Located at 230 Adelaide St. West in Toronto

I really have been looking forward to dining at this restaurant for a long time now!  Copacabana is a Brazilian steakhouse franchise that has locations all over Toronto and even in Niagara.  They base their cooking on Brazilian-style grills where slabs of meat are stuck on a stick, seasoned, and grilled.  They have an all-you-can-eat style where after you peruse their beautiful salad bar, you sit at your table and carvers (gauchos) with the meat come around to your table and ask if you want any.  It’s a beautiful restaurant and I am so happy that I got to try this place!  

Joyce called ahead of time to make reservations at this popular restaurant.  Reservations are a must, especially on Fridays and the weekend because they get booked up very, very quickly!  My friend Anthony unsuccessfully tried to book a table here on a Friday two weeks ago in fact!  Since we were here on a Monday night, the chances of getting a table were much more likely!  We were a table of four at 6:30 p.m. and even then, the Adelaide location was already bursting with people dining away.

A really classy place where you can have all-you-can-eat-meat

Like I mentioned, their salad bar is beautiful.  They have a great selection of cured meats, cheese, salads, grilled vegetables, and more salads.  I couldn’t help filling my plate with as much variety of salads as I could.

What a beautiful selection of cured meats and cheese!

Lots of vegetarian options

Wow! Salads galore!

I really enjoyed the cured meats as the salami was top notch and the cheese was soft and tasty.  The salads were also very fresh.  I particularly liked the strawberry salad; the spinach leaves were so fresh and the strawberries were sweet.  Yum! ^_^

I chose only a few things from the salad bar and I’m glad I did because I would have been so full from it already before the meat

Signs to tell the gaucho to keep coming with meat or not

When I got to my seat, our server informed us that there is a small round card on the table for each person.  If you want more meat to be served to you, simply flip it to the blue side where it says “SIM” (keep it coming).  If you need a break or are full for no more meat, flip the card to the red side that says “NAO” (slow it down).  It was a very simple and fun system.  We all started off the night with blue cards facing up.

Before I could even get into my plate of salad, there were gauchos approaching our table and asking us if we wanted the choice of meat on their sticks.  “Yes, please!” was heard throughout the night and I had a lot of meat piled up on my plate very soon!  I couldn’t eat everything fast enough to keep up.  It was impressive how the gauchos just kept coming up to our table to offer us meat.

I believe this was the much-enjoyed Parmesan Filet Mignon

There were so many types of meat that came around that I really didn’t know what I was eating at times XD

My plate filling up with meat

There were so many selections of meat too!  Some of them included Prime Rib with Cheddar, Moroccan Chicken, Leg of Lamb, Beef Ribs, Parmesan Filet Mignon, Top Sirloin, Garlic Sirloin Steak, and more!  My favourite was the Chicken as it was so smooth.  I also really liked the steaks as they were so well done.  What I noticed was that after the gaucho carves you a slice, they bring it back shortly to the kitchen to heat up again.  This ensures that none of the meat is cooked fully since it would be too rough otherwise.  It was so cool!

I was so impressed with how thinly they can cut the meat!

When the gaucho comes to you, while they slice off the meat with a sharp steak knife, it is up to you to grab a tong while they are cutting it to put on your own plate.  That’s pretty cool and an interactive experience! 😀  For cuts of meat that were on skewers, they would separate the meat and skewer it on to your plate.  What an experience!

Morrocan Chicken and Fried Banana — yummy!

The salmon was really good as well! It was moist

My first time trying out their Roasted Pineapple

My first strip of delicious Roasted Pineapple!

I have to talk about the Roasted Pineapple.  Every time I heard someone talking about Copacabana, they also mention how good the Roasted Pineapple is.  I got to try it for myself finally to see what all the type was!  After my first slice of beautiful yellow pineapple was cut and placed on my plate, I understood what the type was about.  That roasted piece of pineapple is SO good!  It’s hot, tender, sweet, and delicious!  It’s almost like candy because it’s sweet and juicy.  This is really something you have to try for yourself.  I’ve never had roasted pineapple like this before!  We couldn’t get enough and when the server came up to us often during the night to ask what we wanted (in case some of our choices didn’t approach our table enough), we always requested for more Roasted Pineapple.  That stuff is like crack; addicting! 😛

We kept requesting for more Roasted Pineapple that towards the end of the meal, we were met with this — a full rack of Roasted Pineapple!! 😀

Because I kept saying YES to all the meats that arrived and succumbed to peer pressure at my table (haha), I got full very quickly.  After this experience, I know that I should have paced myself and said no more in the beginning so I could say yes more later.  It was actually so incredible how this restaurant works and I truly loved the experience.

Thank you for having us Copacabana!

We became full very quickly but I kept admiring the gauchos and diners around us.  It was a beautiful experience.  Even though I was so full on meat and believe that this is a restaurant you should only come to for celebrations or big events, I actually am looking forward to the next time dining here again.  The experience is so fun and the meat is truly delicious and well worth it.  I can’t wait for my next time!  I’d like to try all of the meats and pace myself.  Also, I want to try their all-seafood restaurant too which is called Copa By Sea.  Great restaurant! ^_^