Pura Brasa — Restaurant in Sumner

Honest Review. Summary: Tacos are good but do not order any steaks.

This is going to be long, so bare with me.

SERVICE: Our waitress was super sweet and kept checking in on us. 3 of 4 ordered drinks. 2 drinks arrived timely. 1 drink took what felt like 20 mins to arrive. We had to request for water glasses to be filled.

"EXPERIENCE" aka PRESENTATION- I'm sure this was intended to be an experience but it was simply awkward and resulted in food being overcooked. Every dish was served on a hot stone, including the tacos. The tables are a standard booth that seats 4. The hot plates were delivered with your food, taking up the entire table space. You then had to transfer your food from the hot plate to a regular plate to eat it. SUPER AWKARD. The hot plates had salt for the steak should you manage to transfer the scorching salt to your plate before immediately needing the waitress to remove the hot plate for space. The Tacos came with bone marrow in a decent presentation, but it made zero sense on how you were supposed to transfer tacos to a separate plate. I could have done with out the hot plates. Bring me my food a plate I can eat it on.

FOOD QUALITY: TACOS- AMAZING. I had ordered the American Wagyu beef tacos at $29. The corn tortillas were homemade and you could taste as such. The bone marrow that came along with it was different but also pretty good. I will say I was not a fan of the guacamole being placed under my meat. They placed a cold topping between two hot items- The hot stone/tortilla and hot meat. This took away from the flavor greatly but was my only real food complaint regarding the tacos. I ordered a side of baked potato that was pretty good as well.

STEAKS: Immediate red flags that for a steakhouse they stated they could not do rare. (I can order a rare steak at Applebee's....). The 3 members of my group ordered theirs medium rare. To the chef's credit, these steaks may have been med rare when they came off the grill, but being served on the hot stone mentioned above, resulted in all 3 steaks being served well done. Prices of steaks ranged anywhere from about $55 to $195 per steak. Each of my group ordered aged ribeye at $65 each. For a $65 steak, it better be cooked correctly.

MENU: Super confusing. Nowhere on the menu does it mention if the steaks come with any sides. Sides are listed and broken out separately in 2 different areas with prices ranging from $8 to $18. Everyone ordered a side- Corn, Veggies, and Potato only to be told after it came with rice. (Sounded like fries may have been an option? But again unclear communication on this). I also did not like that the menu did not specify corn vs flour tortillas, but thats minor details in comparison to the steak errors.

In Summary: We spent $340 for a party of 4 with 3 drinks. I would 100% recommend the tacos and drinks, but if you are looking for a quality steak, I encourage you to go elsewhere. Pura Brasa could do themselves a huge favor by revisiting their food delivery and presentation concept into something that does not reduce food quality and eliminate the awkward food...

I really, really wanted Pura Brasa to be a home run. Where else in Pierce County do we have any hope at not only Prime Grade Steaks, but that of American Wagyu or certified Japanese A5?

Sadly though the expectations did not match up to the experience.

My wife and I had dinner there last night (Fri) and one thing we didn't realize is that the place is small (think about 10 tables altogether.)

Service we should call out was solid and we had no complaints, aside from a pre-teen girl, who we could only assume was part of the owner's family, walked from the front door to the back, passing by our table at least 25 times in the hour+ we were there.

We give 3 stars for the food because the Philly Cheesesteak sandwich and the Mexican corn side dish were EXCELLENT!. 3-Stars you say? Yes, because the other items we had bring the average down from those items which we would consider 5 star.

I originally wanted the Prime Grade 16oz Ribeye. But they were out of this popular option.

Instead I ordered the American Wagyu 8oz Ribeye (medium-rare). It comes on a sizzling platter (like fajitas do). Unfortunately, there was a 13min gap between when I received my steak and when my wife received her entree. Being polite, I waited and waited and waited at first - but finally my wife insisted I stop being polite and just eat my steak. Sadly by the time I started eating into it, the sizzle platter and made it above well-done. (see pic). The cut is very thin to begin with, and I believe for something this thin there is no way it should be served on a sizzle platter as it'll cook through in just a couple of minutes.

We also ordered the Mexican baked potato and it was GINORMOUS - could feed four people, but instead of a soft fluffy interior, the potato was rather hard. We would not order this again.

As a genuine steak lover, I have to say it feels a bit criminal to serve a cut that thin, especially when ordered med-rare on one of those platters. No customer can reasonable be expected to get more than a bit or two of it before it'll turn medium - then well done.

In the included photo you can see that except for a tiny bit at the top, the rest of this stay is...

We used to love this place and then we came for my birthday. Our server basically ignored us the entire time, we didn't even get our drinks until after the food was served. We originally ordered a bottle of wine when she first came to the table, about 30 minutes later she realized we still didn't have our wine and said she was going to get it, when she came back she said they were out and we could pick something else and it would be comped since we waited so long for drinks. We didn't see her much after that, we ordered an appetizer and didn't receive the sauces that accompanied it until after we were finished with it, our entrees came, then we finally got the drinks we picked out after they didn't have the wine, at the very end of the meal, I finally got my soup I had ordered. Then our waitress returned to say she was sick and leaving, she would be transferring our table to the other server. At this point we were ready for boxes and the check, but didn't wish to keep bugging her if she was sick and needed to leave. Then we waited another 15-20 minutes for anyone else to come back so we could get boxes and pay, this is when we found out they didn't actually discount the drinks. Our reservation was at 5:30 and we didn't leave the restaurant until almost 8pm by the time everything was said and done. I also would do away with the booth right next to the door, it was quite bothersome having people basically sit on the top of our table while they waited to be seated because there isn't any waiting area when...