Holidaze

Geezbob, Rui and I went to Lawry's Sunday night to have our traditional Christmas dinner. The earliest reservation we could get was 9 p.m. But since Lawry's has a policy of only taking reservations for half of their tables and holding the other half for walk-ins we decided to meet there at 6 p.m. in hopes of eating much earlier.

That's when we found out Lawry's doesn't hold half the tables for walk-ins anymore. According to the hostess, since their business is down due to the Recession they've been making all of their tables available for reservations. (I wonder if they made this change when they became part of the Open Table reservation system.)

So we waited for an hour and when it was clear we were nowhere near being seated we decided to take action. We crossed La Cienega Boulevard and had dinner at Fogo De Chao, a Brazilian-style Churrascaria directly across the street.

This all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse has a large salad bar and waiters bring different cuts of meat to your table.

I'd been to a Churrascaria in Rio de Janeiro and was anxious to repeat the experience in America. I really enjoyed the one in Ipanema but was a little intimidated by the experience. In Brazil there was a language barrier and I couldn't be sure exactly what kind of meat I was being offered. I liked them all and was worried that one of my "favorites" might turn out to be a critter I'd prefer not to eat.

Well, it turns out the Beverly Hills Churrascaria was so loud, the waiters were so harried and spoke with such an accent I couldn't really tell which meat was what there either.

But it was all good even if it was ridiculously over-priced.