My God, it's full of meat!

A couple years or so ago, I was watching The Travel Channel when some show about eating insane amounts of meat came on. 

I didn't pay much attention, in my limited experience such places put way more emphasis on quantity than quality. 

But then, they started talking about a Brazilian steakhouse, one where giant skewers of meat are brought to and carved at your table. And they don't stop until you put up a red light/sign. My eyes glazed over as I tried to come up with a business reason to make a trip to wherever this Mecca of Meat was. I may have drooled. 

My wife recognized the expression on my face and assured me it would only be a matter of time before such an establishment opened in Bellevue.

That time came a few months ago. Novilhos Steakhouse opened next to the Factoria Mall in Bellevue.

Various things came up that delayed our trip there. But then we received a $25 gift certificate and decided to go and protein-load. 

Our first mistake was arriving too late for lunch on Saturday. They close from 2:00 to 4:30. So, we decided to burn off some calories in advance and wheeled over to the mall proper.

After 2 hours of "malling" we were more than ready to settle down for some meat.

Accessibility was average. There was ample space for my chair, but the ramp was very steep. The placement of items in the salad bar was a little high, it was hard to see what was being offered.

Speaking of the salad bar, that was impressive...and disappointing, I was impressed by the quality and variety of many items, but some of the more mundane items, like potato salad, were really awful.

As soon as we turned our signs to green, the Gauchos began to arrive with meat-a-plenty. The first offering was prime rib and it was perfect - fork tender and juicy. Subsequent servings were less desirable. The bacon-wrapped filet Mignon was tough and dry as was the chicken breast. The pork sausage was amazing, but the pork ribs were almost inedible.

The sides - deep-fried plantain chips, roasted bananas and mashed potatoes were all quite good. 

We each had a glass of wine, a cup of coffee and shared a lovely mango pudding.

It was a good experience, some of the food was good, but this was not a good value for $150.00