Posts Tagged ‘fazenda’

In April, my parents retired. Typically, you think of this as the period of your life when you have lots of free time. But that does not last long. Soon you have filled it up with so much stuff that you have no idea how you ever managed to fit a job in.

Which is why, two months later, we were still trying to find a weekend when we could all go out for a surprise trip to Fazenda to celebrate my dad’s birthday.

It had to a lunch time as they don’t allow children after 6 pm. That sucks because it is way better on an evening. However, the experience child-wise was kick ass. The high chair was already set out when we arrived and Venla got her own plastic plate, cutlery set and breaker. Hats off to them they have it down: and it’s free for under 5s!

Afterwards, we headed over to the Golf Bar and played some golf.

It’s a lot of fun. It does feel like real golf: the clubs feel a bit light but other than that you are really hitting a ball with real clubs. It’s £40 per hour which is a little steep, but not too bad when split between a group of you.

Last Friday, we headed to Fazenda for lunch.

I’ve never had the lunch time menu before, though I knew to expect a very much cut down version of what they served in the evening. Overall, I thought it was quite disappointing though. Most of the options were not available on the lunch time – indeed, the only steak cut available seemed to be rump, although there might have been sirloin – but nothing beyond that. I was expecting the fancy stuff to be reserved for the evening session, but I was hoping there would at least be some good choice of standard steak cuts. Apparently not.

Having hit Fazenda last month, and then again a few weeks ago, I took one more trip there recently, to celebrate Jonni’s birthday.

As usual, they delivered some good meat, though with us being there on a Tuesday, they seem to suffer from a lack of turn over, as the meat was often slow coming. This was a little disappointing, though ultimately we ate to bursting point, so we didn’t have any less food.

We also got a free cocktail for checking in – they weren’t shy with the alcohol either.

I think it clearly has a critical mass point though, so if you’re going to go, I would recommend going on a Saturday evening when there are plenty of people and plenty of meat coming round.

On Sunday, my sister was in town so we headed down to Fazenda for a family meal.

Fazenda is a Brazilian meat restaurant where you get a plate and help yourself to the salad bar, then they just come round with big slabs of meat and carve a slice off onto your plate. There are lots of different ones including beef, pork and chicken and you have a traffic light card with you turn to green when you want meat and red when you don’t.

Sounds good, but to be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed.

The food itself was good quality but as it’s all from large cuts you have to take it as you get it, whereas obviously when eating at a steak restaurant you can have it cooked to your liking. Also, the traffic light cards seem somewhat redundant as they just tend to ask you every time they come round.

Not that I didn’t enjoy it, it was excellent, but I wouldn’t say it was as good as say Blackhouse, and is similarly priced.