Audio By Carbonatix
Chef Razz Kamnitzer has closed his Razz’s restaurant for the summer, as he often does to escape on vacation. When will he reopen? How about “the fall of 2005?” The chef says he’s taking a couple of years off to spend more time with his children. Lucky kids, unlucky us.
It’s been just a year and a half since Kamnitzer opened in a new, fancier location across from his old shop at Scottsdale and Shea. He wowed me with an energetic exhibition kitchen and, as always, some of the best Mediterranean-inspired dishes in the Valley.
I did always wonder why, though, he made the effort to move to a property fronting Scottsdale Road (the old restaurant was hidden in back of the parking lot) but never put up a sign. The only way travelers down the busy street would know the building housed Razz’s was if they recognized the chef in the black-and-white portrait hanging from the roof.
Brazil Nut: I think the last time I might have considered taking off my pants in a restaurant was during my college days. But now there’s Fogo e Brasa, just daring me to do it.
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“Unbutton Your Pants!” shrieks the Web site for this new Brazilian restaurant at 48th Street and Chandler in Ahwatukee. That’s clever but practical advice. The come-on gives us a taste of the massive quantity of food we’re in for at the churrascaro, or all-you-can-eat rotisserie steak house.
It’s not for the faint of appetite, as waiters bombard diners with a variety of skewered meats, served and sliced continuously right to the plate. They bring it all, unless you beg them not to — beef (sirloin, top round, flank steak, prime rib, short ribs, rib eye), pork (ham, ribs, loin, suckling pig), chicken (legs, hearts), turkey (wrapped in bacon), lamb, and fish (salmon and cod).
But first, there’s visits to a lavish, gourmet salad bar with 20 homemade cold dishes and four hot dishes, including fresh fish (crab, shrimp, mussels, clams), marinated vegetables, potato salad, Brazilian cheeses and more.
And there’s more on the side: Entrees come with rice, mashed potatoes, beans, fried polenta, fried bananas and farofa, toasted manioc meal (cassava root) fancied with olives, prunes, bacon, sausage, cashews or banana.
Dessert, finally, stuns with a seven-foot cart laden with mousse, (chocolate, banana and passion fruit), flan, cheesecake, coconut cake, coconut custard, tiramisu, and Brazilian specialties such as pe-de-molque and brigadiro. The whole hog-out is just $29.97 plus tax.
