{"id":10470,"date":"2011-08-15T00:14:41","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T05:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/?p=10470"},"modified":"2011-08-15T00:27:14","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T05:27:14","slug":"a-critical-review-of-my-salad-bar-plate-at-texas-de-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/15\/a-critical-review-of-my-salad-bar-plate-at-texas-de-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"A critical review of my salad bar plate at Texas de Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I met a group of friends at Texas de Brazil for Sunday brunch. Earlier this year I bought a VIP card, entitling me and my friends to 12 half-off dinners (or brunches), not valid Friday and Saturday night and holidays. I was getting worried the expiration date (9\/29\/11) would hit before I got to use any of my 12 stamps, but today we got a group in there. Sunday brunch is similar to dinner at TdB, except there are a couple less meats, and the salad bar has brunch items. In particular, it had bacon, eggs, sausage, and au gratin potatoes. Here&#8217;s a pic of my salad plate. I want to do a critical review of what I did right and wrong at TdB today. I&#8217;ve been there a number of times, and every time I learn more what works and what doesn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/tdb_saladbar.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-10471\" title=\"tdb_saladbar\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/tdb_saladbar.jpg?resize=375%2C500\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/tdb_saladbar.jpg?resize=375%2C500 375w, http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/tdb_saladbar.jpg?resize=225%2C300 225w, http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/tdb_saladbar.jpg?resize=112%2C150 112w, http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/tdb_saladbar.jpg?resize=400%2C533 400w, http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/tdb_saladbar.jpg?w=1600 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 375px) 85vw, 375px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What I did right:<\/p>\n<p>1) Unlimited mimosa: For $3 more you can get unlimited mimosas (champagne + orange juice). Normally they serve them in champagne flutes, but the servers recognized us and just went with the wine glasses. They knew if they didn&#8217;t, they&#8217;d be refilling us constantly. I think I had 7 wine glasses of mimosa for 3 bucks. Can&#8217;t beat that.<\/p>\n<p>2) Bacon. Clearly bacon is the centerpiece of the plate pictured above. My only regret is that I should have taken one more piece. Maybe two more.<\/p>\n<p>3) Au gratin potatoes. These are the best potatoes in the world. If I had a constant stream of these potatoes for free I would wear an &#8220;I \u2665 Cubicles&#8221; shirt. I would go to karaoke at the Monkey. I would cheer for Bruce Pearl. I would move to Cordov&#8230; well, let&#8217;s not go that far. I do love these potatoes, though, and the au gratin sauce is excellent for dipping the bacon.<\/p>\n<p>4) Lobster bisque. Pictured at top. Also excellent for dipping the bacon, the cheeses, and pretty much everything.<\/p>\n<p>5) The jalapeno. You&#8217;ve always got to get one jalapeno. This is a roll of the dice. Maybe it&#8217;s hot, maybe it&#8217;s not. You can eat it with your fingers or fork and knife. Either way is fine.<\/p>\n<p>6) I didn&#8217;t waste any plate space on salad. Yes, they have it, lettuce, croutons, dressing and all that. It&#8217;s a waste of valuable plate real estate. Skip it and leave room for more worthy choices, like more bacon.<\/p>\n<p>7) Chocolate mousse (not shown). Get a BIG bowl of this after you get done with the meats. Sometimes they have fruit salad instead; recommendation still stands.<\/p>\n<p>What I did wrong:<\/p>\n<p>1) Mozzarella ball. Should&#8217;ve gotten two.<\/p>\n<p>2) Didn&#8217;t get asparagus, which was on the salad bar. Helps you metabolize alcohol faster. Given that I had ~7 mimosas, I needed asparagus.<\/p>\n<p>3) The sausage. This was a &#8220;banger&#8221; as the Irish call it. Not bad but I would have done better to skip it and get another piece of bacon instead.<\/p>\n<p>4) A few more shrimp than I needed. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, the sauteed shrimp on the salad bar are top-notch. If I&#8217;d gotten three less, though, there would&#8217;ve been room for another piece of bacon.<\/p>\n<p>After I finished my salad bar plate, I turned my indicator green and the servers started coming around with meat. Recommendation here: The house sirloin. Try everything once, but try the house sirloin, or picanha as they call it in Brazil, two or three times. I didn&#8217;t take pics of the meat, because meat isn&#8217;t that pretty.<\/p>\n<p>As always, an unforgettable meal. It&#8217;s not an every-week thing, but if you haven&#8217;t been to TdB for brunch, you need to go at least once. I tweeted that I&#8217;m going to form a band called the Meatles and sing about their meats. The restaurant retweeted it. That made me happy.<\/p>\n<p>Only downside is that I got in trouble with the Saucer waitresses, who follow me on Twitter. They knew I was there and were very displeased that I didn&#8217;t bring leftovers.<\/p>\n<p>A second recommendation: If you normally order meat medium well or well done, consider backing it up to medium rare or at least medium. It&#8217;s all you can eat, so if you don&#8217;t like it, just ask for a clean plate. If you give it a chance, I think you&#8217;ll find medium rare\/medium has a lot more flavor than medium well\/well done.<\/p>\n<p>Pretty much a perfect Sunday Fun Day. Next Sunday will be nothing like it, but will be close to perfect too, because it will be Bardog&#8217;s 3rd birthday alley party.<\/p>\n<p>(Edited to add: A couple of people ordered dessert. My friend Moody&#8217;s cheesecake arrived while she was outside smoking, and I snapped a pic.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0206.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-10474\" title=\"IMG_0206\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0206.jpg?resize=375%2C500\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0206.jpg?resize=375%2C500 375w, http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0206.jpg?resize=225%2C300 225w, http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0206.jpg?resize=112%2C150 112w, http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0206.jpg?resize=400%2C533 400w, http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0206.jpg?w=1200 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 375px) 85vw, 375px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I met a group of friends at Texas de Brazil for Sunday brunch. Earlier this year I bought a VIP card, entitling me and my friends to 12 half-off dinners (or brunches), not valid Friday and Saturday night and holidays. I was getting worried the expiration date (9\/29\/11) would hit before I got to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/15\/a-critical-review-of-my-salad-bar-plate-at-texas-de-brazil\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A critical review of my salad bar plate at Texas de Brazil&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10470"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10470"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10475,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10470\/revisions\/10475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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