DDC Road Trip for Rodizio on March 1st

[South Jersey Epicurean]

HERE IT IS…THE NEXT DDC ROAD TRIP!!

The Dangerous Dining Club Presents

When: Saturday, MARCH 1, 2003

2PM-6PM

Where: Seabra’s Armory

200 Front Street

Perth Amboy, NJ

Phone: 732-826-6000

What are we gonna eat?

We are having Brazilian/Portuguese cuisine….Rodizio!!

What the heck is that?

Rodizio is a rotation of the freshest herbed-spiced, meats grilled on a skewer over an open flame and served right on your plate by your server from skewer-like swords. The servers come to you with these swords and slice your selections from the sword to your plate. All you can eat of the following meat selections:

Filet mignon Roast Pork Loin

Turkey-wrapped bacon short ribs

Spare ribs baby sirloin beef

Chicken Other chef surprises?

Sausage

Shish kebob

If that isn’t enough, it all comes with unlimited salad bar (This could be big in terms of selections…); Brazilian black beans, collard greens in garlic, fried bananas, fried onions, white rice, french fries (how’d that get in there?), onion vinaigrette, all you can drink domestic beer, wine, soft drinks, and homemade sangria, tax and tip for a measly $25 a person!!! What a deal! (They may be throwing in dessert, but I’m not sure..who cares?! We’ll be stuffed before that!)

What do I need to know from you?

You need to e-mail your reply to me at blackcloud11@comcast.net with the following information:

1) The names in your party

2) If you want to drive some people which YOU will arrange with them, not me!! I’ll just

try to put you in e-mail contact with those people.

3) If you are going to meet at the car caravan point at Franklin Mills Mall at NOON sharp which Rich Pawlak (ESTERRICK@aol.com) will lead…. (Information to follow

below…)

You NEED to communicate everything to me by Tuesday, February 25!! Please no later!!

Also, the sooner you RSVP, the better because I’ll be out-of-town from 2/19/-2/24 so it’s best to make arrangements before that period for me.

Directions to Seabra’s Armory from Franklin Mills Mall. NOON SHARP!! Meeting Spot is Boscov’s Department Store, East Entrance. (He tells me there are only 2 entrances and an L-shaped building. E-mail him for more specifics.)

1: Start out going North on FRANKLIN MILLS BLVD toward KNIGHTS RD. 0.02 miles

2: Turn RIGHT onto KNIGHTS RD. 1.22 miles

3: Turn LEFT onto STREET RD/PA-132 N. 1.80 miles

4: Merge onto US-1 N/LINCOLN HWY toward MORRISVILLE. 0.38 miles

5: Merge onto PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE E/I-276 E toward NEW JERSEY/EXITS 29 - 30 (Portions toll). 8.53 miles

6: PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE E/I-276 E becomes NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE EXT (Portions toll). 5.38 miles

7: Merge onto NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE N via the exit- on the left- toward NEW YORK (Portions toll). 37.25 miles

8: Merge onto NJ-440 E via exit number 10 toward US-9/GARDEN STATE PARKWAY/PERTH AMBOY/STATEN ISL. 2.62 miles

9: Take the US-9 N exit toward GARDEN STATE PARKWAY NORTH/PERTH AMBOY/SMITH ST. 0.07 miles

10: Turn SLIGHT LEFT to take the ramp toward PERTH AMBOY/SMITH ST. 0.29 miles

11: Keep LEFT at the fork in the ramp. 0.19 miles

12: Turn LEFT onto CR-624 E/NJ-440 CONNECTOR. 0.63 miles

13: Stay straight to go onto GOODWIN ST. 0.12 miles

14: Turn LEFT onto CR-656/SMITH ST. Continue to follow SMITH ST. 0.99 miles

15: Turn RIGHT onto CR-658/FRONT ST. Continue to follow FRONT ST. 0.25 miles

Total Estimated Time: Total Distance: 59.75 miles

1 hour, 8 minutes

You are NOT required to car caravan! Rich is just a nice guy!! You can go yourself. From the directions above, ignore the Franklin Mills part of the directions and get on the NJ Turnpike heading NORTH to Exit 10. Follow the above directions from there!! (Step 8)

Things to keep in mind. Seabra’s has its own parking lot. The building is brick and looks like a factory from the outside with lots of windows (not an ugly one). Seabra’s is on the WATER!! We will be dining upstairs in our own room which has windows so we can see the water. If you get lost in Perth Amboy, ask for directions to head for the WATER. You’ll find it! We will be capping the event at 60 people!!

We are dining from 2-6PM to give everyone time to get enough to eat and for our servers to get to everyone. We have to be out by 6PM. Don’t plan on showing up at 4PM because you think 2 hours is enough time. You might be disappointed!! So plan on being there by 2PM sharp so you get what you want!!

If you have a question or change in your information, you could call me at 609-265-1809, but I prefer e-mail because my machine is not clear all of the time. So spell things out and speak your phone number clearly. Remember to e-mail me with your reservation and info. Contact Rich if you want to meet at the car caravan spot and drive up with him.

Rich Pawlak’s contact information: ESTERRICK@ aol.com

609-406-1432.

