Archive for May, 2008

I love Brazilian BBQ, how could you go wrong with all you can eat portions of any meat imaginable and a continuous flow of cold beer? Columbus South American BBQ was apparently up to the challenge of figuring out how to do just that. Taking a perfectly beautiful idea and making it go horribly, horribly wrong.

Columbus South American BBQ is located in XinJieKou on ZhongShan Nan Lu, just a bit South of HanZhong Lu on the 3rd floor of WenHua DaSha with the entrance at the North corner of the building. I was in the area and decided to give it a try for lunch one day. Upon entering you are asked if you want the BBQ or the Hot Pot. That should be the first indicator that something is amiss, as this was the first BBQ place I’ve seen that also offers Hot Pot. The second indication that this isn’t your everyday South American BBQ joint are the numerous pictures of someones Oktoberfest trip to Germany all over the place and the overall European flavor to the decoration. Though I did think having Christmas decorations up in early Summer was a nice touch. None the less, I was game to give it a try, I mean really how bad could it be?

Plenty bad actually. I first headed to the buffet where there were some cold dishes as well as some hot ones (ok, mildly warm would be more accurate). These all appeared to be traditional Chinese type dishes, no hint of South American influences here.

OK, all is not lost, I head over to the drink station, as no matter how bad the buffet is, I am here for the meat, and there is still the free flow of beer. So I grab a glass, the largest I can find, which looks as though it is either a child’s cup or an over sized shot glass, it’s also chipped with a crack running down the side, but whatever, this is China, just get me the brew. As I return to my table with my cracked shot glass of beer and plate of cold and not as cold random Chinese food. The servers start to bring around the large skewers of meat, the first to arrive is…. mini-hot dogs. Yea, that’s right hot dogs, not even fullsize ones, but miniature ones….. The taste is something like, well, any Chinese mini hot dog you’ve ever tasted, not good. So I take a swig of my beer… warm and flat, perfect…..

The rest of the meat continues along the same lines, dry as a bone rabbit, heart of some animal I can’t rember, just barely edible lamb.

To be fair there were 2 things I was able to eat. The chicken wings, while far from good were edible, though definitely not as good as those you get from street food vendors. As after asking the waiter to confirm my suspicions, the food at Columbus South American BBQ is not actually bar-b-qued, but instead cooked in an oven. So the wings, like any that are oven cooked, lack the texture of BBQ wings, they weren’t great, but I was able to stomach them, which was more than I can say for the rest.

The second dish that will not cause you to vomit was the tradional mainstay of Brazillian BBQ places, Picanha, or Beef Rump Cover. While baked and not really seasoned at all, this was still decent, I guess even these guys can’t ruin a decent cut of meat. Though it is hard to tell with the minute slivers they give you, but I guess how much beef can you expect for 30RMB (answer: not much).

To summarize, if you’re not very hungry and don’t want to drink beer, and have 30RMB or so burning a hole in your pocket, then head to Columbus South American BBQ for free flow of soft drinks until they kick you out. Otherwise I would steer clear of this place for as long as you live.

A look around some Chinese websites seems to confirm that they also do not like to eat this bile:

http://yingwang1020.blog.sohu.com/70441360.html

Little Lulu’s post on her experience there, and I’m not just posting this because I stole her picture

http://nanjing.koubei.com/huangye/detail-433370.html

Has an average user review of 1.5 Stars out of 5, and appears it should even be much lower as there are a few 5 star reviews from what I can only guess is the owner, or the person with the worst taste in the world (quite possibly they are one and the same).

Name:

Columbus South American BBQ

哥伦布南美烤肉

gē lún bù nán měi kǎo ròu

Address: 中山南路89号(文化大厦3楼,靠近羊皮巷)

zhōng shān nán lù 89 hào (wén huà dà shà 3 lóu, kào jìn yáng pí xiàng) 

Baidu Map: http://map.baidu.com/#word=%B8%E7%C2%D7%B2%BC&ct=40&bs=025_0&sid=MAPNYMCBHAHESNZNXIYMH&

Phone: 025-84699688