Location: 44 The Broadway, London, SW19 1RQ
Date of visit: Sunday 2 November 2014
Time of visit: 7pm
Nine years ago Elle and I enjoyed our first long-haul holiday in a far away land, spending two weeks in the north of the Dominican Republic. The hotel had an incredible selection of high quality all-inclusive restaurants, one of which was "Brazilian". We were in our early twenties and had no idea what to expect.
Meat. Lots and lots of meat. Unlimited meat. Followed by even more meat. It made a lasting impression.
Now I realise that kind of restaurant is known as a "rodizio" grill. Meat on skewers. I didn't need any convincing that this was the way to go when we hit Brazil on this project.
We invited two friends, Miles and Jen, to experience this evening with us. After mulling over the fair number of choices in London, we opted for the Wimbledon branch of the small Rodizio Preto chain.
The website does a good job of explaining how the restaurant works. The "si/nao" card is key.
This is your control over proceedings. Hungry? Turn it to the green "si" side. Need some time to digest? "Nao" for now.
Simple. Time to begin. Straight away we knew not to fall into the trap of piling our plates full of the unlimited "salad bar". A really extensive selection too. Salad, lasagne (cold and hard), rice (several types), beans (several types again), chips, nachos and much more.
Service was very quick. As soon as we sat down, our drinks order was taken, and we were ready to go. Within seconds, the meat began.
Rump steak. Rib meat. Sirloin steak. Garlic steak. Chicken leg (spicy and not spicy), sausage. Lamb. Topside beef. Chicken hearts.
Chicken hearts. Actual chicken hearts. Quite clearly hearts of chickens when you see them speared on the skewer. There was no way I was doing that. Miles did. I can't remember if he was positive in his review of eating the heart of a chicken (an actual chicken's heart) or not. I was too busy trying to ignore the whole thing.
The meats were all really pretty good, and unlimited right enough. The pork, however, was quite dry. The sausage was very hot and fresh. Jen couldn't keep it in her mouth.
Clearly we all pushed our limits. One point we noted was that it wasn't always clear what meat we were being presented with. Sometimes the waiters helpfully mentioned it out loud without being asked. Others either forgot or just didn't want to. Labels on the skewers to identify the meat would have been helpful.
What happened next was clearly a pisstake. We were offered a look at the selection of desserts. As if. Not only that, but they actually lugged a huge plate of *actual* examples of all the desserts, just to help the joke along. I don't believe for a second they actually do desserts. No one could ever manage that.
I weighed myself the next morning. That was a mistake.
