While hubby and I were looking for a place to have a nice steak one date night, we chanced upon Touro in Richmond Hill. We haven’t had rodizio for a while now, so we figured we should give this Brazilian steakhouse a try. And, I also saw Rio with the kids on TV a few days ago, so I guess all signs pointed to Brazil!
We were having early dinner so we were seated fairly quickly despite not having reservations. It was the same concept as Rodeo where you would flip your card into the green side if you wanted your servers to keep serving you meat via table side service. Red was for pause or stop.
The appetizers of puffed parmesan, fried banana fritters and yam were quite good. They definitely whet our appetite.
But when we headed to the buffet area for the appetizers, I would have to say that I was quite unimpressed. Rodeo wins hands down for this. Rodeo had super tasty shrimp and mussels (which we ate too much of!) and the variety of salads was wider. In Touro, there were quite a lot of fillers-- mashed potatoes, potato salad, breads. There were also blah cold cuts, cold seafood salad (not so tasty), and broccoli soup. But we did not come here for the appetizers, we came for meat, so I was willing to overlook that part—a little.
That night, they served 12 cuts of meat. Among those we had were: Picanha,Top Sirloin, Prime Rib, Chicken breast Wrapped in Bacon, Lamb Leg, and parmesan-covered Meat Ball. We skipped on the sausages, pork loin and chicken wings (yes, hard to believe, but I did skip this! I had to ensure I had enough space for the other cuts, you know!). The meat was well-cooked (medium rare to medium) and nicely seasoned. The chimichurri sauce, however, was not that great. I have a better bottled chimichurri at home! Hubby and I especially loved the Picanha (a cut of beef popular in Brazil, known here as rump cap). After the first round, this was the only cut we were requesting for! Don’t ask me how many times we asked the server to bring this back. By the third or fourth time, the other servers carrying other meats were already skipping us.
Then, they started serving the roasted pineapple. This was really divine. Why do I keep forgetting to attempt this at home! The pineapple perfectly complemented the meats and was good to have in between as well, not just dessert. I think this made it easier for us to eat more since it provided a nice break from meat.
We were happy to find out that on that particular night, they had Wine Night! So, after dinner, we headed over to the lounge for some wine tasting. What a perfect way to make the evening more memorable for us! They featured Australian wine and had an expert come over to us to explain the different wines. They had tasting notes and food pairings as well! We started off with the Moscato paired with roasted pineapple. This turned out to be our favourite as we were coming from dinner and it was a wonderful cap. We then moved on to some Pinot Noir paired with chicken sausage. The third and last wine we tasted was the Shiraz paired with lamb. We learned quite a few things and made a mental note to get some Moscato for the house.
We had service which was ok and the appetizer buffet, as I mentioned, was forgettable. Overall, the wine was lovely, interiors were beautiful, and the meat and pineapple were delicious. We set out to have a nice dinner but it was this Wine Night which made the dinner special.
