Isabel Larner takes us through the opening night of Viva Brazil, as well as a look at one of their typical evening meals. 

Uma Caipirinha Para Mim; The Opening Night

 

ItÔÇÖs no great secret that Latin America knows how to have a good time. Certainly, that is the image that Brazil has exported over to our chillier corner of the world, where the country conjures images of sun, sexiness and celebration. Whether true or not, Viva Brazil certainly took to these positive associations and imprinted them quite firmly: ÔÇ£Brazil is fun, and so are weÔÇØ. The opening night was an evening of samba, capoeira, skimpily-clad Carnaval girls, free-flowing caipirinha and a lot of good food.

Viva Brazil, already established in Liverpool and Glasgow, is a churrascaria restaurant. The emphasis is on this cooking style, essentially a sort of slow-roasted barbecue. As such, the centre of attention was the array of meats available, cooked and cut in front of us to taste at our leisure. A favourite was the Portuguese sausage: soft, flavourful meat encased in a taut skin ÔÇô crisp but nowhere near burnt. It must be said that, for most of the meats, it was perhaps a matter of taste; they were quite heavily salted, which evoked reactions from uncertainty to great relish between the two of us (I was the former).

Beyond the meats was a selection of canap├®s to prep the palate. Particularly good was the kibe, minced beef rolled with bulgur and chilli, served with mint sauce (which sadly seems to be lacking in their regular restaurant servings). The hint of chilli perfectly tingled the taste buds to receive the taste of the beef, with the sauce soothing any lingering spicyness. Also of note was an interesting take on the traditional recipe of brigadeiro, with coconut and strawberry replacing chocolate powder.

The other centrepiece of the night was the capirinhas, a common accompaniment to churrascaria and the national cocktail of Brazil. The drink itself is not particularly difficult, only consisting of cachaça, sugar and lime muddled together over ice. The secret, then, is in the ingredients and the theatrics of their preparation, on which neither disappointed.

Viva Brazil offered a promising start to its career in Cardiff, with a night full of fun and perhaps a little too much to drink. A few weeks later, once the restaurant had settled itself into its routine, I returned to see what could be expected of a more typical experience.

 

 An Evening Meal With Viva Brazil 

At 7:30pm on a Thursday, the restaurant was unsurprisingly more relaxed than the bustle that accompanied my last visit. Still, for the most part, the staff were on the ball and operated the somewhat unfamiliar service of the restaurant quite well. Viva Brazil, in common churrascaria fashion, functions in the rodízio style, where a variety of meats are brought on the skewer straight to your table. The idea is to sample all the meats they have on offer, and as such you are not supposed to make direct requests, though they were happy to do so in their quieter periods. This is all supplemented by a hot and cold salad buffet, which you are welcome to return to as much as you please.

How this style of service is received is a matter of preference. Personally, I appreciated that you could pace yourself via the use of the coloured card given to each customer, showing the red side to be left alone or the green side to have the waiters approach you. However, this method does also mean that your choices of meat are largely up to whoever approaches you, and this in turn is wholly affected by the number of customers. They endeavour to let you sample all fifteen cuts of meat, yet that reduces your autonomy in your own meal. Perhaps that is no problem if you go in expecting it.

The salad bar was pleasing, with a few welcomed familiar faces in the kibe and pan de quesos (cheese dough balls). The ability to pick and choose your sides over and over, especially when they are all quite tasty, is always something of a relief for someone as indecisive as myself. However, the quality was largely dependent on how soon you manage to get there after it was served.

The fixed price for the meat selection and salad bar was £23.95. This, to me, seemed a little extortionate for a glorified buffet. At that sort of price, I would expect a meal that had been cooked specifically for me, with all the ingredients intimately complementing each other. For a meal that was essentially mass-produced, though still of good quality, the lunchtime price of £13.95 is far more reasonable.