Two-minute Review: Rodizio Brazilian Grill

Gorge yourself. Go ahead. Do it. That’s kind of the point here, right? The first thing your server will tell you when you get to Rodizio Brazilian Grill is that you are supposed to taste everything they offer. And when those offerings include more than a dozen salad-type dishes, soup, cheesy biscuits, roasted potatoes, sweet potato fries, dessert and 15 different kinds of meat (brought to your table on giant skewers), all for a fixed price of $21 per person, there’s really no option other than to gorge yourself. Take it from us, it kind of hurts. But it hurts so good.

At Rodizio (3371 E. Montclair St., 417-881-8882), you pay a set price to eat pretty much whatever you want. As Evan Fisk put it, “It’s like Golden Corral, only nice.” We started with a beef vegetable soup and cheese-herb biscuits before they let us loose onto the cold bar. There we found everything from the pot luck-esque mayo-based things like broccoli salad to pasta dishes, like the one I had with a light white sauce, artichokes and green olives.

The stars of the show here, though, are the slow-roasted meats. Once you’re finished with the cold bar, you turn the little wooden coaster on your table from red to green (indicating to the chefs who are bringing around the meat that you’re ready for them). One-by-one, the meat arrives. We tried 13 different meats before we couldn’t take it anymore. My favorite was the Kansas City strip steak, but Evan really liked the bacon-wrapped filet mignon. Most of the selections were beef, including a Brazilian meat loaf delivered by a hilarious singing chef. There was also chicken, a spicy sea bass, pork loin and even lamb. The goal is to taste everything, so we didn’t clean our plates. I don’t think it’s even possible to do so. We just tried a bite of each thing and then moved on. Everything was incredibly tender. If the cold bar doesn’t impress you (and it might not), just wait for the main course. They serve it all with sweet potato fries and a spicy-herby marinade to add to the meat.

A little warning: Desserts are not included in the price of your dinner. No one told us otherwise, and we nabbed chocolate cream pie and lemon meringue pie without realizing they were extra. It was worth it, though. The chocolate cream melted in your mouth. (So if eating 15 kinds of meat made your chompers tired, you can still gorge yourself a little more without even having to chew!)