"This
is the third time I have been to Tropeiro, twice for lunch
and once in the evening. The food is consistently fantastic,
especially the Lamb and Beef Sirloin. The price is also
superb and the lunchtime Rodizio menu has to be one
of the best value quality meals you'll find in town, priced
at just £12.50 for as much as you can eat. The waiters
are friendly if not fluent in English and the salad buffet
is worth the price alone - believe me, I made the mistake
on my first visit of eating too much healthy stuff before
the meat arrived. But the big problem on my two lunchtime
visits has been the service. On both occassions it was quiet,
not completely empty but still quiet enough for the staff
to forget they had any customers in. At least it seemed like
that, as on both occassions they hung around the cocktail
bar area chatting in Portuguese oblivious to people wanting
more drinks or more importantly those trying to request the
bill, usually in a rush to get back to work - although it
has to be said, you can hardly work after this meat feast!
If they can sort out the laid back lunch time attitude, they'd
maybe encourage more repeat business, although I guess this
area of town relies more on the evening and pre-theatre trade.
I doubt I'll be returning during the daytime on my experience
of the past two visits, which is ashame as Tropeiro is otherwise
a superb restaurant and excellent value for money."
- matthew, manchester 1/3/09 (visited on a tuesday lunch) |
"When
Tropeiro opened on Sackville Street (on the corner of the
aptly named Brazil Street), loads of people quizzed us as
to how it faired against Pau Brasil. Normally, we don't
like to compare restaurant for restaurant, as it's often
down to personal choice - and this is certainly the case
when trying to compare Manchester's two Brazilian establishments.
Both are excellent churrascarias and, having visited both
on many occassions, we're just at home at either.
Tropeiro offers
some of the finest meat available in Manchester city centre
and, for just £18.95 for all you can eat (£12.50
for the same offering at lunchtime), there can't be many
better value for money meat feasts in Manchester. The salad
buffet is superb with plenty of choice and enough to keep
a vegetarian happy and very stuffed. Although if you are
a veggie, you should be warned that the meat on offer to
the carnivores sat alongside you is actually presented and
cut from the sword at the table.
The meat is fantastic
and it just kept on coming... First up was Frango (chicken
legs wrapped in bacon), a cut so big we were starting to
regret eating so much from the excellent salad bar. These
doubts were doubled within seconds when the waiter remerged
with his sword boasting Alcatra (sirloin steak) that was
cooked to perfection and cut to a size that would have justified
the rodizio's £12.50 price tag alone. The Costela de
Porco (pork ribs), were very tender and flavoursome, whilst
the Linguica, (spicy Brazilian sausages), were also very
tasty and bursting with flavour. The Cordeiro (leg of lamb)
was our personal pick of the cuts, sliced of the bone with
the flavour of rosemary and salt oozing out - just writing
about it now, is making my tummy rumble! Fraldinha (saddle
of beef), was the only cut that got the thumbs down from
our party but that was more down to personal taste rather
than the quality of the cut and we were disappointed that
Picanha (salted sirloin steak) wasn't on offer the lunchtime
we carried out this review. From our previous visits, you
can see why this is the favourite dish in Brazil. To finish,
we opted for the Chicken Hearts - little bean-sized cuts
with a taste similar to kidney.
There's plenty
of drinks to choose from too. Caipirinha is the Brazilian
speciality whilst bottles of Palma Louca Brazilian beer
(£3.70) help wash down the wonderful meats. There's
plenty of wines to choose from, although sadly none from
Brazil during our visits. All in all, Tropeiro is an excellent
addition to Manchester's restaurant scene and certainly
one that we will revisit on many occassions (as we already
have). Whether or not it's better than Pau Brasil is hard
to say - 2 of our team say it is, 2 others beg to differ
- as we said earlier, it's down to personal choice and you
won't go wrong visiting either. Even better, why not visit
both!"
- restaurants of manchester 24/12/08 (visited on a friday
lunch) |
