Texas de Brazil - Carlsbad — Restaurant in Carlsbad

We arrived at our scheduled reservation time to a restaurant that looked about 20% full. This is different from my previous experiences here where it has been packed. Despite this, the waiter took about 20 minutes to greet us after being seated. We waited so long we just ended up heading to the salad bar to start eating. When the waiter finally arrived, he didn’t seem too happy that we had disrupted their flow. He was nice enough but made several comments about that fact he had never seen us at their restaurant before. To that I have a couple points. First, we have been here several times, typically in a larger group of about 15ish people; but he is absolutely right. I have never seen him before either. Second, it shouldn’t matter if we have been there or not. His constant comments about it (after I had explained to him that we have been there) made me feel unwelcome.

That is besides the point though, honestly. There are plenty of restaurants I go to with bad service because the food is just good. This, however, was not worth the awkward service. We typically enjoy our meal here, but today’s meats were all over-cooked. We had a meh cut of flank steak that was cooked medium (barely). Everything else was well done at LEAST. We asked our waiter and the man bringing the meat over if they had anything medium rare and they both said that they could make another cut of what we wanted, but it would be about 45 minutes. Their tone made it clear they did not want to do that.

After having a few more cuts of mediocre meat our server returned and I got the courage to ask about our service. I asked when they closed and why they had little/bad options. He said “well we are about to close at 10, but you are fine to stay until you’re finished eating.” I want to make it clear that we had made a reservation for 9, and called w/ questions. (ended up leaving a voicemail b/c they never answered dispute multiple calls) His response to the poor meat options was a suggestion that we come during the week when it is less busy. His exact words were “if you want 5-star service I would come when we are less busy.” If you ask me, that is absurd. A restaurant should be able to uphold their service standards anytime they are open. I would’ve understood if we showed up after or even close to closing but the phone tree said they closed at 10 (we arrived at 9) and had made a reservation following their websites instructions. All of this is without mentioning that they were by no means busy when we arrived or at any point during our meal. Every single table, but one behind us, in our area was empty.

Frankly, I am more disappointed with how the situation was handled than the food itself. Most things were seasoned well enough that even at well done they weren’t actively disgusting. It was passable. My issue was the poor service, and then placing blame on us for simply arriving at a restaurant during its business hours, with a reservation, and expecting to receive the service and...

Great service, good meats, a little pricey but overall worth it.

Our experience was on a Tuesday night in early January during Omicron... was a great time to get good service since the place wasn't crowded.

We had excellent service from the hostesses, the server, the meat-couriers, and the manager throughout. Each were wearing masks which we thought made us feel safer.

This is not a classic restaurant where you sit down and order from a menu, but instead there is a self-serve salad bar, and meat couriers walk around the building with giant skewers of various meats, delivering cuts of those meats to your table in the amounts you desire. You pay for the meat service, the salad bar, any drinks you have, and any dessert you want. This restaurant allows you to bring your own bottle of wine for a fee of $20 which we thought was excellent value since bottles can run $40 or more typically. The other bonus of bringing your own wine is that you aren't waiting around for the server to bring you the wine-- it's already right there for you!

We ordered a salad bar, brought our own wine, and sampled as many meats as we could. Here is a breakdown of our experience and what you may experience on your own visit:

Salad bar: small, but good selection, fresh items, good flavor, interesting twists on classic vegetables like the tabuleh salad and the spicy olives.

Meats:

Parmesan Chicken: dry and tough. likely overcooked. flavor was lost Pork: dry and tough, no real flavor Lamb: good flavor but a little dry Filet mignon: outstanding. Great flavor, cooked perfectly, very juicy, not too tough brazilian sausage: excellent, great savory flavor, not too dry, beef ribs: great flavor, falls apart easily, cooked perfectly flank steak: very good, tender, juicy, cooked perfectly, interesting spices spicy sirloin: good, not great. Spice flavor wasn't there, meat a little tough

the best meats were the flank steak and the filet mignon; the worst meats were the white meats chicken and pork. Lamb was surprisingly not that good either. Possibly the white meat was cooked on the same heat as the reds which can really dry out the white meats.

The dessert we had was the flan which was just OK. The caramel sauce they topped it with was a consistency of Denny's maple syrup: pretty runny and sweet.

Even with bringing our own wine, the total bill was around $160, and tip put us close to $200 for a party of 2. I think this is a little steep for the quality of meats, but the overall dining experience was enjoyable. When you consider that i could've loaded up on flank steak or filet mignon instead of sampling all of the meats, then the price becomes closer to value IMO.

Service again was outstanding. If you are looking for an interesting night out with a departure from classic restaurant fare, this is a good treat....

If I was leaving just our server a review he would get 5 stars for being attentive and caring of our group… Where the one star review begins is with our large party of over 20 people celebrating a birthday who have never been here before are addressed by, who we come to find out later, the general manager. After this seemingly normal introduction of the restaurant flow presents a couple options of water to the entire table water and sparkling water a very normal thing to ask. They came in blue bottles all spread out to the table. This wasn't enough water for the whole night and what was weirder every time anyone said we had no more water or they offered more water… they brung another blue bottle. At the end of the meal we get the bill and theres a tally for over $140 in water, confused as we all were we asked our server and he explained the restaurant charges for water… “all the water?” We asked. No, they have regular ice water. We’re families celebrating a birthday, not an impressive business function. The manager who originally told us at the beginning about either water option never mentioned the charge for this or that there was a third option of just pitchers of ice water. This manager proceeded to tell our server that our entire table ordered these blue bottle waters for the night. (Not only our large group of the night but the other large group next to us also was unaware and were given these bottles all night) Each bottle is $8 btw. When confronting the “general” manger she states we made that mistake and its not her fault we were confused. She said all she can do is take half the bottles off the bill. Then the WORST happens… we pay the bill after this deduction only to get the final receipt to see she took off less than half of the waters. This is the most dishonest and shameful presentation of professionalism and customer service with the lack of transparency to even begin the night. Its not the price at the end of the day, its the principle in which this was reluctantly amended having to confront her again. This is the first and last visit due to the lack of transparency starting the night, then the blatant dishonesty lying about removing part of the tab, and then the egregiously spiteful handling of the entire situation refunding all of the water once confronted a third time by this manager. Gabriel the server was great though and apologized for the confusion and I commend him for his professionalism being the middle man between us and his terrible boss and...