Leblon Steak — Restaurant in Hillsdale

Went for Father's Day dinner. They were pretty packed, and it impacted the service. It was difficult to flag anyone down for drink refills, etc. The main dining option here, of course, is the rodizio. There's also a appetizer bar; you can apparently pay separately to skip the meat and just go with the appetizers. There are also drinks, desserts, and the option to order individual dishes.

The largest issue with the rodizio is that, unlike other similar places I've been to, the indicator you flip over when you're ready to have them bring over meats is black and white, with "yes" on one side and "no" on the other. This makes them useless, as the guys with the meat skewers can't tell what they say until they're so close they're over your shoulder. This means they assume you want more. Even then, when it was busy, it was hard to get anyone over.

That said, the hostess and servers were very nice and accommodating when they were available. There were a couple of guys in suits (managers? Owners?) who seemed pretty involved.

As for the food, there are various salads, olives, mussels and other dishes, mostly cold, along with bread, rice, and a large amount of fruit. Apparently, however, the fruit - while real - is just for show. I asked a server about it and he confirmed it wasn't meant for diners, but I saw a number of people take fruit (with their bare hands, since there were no utensils for the fruit). He did offer to bring me any fruit I wanted from the kitchen. The salads and appetizers were fresh and tasty.

There was a good selection of meats, and they were all good. Pork ausage, bacon wrapped chicken, garlic steak, house special sirloin, ribeye, skirt steak, beef rib, and lamb chops. The highlight skewer item for me, however, was not meat at all - it was the roasted pineapple. The warmth and sweetness is great, but the cinnamon coating is what really makes it shine.

Dessert - not included in the rodizio - consists of items ranging from flan to cheesecake and tres leches cake. I had a bite each of the cheesecake and tres leches cake, but honestly, after an extra serving of the pineapple, I was a little overwhelmed by the sweetness.

A positive but confusing finding was that the prices listed on the menu ($59 for the rodizio;

For what it's worth, the Verizon phone signal was awful there, which also makes looking up their menu online a pain - especially since it's a 22 mb file. I suggest leaner file size for mobile downloads. I'm not sure if they have any physical menus.

There also doesn't seem to be a walker or wheelchair friendly way in; it was difficult bringing a family member with a walker, and I'm not sure a wheelchair would...

I feel bad leaving a less than stellar review, because I support small businesses and know it's tough out there for the little guys.

We had a so-so experience at Leblon the other night. The TLDR being, glad we tried it but not inclined to go back.

Details:

We went on a Tuesday night at 6pm. There were 4 of us. There were a couple of tables but it was by no means busy.

AC wasn't working well in parts of the restaurant so we were recommended to sit by the windows, where AC was better and where the other patrons were. It made for a little more cramped dining experience which, if the AC was working better, we could have spread out more. But it's been really hot so hey I won't hold this against them.

The meats on offer were pretty good and tasty, but we were disappointed by the lack of variety. After the first few rounds we started to get the same offerings. This happens at any rodizio, but at Leblon the offerings really felt limited; bacon wrapped chicken, a Portuguese sausage, and about 4 varieties of beef. We honestly were expecting more variety given experiences at other rodizios in the north jersey / rockland county area.

Our biggest complaint was that at a certain point in time they just stopped coming to our table. Even if there was limited variety we still could have eaten more, but they just stopped. We saw them going to newer sat tables, and then going back into the kitchen with meat still on the skewers. Swing by us, we still want some!

After 10 minutes of this they did ask us if we wanted anything to come back around but by that point our table was no longer interested.

I do want to shout out our server. They had sat us by a beam that my chair was up against, so I had to keep scooting in when a server or another guest had to go past. I didn't complain or make a fuss, but the server was attentive to this, apologized for it, and comped me a drink. I appreciate his courtesy on that.

I'm not upset at Leblon, we didn't have a bad experience, and I wouldn't say not to go. I just wish they had more variety and would have kept coming to our table.

Our sentiment when we left was "glad we tried it, it was fine, but don't feel the need...

Genuinely surprised the quality was this low. Not to mention all the meat came out cooked WELLDONE like the bottom of a shoe🤦‍♂️ no option for any other cook.

We experience all 6 different meats and got very chewy pieces over and over. My family did enjoy this meal at all. Once we asked for Lamb the guy came back with a green color Lamb 🤮GREEN?!?!

Not my regular experience and expectations from a restaurant with this many reviews. The SALAD bar was very small and felt very minimal leaving us not satisfied at all .

If it’s a resturant that respects it self you guys should have clean table cloths on your table. Instead you guys use small white papers only on some OF the tables. made our table look not nice and the oil and blood was dripping from these papers on our clothes . They put those small papers on top of the black table cloths.

When I asked why he said the cloths will get dirty from the blood 🤦‍♂️ really? Dirty? It’s a black table clothes.

The waiters are not patient. Alsmot had my sister eye stabbed out with their big sharp stick and knife.

The cherry on top was when we received the check, on the website the price clearly states $55 dollars per person. When we got the check it was $60 per person. Out of confusion I showed this to the Waiter and showed him the website. He was like oh yea my bad I’ll fix it for you. Very UNPROFESSIONAL.

I’ll take this opportunity to mention I’m not a KEREN. And complaining isn’t my thing. We regularly go out to nice steakhouses and nice chefs restaurants.

This is by far the worst experience we have had.

Save your money, head to fugo de chao for $20 more you can have 20 different meat options and a BIG salads / appetizer bar option. This is a NO for me. Biggest...