There is a new restaurant that has opened its doors in Ocala that everyone is talking about. If it is not their beautiful décor and “to die for” salad bar the topic of conversation usually turns to the prolific amounts of meat one ingests while dining at Ipanema Brazilian Steakhouse. This is not a restaurant for the faint of culinary heart, but surprisingly it CAN be for vegetarians! For someone who is always trying to cut down on their meat consumption, the salad bar at Ipanema is more than enough to fill you up while at the same time allowing you to indulge in top quality ingredients without straining your stomach or your purse strings.

My favorite thing about dining at Ipanema is the bread basket, for it is not your average bread basket. It is filled with goodies like French fries made of polenta and yucca, delicious cheese bread balls and fried bananas. These snacks are especially good accompanied by a traditional Caipirinha – a Brazilian style mojito made from a sugar cane, rum-like liquor. This is just the beginning.

Next you move on to the salad bar which is full of delicacies like top of the line prosciutto, aged cheeses, olives of all shapes, sizes and colors, jumbo chilled shrimp and whole smoked salmon. Then there are the veggies – artichokes the size of the palm of your hand to go with hearts of palm, grilled marinated eggplant, pasta and a large variety of other cold salads and vegetables. With this, you also get their Brazilian style black beans and rice and mashed potatoes with shiitake gravy.

This is where we stopped, but you could move on to all that meat you see being walked around table to table on huge metal skewers – sirloin, filet mignon, beef ribs, lamb chops, chicken, pork and even linguica – Brazilian sausage. You can have it all for $34.95, or stop at the salad bar for $18.95. If you stop with the salad you might be lucky enough to try one of their unique desserts.

We went for the Lustful Secret – a dessert they created for Valentine’s day last year – rich layers of white and dark chocolate mousse tucked in between strawberries and kiwi and topped with fresh whipped cream! But other goodies can be had like flan, carrot cake and fruit creams.

I am glad to have finally taken the plunge to try Ipanema. However, next time I go I will likely be sitting at the bar, Caipirinha in hand with a bread basket in front of me, basking in the beautiful ambience.

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