LEBLON CHURRASCARIA

Gaucho Debbie poses at the campfire at Leblon Churrascaria.

In a galaxy far, far away in a time long. long ago, Reidsville was once the home of a churrascaria.  It was so long ago that I can't remember the name.

We ate there and enjoyed it.  We even produced a video program about it and showed it on TV.  But, it was a place that did not fit well into Reidsville's mandatory theme of pizza joints, Chinese restaurants, and greasy biscuits diners.  It did not last long.

Reidsville's churrascaria was located in the old Hardee's burger place in front of Pennrose Mall.  It's now some sort of Chinese/Japanese/Asian express restaurant.

A churrascaria is a Brazilian barbecue restaurant.  There typically is no menu.  It's a fixed price.  You go in, sit down, they bring plates, and then begin serving a wide selection of meats.  The meats are cooked over an open fire on long steel skewers.  There is a salad bar in case you're a vegetarian or can only handle a certain amount of flesh.

A tiger or lion would be very happy at a churrascaria, maybe a cow not quite so much.  A cow might very well find itself stuck on a skewer.

Each diner is given a token.  It's green on one side and red on the other.  Green side up means bring more meat, red means stop the assault.  

The closet churrascaria is at 106 S. Holden Road in Greensboro.  It is called Leblon Steakhouse.

As we quickly learned at Leblon, turning your token red side up seemed to have little to no effect on the servers.  A full plate, a full stomach, a red token - nothing could stop the flow of meat coming to our table.  We had to beg for relief.

Here is a long shot of part of the salad bar.  As you will see this is only a small portion of the bar.

This flounder dish is considered part of the salad bar.  It was flounder wrapped in spinach and doused with Parmesan cheese.  I discovered this dish was quite good.  There were two other large bowels.  One contained black beans and I don't remember what the third one contained.

Here's another section of the "salad" bar.  On the left is sliced Salami, in the center is Reidsville oysters (more correctly called mussels) and on the right some sort of shrimp.  It didn't try the Salami or the "oysters", but the shrimp had been marinated in a spicy (not a hot sauce) sauce.  The shrimp were excellent.  I had two large servings along with really good macaroni, potato salad, and pieces of roasted potatoes.   Everything I tried had a unique flavor.  I'll call it a Brazilian touch.

Here's what a woman's plate looks like after a visit to the Leblon salad bar.

Here's what my plate looked like after the first visit to the salad bar.  The shrimp are obvious.  The potato salad and macaroni are the top and piece of roasted potato at the bottom.  My second trip to the bar filled my plate with more shrimp, the flounder, and a little macaroni.

And, yes, there was lettuce on the salad bar and maybe even some croutons and dressings.  But, the plates were on one end of the bar and the lettuce was all the way on the opposite end.  It was an arrangement that did not encourage you to make a salad with a lettuce base.

This odd looking little tidbit is bread with a handle.  We were brought a small basket of bread.  I liked the little handles.  Again it was something with a unique flavor and texture.  I ate several of the little bites.

I believe the meat assault started with a leg of lamb.  Here the server begins slicing.  He would cut a slice almost all the way down and then we had to grab the slice off the leg with a small pair of tongs that each person was given.  You can see the tongs below.

I think this is a rack of pork ribs.  Debbie was not impressed with the pork ribs, but I liked them.

We were told there were 11 different meats being served.  They were coming so fast I was only able to grab a few photos.

I don't believe many of the meats were top grade.  There was a lot of meat, but not the best quality. I used the word "chewy" several times to describe the different meats.  Don't get me wrong, some of the meats were very good.

Either way, the experience of drowning in meat was pleasurable.

The glass at the right contains Raymond Cabernet.  Of course, it was Debbie's glass.  There was an extra charge for the wine.  I drank water.

On the way out of the restaurant I noticed a large glass case of the wines offered by Leblon.  Some of them were quite impressive and probably priced quite impressively.

Here's Debbie's meat plate.  I'm guessing she has about six different kinds of meat on the plate in this shot.  The red meat at the bottom was Prime Rib.   On the lower right side of the photo is a small bowl of yellow sauce.  It had a bit of a kick, but was good on the red meat.

I remember being very excited about trying the Prime Rib.  Unfortunately, it was one of the meats I described as "chewy".

I would say the Bacon Wrapped Chicken was the best of all the meats offered.  Anything wrapped in bacon is better.

Note the meats shown on the online menu are not necessarily what you will be served.  You'll get plenty of meat, but don't go expecting to try Sasichao Pork Sausage.  It might not be served on your visit.

Here's a shot of fried bananas we were served.  I was not impressed with the fried bananas.  The inside was very mushy.  Debbie said the bananas were "overripe".  I don't think the problem was "overripe".  The problem was frying the banana when it wasn't "Bananas Foster" with rum.

The tongs on top of the fried bananas are what we used to peel the meat as the server sliced it from the skewer.

We were also served a small plate of garlic mashed potato and mashed sweet potato.

Here's the dessert selection.  There were a couple of kinds of cheesecake, chocolate cake, a three-layered something, and Tiramisu.   We were tempted by the three-layered something, but went otherwise

We split a Tiramisu.  It was very good.  There was an extra charge for dessert.

The total charge for the evening was about $95, including tip. for two people.  Be sure to check at the Leblon website for discount coupons. And, be sure to check your bill before you pay - we found a $2.75 charge for a Guarana soda.  We never ordered or received a Guarana soda.

We ate on a Sunday evening at 6:30 PM in relative quiet.  By 7:30 PM the place was starting to jam.   I recommend you make a reservation online.

Click images to enlarge.