Here’s a little story of two people who met in law school, lived together, ended up working downtown in the same building, and explored downtown san diego to the extreme.

One of our favorite spots to hit ( and mind you this was 20 something years ago) was re do gado. One of our friends introduced us to this brazilian steakhouse… and let me tell you our mind was blown.

There’s an all you can eat salad/side bar. And you literally flip a button from red to green to starts the meats a flowing.

And I’m not kidding.

Servers bring skewers of meat to you, and slice them off, directly onto your plate.

Just say the word meat… and that meat, is most definitely on the list of what you are getting.

We loved this spot.

So we were so excited to take a trip down memory lane and hit one of our old favorite haunts for date night last month.

Have you had brazilian cheese bread before? If not… you are so missing out. It’s seriously one of my favorite bites.

Think fluffy bread, interspersed with cheese… bite sized.

Only complaint is that you only get one piece a person. I am not okay with that… it’s not a heavy, make-you-full kind of bread. it’s a light bite, and I could have had so many, many more of them.

Are you surprised? Ipa for him, french 75 for me? I didn’t think so.

Ever since I crafted my french blonde cocktail, i’ve been super intrigued by elderflower… so this was an added bonus to the regular french 75. And it did not disappoint .

There’s a salad bar… and then there is the rei do gado salad bar.

Definitely not limited to just salad, but sauces, sides, hot sides, etc. It is seriously endless, and you have to remind yourself… “it’s all about the meat.”

Favorite side? The brussels. Perfectly cooked - but not so over cooked that they were mushy. PSA - get the brussels.

Other honorable mentions? Cucumber salad, mushroom salad, and the caesar salad - with tomatoes (which ya’ll know is my favorite caesar hack)! I was also all about the beets - ‘cause your girl loves her some beets.

Let’s take a moment to talk about the sauces. This sauce trio is offered on the salad bar, with the sole purpose of letting you dip all the meats, in all the sauces.

You really don’t need them. But it’s also fun to try the meat as is; and then again, again, and again, in the different sauces to see how they enhance the flavor profile.

I love a mule… but usually I have to talk them through how I can’t drink vodka, and need to sub in tequila or gin.

But here, it’s already done for me. I also love the orange and mint swap out. Fantastic drink.

The star of the show, is the grilled meats. You can see into the kitchen and watch the rotisserie skewers go, with every cut imaginable.

The servers are amazing, they wander through crowded tables, carving off pieces of meat - less or more - to your request.

They also want to know what you haven’t tried, what you would like to try, and what you would like to avoid (hello pineapple allergy - although low key disappointed, because it looked amazing),

There’s an extensive list of meats that might be brought out… before we were full, we were able to try the pork rib, skirt steak, pork sausage, chicken with cheese, beef loin, picanha (top sirloin) bacon wrapped filet, top sirloin with garlic, rib eye, garlic bread, and grilled cheese.

Some favorites? The sausage, the rib, the skirt steak.

Quick honorable mention to the chicken with cheese - because it was chicken thighs, which is never jamie or my favorite… but we both said we’d always eat chicken thighs if they were made like this.

I mean… lets take a moment for the grilled cheese. Because literally it says grilled cheese on the menu. And no joke, I requested it from the the server.

However, I was thinking grilled cheese as in a grilled cheese sandwich. But I was wrong. This was literal grilled cheese… and despite all the meats? It was my favorite bite.

It was dipped? marinated? basted? in honey. However it was done, it was done well. And I could have had nothing but the cheese, all night long.

Which I think says a lot about a steakhouse, if they can do other dishes just as well or better than the meats.

Yea, so what can we say… I may have given up coffee… but I still love the taste of espresso. So much so, I may or may not dream about it.

There is just something about the madeleines, the cream, the espresso powder, and the chocolate.

It’s always been jamie’s fav. So, if it’s there, and we are getting dessert… which is not our norm, we are getting the tiramisu.

I know i’ve waxed poetic about this before.. but one of the things we always did during the “babysitting years” was to bring the sitters dessert home from whatever restaurant we snuck out to date night at. I was a nanny/sitter throughout high school, college, and grad school; and that was one of the most extra, yet fun things a family ever did for me… so i wanted to do that as a parent. It just let them get a little taste of what we were doing… plus, who doesn’t want free dessert?!?!

All this being said, to say, that now, when we sneak out to dinner, if we get dessert, it’s always in the vein of we will take a bite, and then bring the rest back home to our kids. So they can have a treat from wherever we are.

And all my kids are obsessed with cheesecake. So we’re always getting the cheesecake. So we can share the wealth with them.

It was such a fun trip down memory lane for us. And such a different dinner experience that I think everyone needs to do just once.