Brazikat

On Friday night, I had a girls' night with two friends at Brazikat, a fairly new Brazilian restaurant in Clayton.  It's traditional Brazilian in the chain style - salad bar with fancy add-ons like blue cheese-stuffed olives and a bunch of gauchos running around with skewers of meat.

"So," you're thinking, "blue cheese-stuffed olives and skewers of meat.  What's not to like?"  The food, including the salad bar, was decent.  There were a few lovely cuts of meat, some that I could have done without.  Generally it was enjoyable, and oddly the grilled pineapple was one of my favorites.  That's a brilliant idea.

My biggest knock on it was that the service was a bit spotty.  For example, we waited about half an hour past our reservation because of an accident that was holding up traffic.  During the time we were waiting (and I was only there for about 20 of those 30 minutes), between the host and the hostess, I think we were asked four times if we were a particular party, if we were waiting for someone, etc.  Probably some of these questions were an effort to make sure we weren't being ignored, but a little communication (and an ounce of memory) between the two of them would have gone a long way.  Somehow I ended up without a steak knife and had to ask twice before one appeared.  It's hard to eat at a steakhouse without a steak knife.  Little things like that were a bit annoying.

Here's the thing about this type of meal, and why I'm not sure the restaurant will last even if they improve their service: it's not an everyday meal, it's an experience.  You go to see what it's all about (although I had previously been to Fogo de Chao in Philadelphia, which is that same idea -- but better), but you don't go every week for dinner like you might to your neighborhood bar.  People will go to try it out, but probably won't return often.