Outfit Post and Food Review: Tucanos

Hey guys!  Kind of a long post today, but I'm doing my first outfit post and food review!

So yesterday, the boyfriend and I went to a new restaurant to celebrate his birthday.  So we got all gussied up and headed out.

How darling is the picnic basket to my left?  Craig's parents got it for us and it has plates, silverware, glasses, and  a cooler.  Can't wait to try it out this summer on the beach!  

Great shot right?  I was lol'ing and falling over at the same time.  Good a lot.

Dress- Thrifted
Shoes- Off Broadway, Old
Necklace and Earrings- Baublebar
Jacket- Thrifted
Clutch- Vintage

 My mom got me this dress at a thrift store near our house and I have to say, I adore it.  I love the cut sleeves, and the faux wrap is such a timeless shape (definitely a wardrobe must).  I also got the pink brocade coat at the same thrift store- both pieces ran me about $10 each.  Can't beat that!  The reason I was laughing was because my boyfriend told me it was a Mary Poppins coat (really babe? Really?).  Think what you want, I love it!  Also, how fab is my necklace?  It reminds me of Anne Boleyn from the Tudors, who I personally think is one of the most fascinating historical figures of all time.  I couldn't find it on the website, but I got it from Baublebar, which is one of my favorite places to get jewelry.  They have some great prices and wonderful pieces. And can we have a moment of silence for this clutch?  It was my grandmother's, and I love it so so much.  Beaded and sequins- what's not to love?  My grandmom obviously had great taste ;)

Anywho, we bopped off to the Newport News location of Tucanos (p.s. the link has music- scared the bejeezus out of me.  I don't do unexpected noises, and even though it was nice quiet music, it still made me jump a lil.  Bet you can imagine the bucket of fun I am in a scary movie. But I'm warning you just in case you're a basketcase like me- us jumpy people gotta stick together!).  For those not in the know, Brazilian steakhouses literally just bring all sorts of different bite sized pieces of meat and veggies around for you to try, which is called churrasco style dining.  You get a little rod (see pics below) that has green on one side and red on the other.  As long as that baby is green, you get unlimited meat and other nummies (i.e. grilled pineapple, aka food of the angels) brought to you in a set order.  And we are talking some good stuff- turkey wrapped in bacon, garlic Parmesan beef, top sirloin, filet minon wrapped in bacon, mango tilapia, and Brazilian sausage just to name a few.

In addition to the unlimited meat supply at Tucanos, you can pay extra for their Salad Festival, which really should be called Festival of Food.  Sure, there are tons of salads, but they also have fried bananas, sushi, soup, cooked veggies, quail eggs, stroganoff, and beans, and like 5 billion other choices (yep, I counted).  Redonkulous.

Salad Festival Plate One

Salad Festival Plate Two

Shrimp Skewer and Meats/ Pineapple.  You can see our little wooden thing that we are still ready to be  a bunch of fattiecakes.

Dessert- raspberry creme, which was fresh raspberry puree and vanilla ice cream.  Wonderful.

  

Craig stayed with just the meat plate and we also each got a shrimp skewer because Tucanos was doing this thing called the Seafood Festival (I'm sensing a theme here) and they were $2 for 6 jumbo shrimps.  Finally, I wanted to be ambitious and get the Salad Festival as well (what can I say?  I'm such a fat kid foodie).

Bad idea.

Please don't take that to mean the Salad Festival was horrible.  Au contraire.  The food was fabulous- everything I tried was fresh and delicious. There was just so much.  For real, everything I had was wonderful, but I left feeling so full.  I don't think my poor belly was prepared for the amount of food I ate.  I went into a hardcore food coma, and ended up in bed by like 9:30. So be warned- go when you haven't eaten all day.  You need to create some stomach real estate for the amount of food you're gonna be putting in there.  And don't plan anything hard core after cause all you're gonna want to do is to slip into a food nirvana coma and think about all the wonderful things you ate.

Service- 4.5 out of 5- We had a reservation, but they were so packed it took about 30 minutes for us to get seated.  Our reservation was at 5:00 too, so it was pretty early.  Once we got seated however, the service was fabulous, and we got food almost non-stop.  I also appreciated the fact that our servers asked what temperature we wanted our meat, and actually remembered that fact throughout the night, even though that place was packed.  Also, they asked us for any special requests and would bring us whatever we wanted when we asked, so we didn't have to wait for it to come up again on the rotating set order.  Awesome.

Food/Drink Selection- 5 out of 5- As I said, there was almost too much selection at this place.  They had a ton of just about everything and wonderful dessert and appetizer menus, as well as specialty skewers you could add on.  I couldn't eat most of it (lots of cakes, and I'm g-free, and they were out of the creme brulee D:), but the fruit creme we had was awesome sauce.  BTW, if raspberry isn't your thing, they make it from any of their fresh fruit puree.  Finally, we stuck with waters, but their drink menu was in-sane, and I saw someone drinking a beverage out of a pineapple.  Like, a whole pineapple.  I can't wait to go back to get some of their signature beverages!

Value-5out of 5- for both of us, with 2 unlimited meat services, 1 salad festival, 2 shrimp skewers, and 1 dessert, it was about $60.  That's crazy good for everything we got!  I think this is a fabulous value for the amount and quality of the food we got, and I would say we definitely got our money's worth. 

Overall Rating- 4.83  I would definitely recommend this restaurant if you live near one of the locations (currently Albuquerque, Boise, Colorado Springs, Newport News, Provo, Salt Lake City, and St. Charles).  The selection and service were fabulous, and the price for what you got was crazy good. Just be sure to make a reservation (I would recommend early), and don't eat for like a week before you go!

Have you ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse?  What did you think?

~K