Saturday, October 11, 2008

Brazilian food orgy

Last night a friend and I had dinner at "Cena," a Brazilian churrasceria (sp?) at the Dayton Mall; given the restaurant name is Latin for dinner, and the style of serving food was--according to the menu--Roman style, and the objective of eating as much as possible was facilitated, then "food orgy" is certainly apt. (Hint: "orgy" can be used more broadly than you may think.)

Here's the set-up: the restaurant has three options on the menu: you can have the full "feast" which involves both a buffet table with lots of fillers but also some tasty delicacies, plus the roving waiters carrying skewers of varieties of roasted meat, from which they will carve you a chunk and move on. They roam around all night, and you can have as much of all this as you want. Option two is the buffet without the roving meat-bearers visiting you; option three is to order from a menu of "tapas," which were various small plates of various appetizers--I imagine one could easily make a meal of two or three of them.

I have not a clue about any of the tapas because I came for the roving meat-a-thon. It was all very tasty, but I confess I was a bit queasy this morning! (Now, I am sure you are wondering, "but father, but father! It was Friday, what about penance?" In fact, I did do penance yesterday of a different sort, precisely because of these plans.)

The restaurant is very nice, the meal was a bit pricey, although not surprising given the circumstances; unfortunately, it was not crowded. I always want new businesses to do well.

And I will say, cryptically, I had an ulterior motive in this post--I wonder if you can figure out what it is?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are trying to bring in Brazillians who are searching, via the internet, for orgies, to your site so you can help them?

Or are you going to be talking about "feasting" in your homily tomorrow?

Or are you wanting the google search to be unique, only one for "Fox Brazillian Orgy"?

What did I loose, cause I know I didn't win!

matt said...

I think his post is related to the readings for this Sunday's Mass. The Gospel is from Matthew Chapter 22. Jesus speaks and uses an analogy of The Kingdom of God compared to a huge wedding feast.

I've never eaten at the restaurant that Father referenced to in his post- I wonder if it's relatively new because I don't remember it being at the Dayton Mall when I last visited, but perhaps I never paid attention to it.

Fr Martin Fox said...

Opey:

I'll wait until the comments peter out before I answer...who knows, two posts may be it! But we'll see...please check back!

mamacantrix said...

Well, Father, at least your alibi is safe. Incidentally, Cena has been there for a couple of years. I was surprised to find it so empty, too, but maybe we were a bit past the dinner hour?

I wouldn't say I was queasy this morning, but certainly not as light on my feet at the zoo with the kiddies as I might have been! But, best girlfriends only celebrate their las piercian birthdays once, so....

Rafael Cresci said...

Father,

No one ever eats the buffet at a "churrascaria" (churrasco = barbecue), here in Brazil. Normally it is "poisoned" so you can get out of there as quickly as possible, paying the bill and eating as few as possible. Same for the chicken's seasonings and for the fried cheese, all made so you can feel satisfied earlier than expected.

"Tapas" are a spanish word, in portuguese they are "Petiscos". You get then normally for company to drinking beer.

Don't know how pricing is there in Texas, in Brazil it goes from (all US Dollars figures) $7 to an average $15, and going to $30-40 for the luxury ones (mostly for tourists). The drinks are the ones that cost absurdly. Alternatively to the all-you-can-eat roving ("rodízio") ones, you have those where you pay-per-weight, i.e., you fill the plate with what you want, and later set it on the scale to price it.

Maybe your ulterior motive is a comparison between catholics and protestants and pick-what-pleases-you religions by using a metaphor?

Kasia said...

Other readers are far deeper than I. I simply assumed you meant to encourage your readers to visit the restaurant!

Fr Martin Fox said...

Kasia:

I am even more shallow: I figured "Brazilian Food Orgy" would both spark readership of the post, and a higher hit rate from Internet searches!

Anonymous said...

So what next in the shameless hit count game, Padre?

An account of your SEXagenarian parishioners? Your French holiday, at BREAST in BRITNEY? Definitive PROOF that "OBAMA IS A MUSLIM TERRORIST" is false?

The possibilities are endless.

Anonymous said...

!!

Anonymous said...

I figured your ulterior motive was that not many people knew we are still supposed to abstain from meat every Friday or do an alternate pennance, so you wanted someone to ask.

Marie