Wildfire Churrascaria, Viaduct

Eder Tristao carves a slice of the house special, beef picanha. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

Herald rating: * *

It was, I thought, a simple and perfectly reasonable request, and she did say "Please."

"Please may I," the Valley Girl asked the waiter nicely, "have a green salad without oil or dressing?"

"Certainly," said the waiter.

The dish of greens arrived in a couple of minutes. Except that it was greens and gold.

The Valley Girl summoned someone higher up the food chain. "Excuse me," she said, again with the utmost politeness, "but I asked for a green salad without oil or dressing, and this has oil on it."

"Are you sure?" he said. "I don't think so."

She picked up a leaf and gently dripped some oil on to the plate.

He brought another dish. Plain leaves, this time. Smart move.

An aside: an acquaintance, who has a finger in several restaurant empanadas around town, reports that a supplier is proudly promoting salad leaves that are guaranteed to last three weeks. Think what they've done to it, next time you fancy the idea of chef's healthy, garden-fresh, hand-picked mesclun.

Of course, you don't come to Wildfire for the vegetables, or the legumes, or the pulses. They do those, on silver tiered plates that look like the cakestands at Smith & Caughey's tea rooms in the 60s, rice and salad and beans and carrot and smashed rather than mashed potato. Just like meals in Portugal, which come with the same offsiders, no matter what you ordered.

Brazil shares a Portuguese heritage and Wildfire's boast, since its 1999 opening, is being New Zealand's first and only Brazilian barbecue restaurant or churrascaria ("shoo-has-ca-ria").

Some diners of more refined tendencies might think there's a message there: after six years no one else has jumped on the chuck-wagon and this barbecue style hasn't set the world on ... er, fire. Try telling that to the office parties, birthday parties and (nothing personal here) other large parties who fill the long tables several nights each week.

An optional menu features feijoada completa (black bean and meat stew) and braised lamb shanks, but most come for the meats - beef, chicken, fish, pork, lamb, ribs, sausages, basted with marinades, slow-roasted over coal and brought to the table on skewers.

The waiters or passadors slice from the carcass and you pick the slivers - okay, slabs - of meat with the tongs found next to your knife and fork.

The lads will keep turning up until you play the other unusual utensil, a little red and green cylinder. Green side up, keep'em coming; red side up, I don't think I need to eat again until Tuesday, thank you very much.

The bowlers had sent down five or six overs when I mentioned, "My friend Beatrice came here for a do last week."

"Does she eat meat?" asked the Valley Girl. "Rarely," I replied.

"If you come here," said the Valley Girl, carving a crispy end of beef, "you'd have to like it well done."

"Oh, I don't know about that," I said, as the waiter's skewer slipped from the plate, spattering us with blood.

By now you should be getting the impression that Auckland's Wildfire on Princes Wharf is more quantity than quality, a decent Kiwi barbie before the footie.

Tonci Farac's Sydney sibling on Circular Quay works from the opposite proposition: wood-fired lobster dressed with lime juice and balsamic vinegar, tiger prawns with smoky chipotle butter, fried arrancini balls with crabmeat in saffron and mascarpone, wood-roasted quails wrapped in proscuitto with white bean puree, Mudgee grass-fed lamb cutlets.

"You know what this is, don't you?" said the Valley Girl as a posse of passadors gathered to sing a high-speed Happy Birthday to a nearby table. "It's Valentine's on the Viaduct."

"I wouldn't know," I said. "I've never been to Valentine's."

She grinned. "You have now," she said.

Address: Princes Wharf
Ph 353 7595
Open: 7 days from noon
Owner: Tonci Farac
Chef: Eder Tristao
Food: Brazilian barbecue
On the menu: Grilled green-lip mussels with rosemary-lemon scented butter $16.50
Feijoada completa (black bean, pork, beef and spicy sausage stew) $25.90
Salmon marinated in olive oil, charcoal grilled; sauteed broccoli and potato-kumara mash $29.90
Vegetarian: A salad, a pasta
Wine: Good selection, reasonable prices, plenty by the glass
Bottom line: All the meat you can eat, and then some. It's a good ol' Kiwi barbie before the footie, best enjoyed by (nothing personal here) large parties. 

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