We recently visited the lovely city of Cincinnati, Ohio and had the pleasure of dining at some fabulous restaurants! Our first stop was Boi Na Braza Brazilian Steak House. Since this was our first experience with a Brazilian style steak house, we were pretty excited about this place. If you haven’t experienced this type of restaurant before, servers dressed in authentic Brazilian Gaucho costumes race around the restaurant carrying huge knives and skewers of various kinds of roasted meats. If you are not a meat-lover, you should avoid this place.
Not only can you choose from beef, lamb, pork or chicken, there were also several different cuts of each to choose from. Devote carnivores will be in meat heaven. All the selections had a beautiful crunchy char on the outside, while the meat was tender, juicy and flavourful on the inside. I think we all agreed that we enjoyed the beef the best, specifically the house specialty – Picanha top sirloin. The restaurant also offers a pretty extensive “salad bar” to accompany your meat selection(s). I hesitate to call it a traditional salad bar as the options are fairly interesting and higher-end. From numerous cheeses, to hot sides to various salads and breads, you would not have a hard time finding something to enjoy. I have to admit that we are not a huge fan of salad bar/smorgasbord types of dining. We tend to overeat and generally the quality of the food is not very good. I have to say that Boi Na Braza is different in this regard. Don’t get me wrong – you will still overeat, but the quality of the food is excellent, so you really won’t mind gorging yourself!
There is something about a fine cut of meat cooked to perfection paired with a nice glass of red wine – a match made in heaven! Incidentally, the wine list is pretty decent too. Oh, and the servers were excellent – very friendly and knowledgeable (received some great tips concerning where we could find a great selection of Bengals apparel at even better prices – see post on Paul Brown Stadium). Not too sure we would hit another Brazilian steak house anytime soon (because of the overeating thing). The meal is not cheap – but we were definitely glad to have had the experience.
From a branding standpoint, the customer experience was bang on. From the servers dressed in traditional attire to the decor which features elaborate murals of Brazilian landscapes and the brass and glass you see in finer steakhouses, patrons do feel like they are transported to to a different time and place rather than downtown Cincinnati. And when a dining experience can do that for you, you really feel like your money was well spent. For now, back to the cage.
