As Portuguese, we search for food similar to our culture while sharing the experience with friends. Another Portuguese friend who lives a few blocks away is a regular here and wanted us to experience it as well. In addition, both my husband and our friend are culinary trained chefs. So we aren't your average critic; we're a little bit more picky but we know good food & service when we see it.
When we first walked in, we loved the atmosphere. Great seats, great art.
Atmosphere: Excellent. Great band and great samba dancers. This place we thought it better than the rest in terms of entertainment.
Food: Good. After a round of drinks, we decided to start eating. The salad bar wasn't anything special. Others are definitely much more elaborate and of higher quality. The meats however were fairly good, especially the spicy chicken and the sirloin.
Service. Poor. This is what will stop us from coming back. Our waiter had an attitude from the beginning. He was visibilly annoyed that we had free drink tickets. However, we still ordered ten drinks for four people! And to get those eight drinks was like pulling teeth. Everytime we looked for him, he was hanging out at the bar, coming on to the samba girls, or showing off to himself how he could spin his drink tray like a basketball. We would have stayed to order more drink rounds but didn't want to put up with bad service. So now we had to wait for him to notice us for a check. He brought it by and of course the drink tickets were still on the check. We had to flag him again to get him to correct it. Needless to say, we tipped him 1% of our $225 check. We were really upset with his service.
Our friend will still go back. He said this wasn't typical the times he's been there. And will make sure he's not seated at one of his tables. We told him will pass and have to introduce him to a better quality place (Agorra in Irvine) but warned him there's no entertainment.
Pros: Entertainment
Cons: Waiters are more into the girls and themselves
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