Oliveira's Steak House — Restaurant in Somerville

I am a meat lover and I used to come to this restaurant a lot, sometimes even twice a week. Some times I do all you can eat, while other times I do by weight. I think food here is good and I used to give out 5 star reviews for this restaurant.

Every time I come to this place I ask for chimichurri sauce and the waiter and waitress are always happy to bring me that without any trouble.

Today I brought a friend to this place (doing by weight) and like always I asked for chimichurri but the waitress said she can’t bring it to me before they are only for people doing “all you can eat”. I thought there might be a change on the restaurant’s policy, make chimichurri no longer free anymore, thus I asked, “I can pay extra for the sauce?” She was kind of unhappy after hearing my words, and told me, “we don’t sell chimichurri and I can bring you a little bit this time but I won’t bring you chimichurri next time.” Her attitude was honestly a bit rude. I am dining in a restaurant and I am not a beggar. Thus I told her, “Then I don’t need any of that”. At last, she did brought me a little bit chimichurri (I thank her for that), but this made me kind of embarrassed in front of my friend.

Please note I agree that a restaurant has every right to choose to do not offer or sell any food and drink to any consumers. But I think their policy on this should be as consistent as possible, and it will be better if she and other waiters or waitresses in the restaurant can stick on their policy, rather than making warning their customer as if they are some insatiable people begging for alms.

I really hope a manager of this restaurant can see this because I really don’t think it’s worthy to loose a costumer for such a trivial thing. Also, chimichurri is very important dressing in Brazilian food and it really undermines the dining experience of “by weight” customer when they are “prohibited’ to have it even if they are happy to pay extra. Nor can I see the rationale behind this.

I won’t be coming to this restaurant anymore although I love their food. But I do hope this place can continue...

This place is easily in my top 5 restaurants of all time and a contender for the #1 spot. Came here for the all you can eat. Not long after we were seated and served our drinks, servers were dropping by constantly to serve us easily some of the best meats that I've ever had anywhere. As soon as my friends and I took our first bites, I said, "damnnn that's good", and my friends were all nodding along. I wish I had the stomach to keep on eating! I did grab some sides from the buffet as well. Caesar salad was great to refresh my palate after eating a bunch of meat. Pasta with sauce was great in that it was not too overly heavy on the sauce but still had great flavor to it. Tried the chicken and fried pork belly in the buffet line too and while they were above average, I didn't finish them because I would rather have more of the meats that the servers were bringing around.

Towards the end of the meal, my friends and I were all completely stuffed and were ready to go, but the server asked us if we tried the grilled pineapple with cinnamon yet, which we havent. She highly recommended it, so we were down to make room for it. It came by maybe 5 minutes later and we all agreed that it was indeed good. A great finisher to the meal.

But that brings us to desert. We sat for a bit and let our bodies digest enough that we had enough room for dessert so we asked for the dessert menu. We decided to get the bolo de brigadeiro and the oreo cheesecake to split and they were both fantastic. A problem with chocolate cakes or overly sweet things in general is that they feel very heavy and need some milk to chase it, but not these. Great texture, not try, great taste - amazing. And each desert was $9, which was less than everyone guessed it would cost.

I would highly recommend this place to anyone (assuming you're not vegetarian or vegan). Will definitely be bringing friends and family here for special occasions...

I need to start off by saying that food was great, however this is the only I can speak for the restaurant. Since they a policy that 18% is MANDATORY, whatever the service is good or not, is something that helps the restaurant to be on the mess they are. By the time we sat on the table waitress did not offered water first but asked what we were looking to order to drink and if we were getting the rodizio. Since I did not even had the chance to check the menu I said that I needed time and that we went for the buffet not the rodizio. By that time the waitress face and attitude begun to show in very negative way, completed by side looks what made us in the table very very very uncomfortable. Since there was a 18% tip enforcement there was NO NEED TO TREAT PEOPLE NICE. We went to the grill to get some barbecue, and line for that took us around 10 to 15 minutes. The floor was slippery since was grease by the folks getting in and out of the kitchen with the barbecue skewers. No regards for the safety of the patrons. By the end I made a comment to he waitress about the wait time on the line to get the meat she shoot me with an unexpected answer, instead of replying with some sort of apologies she said: "next time if you want better service I strongly recommend to buy a rodizio" REALLY ?????????? I was speechless about the "bait and switch" situation and for her to clearly admit that the miserable service at the grill was intentional in order to sell the rodizio, where the price was much higher than the buffet, considering that you do not eat a lot. (ALMA GAÚCHA is definitely WAYYYYYY BETTER SERVICE THERE, WITH NO TIP ENFORCEMENT). Want to have a nice Brazilian BBQ and good customer service, skip the restaurants that enforce tips. There are other places around and OLIVEIRA'S definitely IS NOT THE...