Lauren Coulman
The all you can eat buffet is familiar concept to most. Chinese restaurants have been doing it for years, endeavoring us to fill up on soups and savouries before we get to the good stuff. Savvy consumers have always been aware that they were being encouraged to gorge before they reached the aromatic crispy duck, the expensive cuts of beef and the chunkier pieces of chicken. Foodies have avoided the genre altogether. Sacrificing flavour and carefully sourced ingredients with the added privilege of watching your food stew in front of you, all in the name of cheaper cuisine, was not to be borne. Then they go and offer all you can eat meat.
The churrascaria, or traditional Brazilian steakhouse, is having a mini moment in Manchester. These temples to meat are popping up all over the place, starting with the opening of Bem Brasil in the Northern Quarter in late 2007, a ridiculously popular restaurant which is notoriously difficult to get a table at. Tropeiro followed over on Sackville Street, and then Bem Brasil made their second offering in early 2009 with a new restaurant just off Deansgate.
Appealing to the greed in all of us, churrascaria offers up meat and plenty of it cooked openly over a charcoal-fired barbeque and served rodizio style, which to you and me means constant service. As champions of the Sunday roast and devotees of the humble garden barbeque, whatever your thoughts about all you can eat, as a nation of meat lovers this is a proposition that is too hard to ignore. Pork, chicken, lamb and beef, you can quite literally eat until the cows come home.
I decided to look in on the newest offering on the Manchester meat market and paid a visit to Bem Brasil on Deansgate. This is the only restaurant out of the group that also offers up the equally tasty Brazilian export of samba and carnival. The sparkly and alluring entrance on King Street West invites you in to gaze upon pictures of samba dancers flashing the flesh, drawing you upstairs to the cavernous dining room which overlooks the city centre. I invited my lovely friend Alison to come join me, partly because of her convenient city centre location, but mainly because she appreciates a good barbeque and a good dance.
The dancing was sadly lacking, as was the carnival atmosphere, which I had secretly been hoping for. The room was inviting and bright, but more âmodern warmthâ than South American spirit, all done out in cream and brown hues with fancy lightshades to appeal to the city professional and seasoned restaurant eater, but not so much to me. The promise of so much flesh inspires a more festive atmosphere, even if only in décor, and Bem Brasil just didnât deliver.
If the environment wasnât all I had hoped for, then the food certainly was. It was excellent in fact. Within minutes of being sat down by an engaging and friendly waitress, Alison and I were issued the rules and promptly presented with our first cut of meat, and it just kept on coming. Fillet steak cooked every which way, tender pork, beautifully grilled lamb, chicken wrapped in bacon and fat juicy sausages that seemed to melt in your mouth, all brought directly to your table.
The barbeque was excellent and the salad bar was pretty good too. Very much needed to make our carnivorous feast that little more acceptable, the open buffet provided everything from your standard white rice to salad greens, cous cous and tabbouleh, a delicious and never before tasted polenta and some nifty garlic tossed spinach that I couldnât get enough of. As good as the salad was however, it just couldnât top the main event. It didnât need to though. With over fifteen cuts on offer, Bem Brasil is not backward in bringing forward the meat and as a result is great value for money. For £22.50 in the evening and £12.50 at lunch you can eat as much as you can handle, with no need to worry that you will miss out on the good dishes and even less need to fill up on the greens when the main event is so readily served.
The real cost of eating at such a restaurant is the impact on your experience. Though the waiters were attentive and easy to converse with, being interrupted every two minutes by the passadores (meat carvers) with a new cut of meat to tempt you constantly disturbed the flow of the evening. A little red and green disk is provided to stop and start the flow of the food to your table, but even when youâve had enough, the waiters approach until they see the flash of red and do a distracting little spin away from your table. Turns out there is dancing after all.
Alison and I have eaten out together for years, and the impact on our evening was significant enough for even us to take note. Giggling at dancing waiters aside, our evening was fractious and made it difficult to relax. As always, the wine helped. We ordered a fantastic fruity and smooth Brazilwood Shiraz, which worked well with pretty much every cut we picked, though we were tempted by a few bottles on this very well put together wine list. Surprisingly refreshing, the wine drank a little too easily so we finished off with the legendary Brazilian cocktail that is the Caipirinha. This delicious and fun cocktail of sweet Cachaça mixed in with the sour lime gave a much needed kick to the end of the evening, and sent us out into the cold February night with a little of that carnival spirit.
Bem Brasil is a great idea, and appeals directly to the belly of a nation that truly canât get enough meat, and the quality of food and wine makes it a much better proposition than your average all you can eat. The cultural references are a little thin on the ground, other than the traditional barbeque and fantastic cocktails, though I was informed that there is a carnival party on the last Friday of every month offering a Brazilian band and more samba dancers than you can shake a feather at. With so much activity at your table, the experience is sadly a little lacking, and with such an abundance of food on offer, we ate too quickly and too much achieving nothing but discomfort and fast. Its human nature to overindulge when the opportunity presents itself, and so its appeal to our gut instincts means Bem Brasil will continue to be a great success.
Bem Brasil Deansgate, King Street West, Manchester, M3 2GQ
T:0161 839 2525
www.bembrasilrestaurants.com