Listen to me: Do not make the classic blunder of overeating before they bring the best. In this temple to gluttony, show restraint. There’s a steak you want, and if it’s not the first to be knifed onto your plate, ask for it. It’s the picanha. Pee-cahn-yah. You won’t find it in an American steakhouse—Brazilian butchers carve up a cow’s rump differently. The top is covered with fat, seasoned with rock salt, and cooked over flames so the fat seeps down and blends with the salt to remind you that you didn’t climb to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian. Ask me where I’d go for my last steak and I couldn’t say exactly. Maybe Marius in Rio, or Plataforma in New York, or Porcão in Miami. I’d keep waiting for more picanha, and the meal would never end.
02/10/09: Steak with the Brengun.
The first steaks to be cooked in my new Le Creuset grill pan. Still breaking that baby in, but it’s an utterly magnificent pan. Good cookware gives me a pant full of bone.

02/10/09: Steak with the Brengun.

The first steaks to be cooked in my new Le Creuset grill pan. Still breaking that baby in, but it’s an utterly magnificent pan. Good cookware gives me a pant full of bone.