Eating Brazilian in Germantown

After excessive Google searching, I found this amazing restaurant in a little town called Germantown, about a 1/2 hour from home, called Rudy's Churrascaria, South American Steakhouse. Click on the restaurant's name and it'll take you to a website that tells a little about the restaurant, like that the building is actually a retired 135-year old opera house. It's been modified, but still had that "old building" appeal.

Churrascaria (Shoo-HAS-ka-riah) is the Portuguese word for a restaurant that serves Brazilian BBQ cuisine a special way. They skewer meat on swords and cook it over open fire. Visitors are given tokens that are green on one side and red on the other. As long as your token is facing green up, the server brings one sword at a time to the table, slicing off pieces so you can take the meat with the provided tongs, bringing a new sword with different meat every 5-10 minutes.

If you're a meat fan, it's an awesome dining experience. The meal also comes with rice and black beans and Pao do Queixo (little balls of yummy cheese bread) and various other native foods. We ordered Guarana, a delicious Brazilian soda virtually impossible to find in the US, although one website said there are so many Brazilian immigrants in Florida, you can find the soda at Walmarts, there... yes, we're jealous.

A real treat was our servers. The first guy was one of the co-owners of this fairly new restaurant, who migrated to the US a few years ago. His name is German, pronounced "Herman"... and no, he's not skewering Fred, in the picture. The other server also immigrated from Brazil and seemed very happy to find a patron who could relate with him. Fred had a blast rambling on and on in Portuguese with them, swapping stories about living in Brazil.

Luckily, one website highly recommended something from the dessert menu called the Tres Leches (directly translated, 3 Milks). I would have gone there JUST for that! It was a big piece of white-ish cake that we're guessing was drenched in Dulce de Leche. The creamy frosting-like spread had coarse sugar in it, giving it this great texture. It was the PERFECT wrap-up for an incredible meal.

SO, on the way home we came up with an incentive to get people out here to visit us. The first ones to come out here, we'll treat to this amazing restaurant! You won't be sorry... of course, just seeing us should be enough *wink*