One of the most popular meat chains in America, Fogo de Chão owes less to its kitchen than to its concept, which scales the heights of themed gimmickry. Turn your table’s token onto its green face, and the meat-shavers (dressed humiliatingly as gauchos) will keep stopping by to slice hunks of deliciously fatty ribeye and “house special” sirloin, along with other, lesser cuts, onto your plate. Turn the token red, and the barrage subsides.

The genius of the sprawling salad bar, and of the irresistible little hot cheese buns that show up first at your table, is that you spend the first part of your meal filling up on high-margin items like starches, salads, and beans.

Our advice is to save virtually all of your appetite for the meat, because the salad bar is a minefield. The few highlights include intensely smoked salmon, decent giant asparagus, and equally enormous hearts of palm. But potato salad is underseasoned and mealy; artichoke hearts, meanwhile, are enormously overmarinated and oversized. Many meats are problematic, too—bacon-wrapped chicken is terribly dry, filet mignon is cooked to oblivion, and so on. In the end, we find ourselves yearning for a simple steak and salad—without the swords and skewers.