When you walk in, you typically get a piece of paper or a card that you keep with you. Then you grab a plate and help yourself to their offerings. At the end, it gets weighed and marked on your card or chit. I've heard it compared to the food / salad bar at Whole Foods. It's similar to that in concept, but very different.
Most places have a salad type area with different lettuces, cold vegetable salads, cheeses, meats, fruit, and sometimes sushi. Then there is the starch area with pastas, potatoes (boiled, mashed, etc.), maxaceira (another starchy vegetable), different rices and farofa. There's also the grill station with chicken, beef, sausage and other specialty meats (chicken hearts are very popular here). There's the caldo (soups) section and then the prepared hot entree part with moqueca (Brazilian fish stew), various beans, meat stews, lasagnas, fried plantains, and on and on. It's quite an experience.
One of my favorite places is Cafe Supremo.
Their food is really good and their hot entree section always has a theme and it's very good. Once it was a variety of fish stews with the bean, rice and farofa dishes that go with, another day it was goat. But on Friday - it's feijoada.
Feijoada is a very traditional Brazilian dish. You'll often find it at Brazilian restaurants in the US. The style of dish is found in many cultures. It's a stew with beans and different types of meat - usually beef, chicken and sausage. It's often served with rice, greens, sliced orange segments and farofa.
Cafe Suprema not only does an excellent feijoada, but when they serve it, the separate out the components so you can get the mix you'd like. There's a bowl of just beans, and then a stew of one cut of beef, then a stew of another cut of beef, then chicken, sausage and so on. It's just magnificent. They also have various sauces and relishes to go with it.
You can see why we look forward to Feijoada Friday!
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