I think that’s enough!!!

See you there…Don’t forget to meet the deadlines for reservations!!

Gary Kritz

[KatieLoeb]

DDC Rodizio dinner on March 1 is a SELL-OUT I'm told. If anyone that has RSVP'd needs to cancel please e-mail Gary Kritz at blackcloud11@comcast.net. I'm not certain if we have started a waiting list, but if you're interested, RSVP to Gary and he'll get back to you as soon as he gets back into town.

Thanks and looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Best,

Katie

[jeunefilleparis]

how much for the meal???

[herbacidal]

$25pp, inclusive of tax and tip.

[South Jersey Epicurean]

There are a few openings for the DDC Road trip for Rodizio at Seabra's Armory on Saturday, March 1st from 2-6PM, in Perth Amboy, NJ. The restaurant gave us a bigger room...So e-mail me at: blackcloud11@comcast.net ASAP if you want to go!!

Gary

[Rail Paul]

How did this event make out?

Pleased with the food and the place? The other Seabra Rodizio places have had mixed reports from visitors...

[KatieLoeb]

I don't know about everyone else, but I thought this place was great! They set up a lovely room, almost reminiscent of a wedding reception banquet hall, and the food and sangria and wine and beer just kept on coming! First there were appetizers including fried calamari, chorizo, garlicky clams and mozzarella sticks (Portugese style?). Once we sat down, the large platters of side dishes which included french fries, a semolina cous cous like offering, garlicky Portugese collard greens, fried bananas, black beans and rice came out. Then the skewers started arriving. Grilled meat of every description - short ribs, beef wrapped in bacon, turkey wrapped in bacon, grilled sirloin, filet, etc. Yikes! The Atkins dieters were in heaven if they could resist the side dishes, but it was tough. Everything was pretty tasty, particularly the grilled sirloin. Then a dessert buffet which included flan, a rice pudding and coffee and tea was set up. All in all an absolute steal for $25.00 a head with tax and tip inclusive. Definitely one of our better DDC dinners, although there hasn't been a dud yet. We seem to have an incredible string of luck in terms of having great food and great company.

Perhaps Fat Guy would like to add his thoughts on this, since it was his first DDC event and he can be more objective than those of us in the "clique"?

We will continue to post our invitations here on eGullet for any of you all that would like to either make a road trip to the Philadelphia area or meet us in the middle on our next road trip northward. It's always fun and the food and the comraderie is always excellent. It's looking like our next two dinners will be for Mexican and Persian food!

[Fat Guy]

Although you need to go to Perth Amboy, NJ -- an area that is a couple of steps lower than, say, Trenton -- to get there, Seabra's Armory is itself one of the greatest restaurant spaces I've ever seen. I assume it really was at one time an armory. It overlooks the narrow channel between this part of New Jersey and the southern tip of Staten Island, and there's a clear view of the Outerbridge Crossing from the restaurant. The structure is three high-ceilinged stories high, with the regular restaurant on the ground floor and private party spaces above. Great old wooden floors and period details abound, including the statue from the bow of an old ship.

The level of hospitality demonstrated by the staff was exceptional -- if you've been to the NYC and Newark rodizio places, you know they're factories; Seabra's felt much more like a family operation. And the appetizers, desserts, and unlimited beer, wine (a totally acceptable Dao red in bottles), and sangria (a bit sweet, but tasty), made the value proposition amazing. The roasted meats were on the whole of above-average quality for a rodizio place -- slightly better than Master Grill International or Green Fields in Queens, and Churrascaria Plataforma in Manhattan, though with less of a selection than you'd get at any of those places. My personal opinion is that the meat at a rodizio restaurant is never as good as what you'd get in a single-portion setting, and for the most part it tends to be overcooked. The items that are relatively immune to overcooking come out best, such as the sausages and the items wrapped in bacon. The straight beef items are, by steakhouse standards, tough -- but the flavor that develops over the flame, aided by a ton of kosher salt, is terrific. The restaurant provided individually plated salads and allowed access to the downstairs salad bar to anybody who wanted. This salad bar was not as abundant as what you might expect at one of the NYC rodizio places, but it was nice.

I'm planning to do Sunday brunch at Seabra's one day soon. I noticed a nice prix fixe offer on a sign out front. If you're in this neck of the woods -- for example if you're heading to or from someplace via the Turnpike -- it's definitely worth scheduling a stop just to check out the space, and to enjoy the most pleaseant rodizio experience I've experienced in the Tri-State Area.

Most importantly, I got to meet several of the very fun members of the DDC.

[Rich Pawlak]

Well, Steve is was indeed a pleasure to meet up with you and your lovely wife as well.

Damn, it was a lot of food, and I found, on the whole, that the rodizio offerings matched the quality of the several Newark Ironbound rodizio places I've been visiting for years, and the side dishes were actually better than I've had. The service was much warmer and more genuine than at any of the NY or Newark places, too.

And the price we paid, so terrifically orchestrated by Gary Kritz (SJ Epicurean), was an outstanding value, something for which our DDC dinners have become known.

I was really glad you could spend some time with us.

RP