dinner on our 3-year dating anniversary. The restaurant he took us to is called Fogo de Chao. It's a Brazillian steakhouse. It was amazing, and it's exactly the sort of thing Brandon and I would never be able to afford on our own, except, apparently, during restaurant week.

My friend Rasika from lab told me about restaurant week when it was already about half over. So, Brandon and I looked up the menus of some of the restaurants participating, and decided finally that our money was best spent going back to Fogo de Chao. Christine came along too, and we had a blast.

I had just that week lost barely enough weight that I could squeeze back into my skinny jeans, so I wore them. And yes, those are high heels. Very high, actually. This is a rare event for me, especially since I injured my back.

We didn't get a ton of photos of the actual dinner (we were too busy enjoying it). But here's a blurry Brandon:

Having been there once before, we knew the drill, and we were able to take more advantage of the experience than before. The waiters apparently come over to your table in a specific order, starting with the simplest cuts of meat (chicken and sausage) and ending with the finest (NY strip steak, filet mignon). We advised Christine of this, and we all turned down the first several meats in favor of waiting for the finer cuts of beef. It worked like a charm, and we all got seconds of the filet mignon.

I caught Christine texting at the table.

Deer in headlights.

After dinner, I decided I wanted to have a drink with dessert. I thought this might be a fun occasion to try cognac. We got the waiter's opinion, and I ordered something he said would be relatively mild (also affordable). Brandon took a series of photos that I think he should sell to the restaurant as stock photos for their website:

Christine with her girly cocktail while I test the cognac.

Christine tried a sip of the cognac, and thought it was disgusting. I loved it.

When we left, we got some photos out in front of the restaurant, where you can see the meat cooking in the front window:

It was nice that restaurant week made this adventure affordable. It was still a bit of a splurge, but definitely worth it. The hilarious point of the evening was Christine's reaction. She has made a habit of making fun of me when we go to nice restaurants because I - apparently - make faces when I eat. I tell her I'm just savoring the food, but she insists on making jokes. Well, Christine enjoyed Fogo de Chao so much, she started doing the same thing. So I got a chance to make fun of her and get my revenge. But really, I can't blame her, the food was SO GOOD.
It was definitely an evening well spent.