Picanha Churrascaria Brazilian Grill

There are times when only red meat will satisfy my protein craving. After making vegan mabo and eating veggies & fruit for the past week, my taste buds began to scream for rare beef. Since my friend Mika was in town for a limited time, we decided to go out for unlimited beef at Picanha in Burbank. We had walked past it many times but until tonight we had not tried it. She had just ended a Master Cleanse, so she was ready for beef after not having any for 10 days.

The warm cheesy rolls had us hooked at first bite. It would have been easy to make our entire meal out of these wonderful puffs, but a side of beef had our names on it and we practiced self-control by only having two baskets of bread before dinner.


Dinner is a cowboy version of roving Dim Sum carts, with "gauchos" who come to your table if you put the green signal up, or pass you by if you leave the red signal up on the little table indicator. After getting whatever you want to eat from their 40 item salad bar (which includes hot sides of garlic mashed potatoes, zucchini, black beans, and soup), you await the skewer bearing servers. They will carve and serve you many cuts of beef (and one chicken option the night we went) ranging from the house special and Mongolian beef (pictured), to tri tip and sirloin. If you have a favorite cut or doneness, they will accommodate your preferences, including my penchant for bloody red and Mika's for medium rare. This would be a very bad choice for any vegans or vegetarians, but they do offer side dishes of hearts of palm salad, manioc flour (a staple in Brazil), tomatoes, pickled red onions, and potato salad.

They offer a couple of creamy desserts like passionfruit mousse, cheesecake, and a Brazilian flan (made with coconut), which we liked flavorwise, but the added coconut made the consistency a bit lumpy.

It's always satisfying to indulge a craving and we left very satisfied:)