No iron deficiency here

This is what happens when you crash a boys night out.

Having not even spoken to any of my friends all week (I was at grade 7 camp, I'll update about that another time), tonight I was up for some company. I ended up calling Dave and Jordan to see what they were up to. They were headed out with their friend Neil for some dinner and then something afterwards (which, really, let's be serious: it's Dave we're talking about, so "something" meant playing Settlers of Catan) so they invited me along. They were dead set on Chinese, but by the time we firmed up plans we were going to Sambas, a Brazillian BBQ downtown.

This place is definitely a dining event. (But you'd better be hungry. And not a vegetarian.) There is live music, Brazillian dancers and martial artists, and servers walking around with every kind of meat you can imagine on giant skewers who come to your table and carve you as little or as much meat as you want. It's all you can eat meat. The meal also comes with the 'salad bar,' which I suppose has lettuce if you count what the bowls are lined with. This is one serious salad bar. Potato salads, pasta salads, yam salads, couscous salads, chickprea salads, fried bananas, guacamole, onion rings, (to only name a few) and of course, platters and platters of meat. At the salad bar. Ham, roast beef, black bean soup with beef, fish, prawns, chicken... and on and on it goes.

When we first sat down, the server brought over a set of tongs each and a meat signal card. Oh yes. You know a place that has tongs as one of its main utensils is very, very serious about meat. And then the signal card. As long as it's on the green side, they'll keep coming with meat. When you can't take it anymore, or you want a break, you flip it over the the red side and they'll pass you by (passover?).

We feasted on many many meats tonight. Silliness abounded (come on, three guys and endless meat? They were in heaven!) and we had a great time! Neil won the meat award for the night, hand down. This guy just didn't say no every time more meat came by. We had beef: ribs, strip loin, sirloin, sirloin tip, brazillian beef, and probably more cuts that I can't remember now. We had buffalo, lamb, pork, veal, sausages, and prawns. We'd been eating for about an hour when Dave started rubbing his eyes. We figured the pressure he was feeling was meat blindness setting in. Ah, meat blindness. Jordan said he felt like he had a bleeding lip (most of the meat was medium rare, I'd say, so lots of juice. After a while, all you could taste was the juice).

After two trips to the 'salad' bar and rounds and rounds of meat (Jordan figured he and Dave had eaten a pound and a half of meat or so each. Neil had way more. I had way less. But still more than any one person should have in one sitting. Ever.), we were wondering how we were going to walk out of there. Should Dave even be driving? Drunk on meat? But still, Dave had heard that there was cornish hen available, and we hadn't seen that yet. So he asked for it, and the four of us shared two cornish hens. But that's it. We were done. No more meat. We were about to ask for the bill when another server came up with a skewer we hadn't seen yet. "Chicken wrapped in bacon?" he asked. Suuure! Aaarrggg...

After the chicken, that was it. Even Neil flipped his meat signal card to "I give up." We were done.

And I'm pretty much set for meat for the next month.