Austin Food Data Bank

It is definitely cool that there is at least one Brazilian restaurant in town, namely Sao Paulo's. This place used to be called Sampaio's, and they're opening up a new Sampaio's-named place on Burnet. FYI, the number to Sao Paulo's is 512-479-9988.

Since I was born to Brazilian parents, I'm guessing I'm supposed to be a fine critic of Brazilian food. Unfortunately, I haven't eaten a whole lot of it in years, even from my mom, since most of the real stuff has meat. For example, the "national dish" of Brazil, called Feijoada, usually contains pork (if not, then beef). So in a way, I'm a novice, at least since I went vegetarian. Please keep this in mind.

When this place opened, under its old name, I freaked out; it was advertising itself as "Brazilian & Tex-mex", AND they didn't even get the Brazilian flag right on their sign. This was all very scary. I took my parents there. It was all very scary to them, too. I suppose I can empathize with the whole "tex-mex is an option" thing, especially since the place is so near to UT, but I don't see El Salvadorian or Columbian restaurants in town adding "and tex-mex" to their taglines. Also.. this place oozes weirdness anyway, because it's kind of "upscale" in service and price, yet it's adjacent to a convenience store, which is itself adjacent to a sportsbar (Posse's, one of my favorite locations). There are college students everywhere around here, all the time. Like 24 hours a day.

My parents' verdict? All they liked was talking to the owner in Portuguese. I have to say that's my verdict, too, after going there maybe 4 times now. There are about 3 or 4 vegetarian options, but only one of them seems to be a sufficient meal (the Palmito ao Forno, because it contains lots of cheese). My latest visit was around Labor Day weekend. Here's the data I have....

ENTREES:

Palmito ao Forno: "Huh?", in Portuguese, is what my mom said when I told her about this dish. Ok.. I didn't think it was too bad, but it's basically a consolation prize for the vegetarians. A layer of decent white cheese on top of a mixture of vegetables... mostly green beans and hearts of palm. It was a bit too salty. My friend ordered the same thing and privately confided to me later that day that she "absolutely hated it". It came with breaded, fried banana slices, with some kind of sweet dip. I thought those were ok. I believe the same friend "absolutely hated" these, as well.

Veggie Sandwich: Ok... er.. This might no longer be on the menu, actually. I had it a couple of years ago. It was pretty good... but definitely not a complete meal. My memory suddenly runs thin.

Bobo de Camarao: This being a shrimp dish, I haven't tried it. My mom ordered it once though, and decided it was pretty authentic, but almost spat it out. A friend of mine ordered the same thing two weeks and was absoltely unimpressed. Shortly after, he said something to the effect of "You know, the food here isn't really very good."

Chicken Milanesa: Another friend ordered this the other day, and seemed to be very happy.. I think I almost heard him yelp with excitement. To put it in perspective, my dog never yelps ... even with excitement.

APPETIZERS:

Fried Yuca: My mom's fried yuca is spectacular. The fried yuca at Sao Paolo's? Give me a break. They're okay, but I'll take fries next door from Posse's over these any day.. And for half the price. Maybe they'd be interesting if you're trying fried yuca for the first time. It's basically like french fries... except a bit different.

Pao de Quejo: This translates literally into "cheese bread". It's essentially little balls of bread where cheese is smoothly, uniformly part of the dough. Pretty good stuff, even here at Sao Paolo's. This is the best item at this restaurant. Little balls of bread.

Nachos: I guess this is one of those tex-mex items.. with a "twist" (!!!). That twist is apparently using wheat chips instead of tortilla chips. That's it. That's the twist. Is this review almost over yet? I think it is.

DRINKS:

Mojito: Whatever. The one at Saba Blue Water Cafe is much, much better.

Caipirinha: The latest one I had here was fine, though not as good as my dad's. The first one I had here? UGH! I think maybe they changed the recipe....

Passion Fruit Juice: The same friend to declared the Palmito ao Forno to be the enemy, liked this drink. The waiter said it was not freshly-squeezed, but.. it was still pretty good. How often do you see passion fruit juice?

That's it. Besides the nachos, I haven't tried the tex-mex stuff. I mean, if I wanted to, I would rather be at, say, any tex-mex place in Austin. The atmosphere is cool, though the look they're going for is probably spoiled if you look outside. Also, they had a jazz band playing during my most recent visit. Then there was the quirky waiter. It's a locally-owned place, which is cool, blah blah blah. Maybe having more decent food would help. Or at least slash the prices by 70%. Make it a food clearance sale, all the time. This message goes out to the new location: please improve on the first one.