The chicken heart..... bump..bump..bump..bump...

Yesterday we took the whole family to Tucano's Brazilian Grill. Carly and Rachel had asked to go for their birthdays so we were going to take just them but that would have meant finding a babysitter and *gasp* paying one! We have been spoiled with free baby-sitting in the form of our lovely Carly (and now Rachel) for 2 years now. Also, I heard that young kids were free so I  called to get the details.  If we were seated before 4pm Rachel and Jacob would be $6 each (lunch price) and Samantha and Mason are free. Carly being a mature 14 would be the adult price but we had figured on that already.  Mark was a little wary but he was up for it since we were going mid-afternoon and it shouldn't be too busy.  The kids were so excited. None of them had ever been.  For those of you unfamiliar with Tucano's, let me 'esplain....  They have a great salad bar with pasta and sauces, mashed potatoes, gravies, green salad fixings, fruit, several prepared vegetable, pasta, seafood, veggie salads and some different items like quail eggs & hearts of palm.  Then these servers come around with all different kinds of grilled meats on skewers periodically and you take what you want. Some examples are bacon-wrapped turkey (mark's & My favorite), garlic sirloin, sausage, BBQ chicken thighs, pork, tri-tip sirloin and many more. They also have a couple ungrilled choices like battered, fried cod in mango sauce & shredded brisket. Oh and there's also grilled veggies (green peppers, onions, tomatoes, zucchini and yellow summer squash) and grilled pineapple.  Last night the pineapple was the best I've ever had there, juicy and hot. yum!  

Happily, we were seated right away and the experience began.  I had made the children dress up a bit, not church dress or anything but a nice casual.  We explained how it all worked and Samantha started bouncing crazily in her seat.  Mark made eye contact that said "Are you sure this is going to work?!" We pulled out the whole "would you like to leave now?" bit which thankfully worked and she settled down.  Jacob decided to follow his dad's course of action which is to leave the salad bar alone and wait for the meat and ONLY the meat.  The rest of the kids came with me to the salad bar and Mason and Samantha were thrilled to find large cubes of ham and CHEESE along with watermelon, strawberries, mandarin oranges (candy) and cantaloupe.  What could be better?!  When they returned to the table Jacob eyed their cheese cubes.  As I've said before we live by the motto "everything's better with cheese", even a big pile of grilled meat, and so Jake was up to the salad bar in a flash piling his plate with cheese cubes. 

All of the kids were so well behaved, Samantha contained her bouncing. It was a really fun watching them get the hang of using their tongs to receive meat from the servers.  Midway through the meal a skewer of chicken hearts came around.  We all looked at each other as the server waited to see if there were any takers.  I asked "who's gonna try a chicken heart?" I told them how Papa and Auntie Christy used to eat them...   Surprisingly, Samantha was the first to take one, then Rachel and Carly and finally with a little teasing from the server "Man, are you gonna let your sisters be braver than you?" Jacob took one too.  Rachel got hers down first with Jacob and Carly struggling to chew and swallow theirs.  With cloth napkins instead of paper ones, there was no where to spit it out discreetly and so they had to swallow.  Yikes.  Carly said her experience was worsened by her imagination as she imagined it pumping as she chewed. She was sure she wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway, too chewy, but the imagining made it much worse.  Sammy, the first to take, was the last to eat, which she did without much to say about it. All 4 brave souls agreed that they would never need to eat a chicken heart again.  

Samantha and Mason didn't eat much of the meat. They mostly enjoyed the fruit, cheese, ham and mashed potatoes of the salad bar.  Samantha insisted she needed to try a cheese cube and a strawberry together. Carly whispered to me "It's from Ratatouille"  She closed her eyes and "experienced" it very thoughtfully, chewing slowly.  She popped open her eyes and announced "very good, now I need to try cheese and watermelon together". Afer the same closed eye thoughtful chewing she opened her eyes to announce "that is not good!  I need more strawberies"  She was funny.  

All of the kids declared Tucano's their new favorite place to eat.  I guess we better go online and start filling out those free birthday meal questionnaires for all of them!