FOGO DE CHAO

The most I'll say about Fogo is that you're going here for volume.  There's no chef in the kitchen, no matter how proficient the cooks.  My tablemate that evening has some cred as a professional eater.... think Joey Chestnut, not Frank Bruni.  Thus, he was the perfect companion for a restaurant like this.  Here, nothing was necessarily bad, somethings were kind of lazily scrumptious, but mostly you're just going to get full.  And it's not cheap, so come legit hungry and choose your bites with discretion.

The dining room is huge.  You enter at ground level, check in, and a waiter will usher you down the staircase into a vast, somewhat generic but nicely lit dining room.  The salad bar anchors the back end of the room, filled with a grid of tables and perambulating servers, bussing, seating, and serving food.













Going the salad-bar-only option could leave you drooling over the skewered meats as they waltz thorough the dining room, but none of them actually really live up to the anticipation.  You can forego the meat parade and save $30, but then again, that's kind of the point of going here.  But if it's not, you can totally satisfy your hunger with the Market Table.  It's not vegetarian, although you could choosily fulfill that dietary restriction if need be.    If you ARE vegetarian and so inclined, there is a Cauliflower Steak
 one can order, but it's not very good, and while not as heavily breaded as it appears in the photo, it still had too crumby of an overcoat, that didn't really add anything but grit.  Served with a quinoa pilaf, it wasn't anything offered at the Market Table, but still seemed somehow redundant.  There's no reason to get it what with similar offerings "free" from the salad bar. There's not a whole lot of finesse going on anywhere in the joint, but there are some pleasantly yummy tidbits.

It is sporadically labeled, and while some of the options that are more obvious and need no description, other ones, even without dietary constraints, could use some signage.  The soupy feijoada ladled over fluffy white rice (or broccoli, or roasted zucchini, or shoveled up with the tender little cheese buns served at the table) was probably the tastiest thing of the night.  My tablemate adored the sweet and spicy bacon served as a topping (I think) for that, but I found it cloying.  There mayonnaisey salads and more identifiable ones, but a severe lack of signage makes a lot of the options kind of choose-your-own-adventure.  What turned out to be a Waldorf looked to my companion at first to be a chicken salad, so take a second analyses before loading up your plate too much.   That said, your plate could look like this:

Or more like this:

depending on your predilection for greenery or charcuterie, or whatever your tastes may be.


The only meat I really enjoyed was the garlic sirloin and the filet mignon, both tender, lean and beefy, but the other options were pretty much just beef, neither here nor there.  One thing that is really nice is being able to choose the precise level of doneness that most appeals to you, with zero judgment from a scowling waiter at a fancy place that looks down his nose at you when you ask for medium-well (not that the disdain affects me. I'll eat the steak as I please, thank you, and if you want to pooh-pooh me, well, so be it). The sausages were pretty lackluster, not assertively seasoned enough, but nicely textured and not greasy.  They could've used a lot more oomph, however.   Tables are bequeathed a bowl of leaden mashed potatoes to avoid, but also some scrumptious,
 warm cheese breads.... authentic or not, I know not, but they are tasty.  

Since we were there, we opted for a dessert, but weirdly enough all the sweets were pretty much totally generic American/continental desserts..... cheesecake, key lime pie, molten chocolate cake, creme brûlée.  The only even remotely South American options were a Brazilian flan (not sure what made it Brazilian)  and the one we lose, a papaya cream, which
 turned out to be soupy vanilla soft serve blended with a mild papaya just enough to turn it orange but not enough to really give it much papaya flavor.  Topped with an pleasantly bitter cassis liqueur, about half of it remained uneaten, even between the two of us.  Not that is was that big, either, is was just..... not good.

And all that said, it's kind of a fun affair.  For me, most certainly for the novelty of the experience rather than anything, food or abundance. If the quality was better (impossible given the volume-eaters that are their customer base), I could see it through rosier glasses.  Although once in a blue moon, I end up ravenous at the Whole Foods salad bar and tip the scales to a wallet-popping total, so if you went for the Market Table only and really filled up, it could almost be a better value.  But really, that's not Fogo's point, so save it for any carnivorous tourists you might need to provide sustenance for.... here, or at one of their other 57 locations......

 40 West 53rd Street 
tel.  (212)969-9980

NY 10019 

+12129699980

WORTHWILD

Worthwild bills itself a destination for adventurists and undeniably the proprietors don't just talk the talk; they're triathlete- and ironman-types, and one of them is actually endeavoring to paddle across the ATLANTIC OCEAN in a 20 foot rowboat come springtime.  As wild as that is, however, the restaurant itself is pretty contained, although super cozy and comfortable; think of it more as fuel for the adventure and a haven thereafter, rather than the adventure itself.

We started off with some absolutely great roasted shisito peppers, their blistery skins dusted with crystalline flakes of salt for crunch, and espelette for some added punch.  Potted crab would have been my second choice, scented with lemon and served with toast, but I had decided on scallops for my entree so held off on doubling-down on the seafood and went for the veg, and happily so. Not that things from the garden are scarce here- there are leeks vinaigrette, two lovely salads and by far my favorite thing of the night, a grilled artichoke, simply split and assertively charred, softening the tough petals into potato chip-like
 crisps.  I pretty much look forward to artichokes in any form, but these were stellar.



They also seemed like they would go along nicely with the baked scallops and mushrooms I chose for my entree, but it was a little less successful.  Both the mollusks and the mushrooms were underdone, the dish arrived barely-warm and more than barely under seasoned.  It was doubly disappointing in a dish that read  from the menu as kind of a decadent splurgey kind of thing, with its creamy, casserole-esque format, but came off sort of insipidly timid.  Fully cooking it and maintaining the serving temperature would've cured this- a problem of execution not conception.






Roasted duck was a nice, wintery dish, served with a buttery mash of sweet potatoes plonked with tangy huckleberries, its skin wonderfully crispy and meat fall-off-the-bone juicy and tender.   Lacking in a real vegetable component
, my tablemate supplemented this with a creamy Swiss chard gratin, lightly gratinéed, but rich enough to counter the earthiness of the chard.



Desserts are nostalgic, inspired by a grade-school birthday party kind of yummy, think birthday cake o' the day (sic), a campfire sundae (s'mores?) and "warm hot sweet thangs", which I'm imagining were doughnuts and perhaps a molten caramel sauce or hot fudge.  A nice homey cobbler would've been a welcome addition to the starchier roster currently on hand.  I prefer fruit desserts, and I really wanted to linger in the cabin-like space, what with the icy clear winter night just outside the glass French doors that open onto a small patio behind the dining room.  A small fir twinkled with Christmas lights out there, echoing the festively decorated room and really comfortable, convivial atmosphere of the restaurant.   The room made me wish the dessert options were more appealing, and frankly, that the food had been overall better.  But Worthwild is still worthy a visit, perhaps even repeat ones, given its neighborhoodiness and relaxed, welcoming vibe. Some minor tweaks to improve the food could make it even more worthy your while.

156 9th Avenue
(718) 942-9385