Brazilian War

If you live in the Boston Metro area, you can participate in a Brazilian steakhouse war on the cheap. Two steakhouses, Rio's Steakhouse and Midwest Grill are both offering $30 vouchers for 50% off at DealFind.com and Groupon.com respectively. Rio's has two locations and their voucher is good at their Quincy and Plymouth restaurants. The Midwest Grill voucher is good at their Cambridge and Saugus locations.

Both restaurants specialize in rodizio, in which the meat is served and carved at your table. The servers go from table to table carrying large skewers of meat. At your request they will carve off pieces onto your plate. The skewers can contain barbecued meats such as steak, pork, sausage, chicken, chicken hearts, lamb, etc. Some even serve roasted pineapple.

Besides being a vegetarian's nightmare, they both offer a buffet table on which there are hot and cold dishes and even a few without meat. Both are pretty casual restaurants with Rio's being a bit more casual as the building is a former IHOP.

I have been to both and they are both very good. Lots of choices and the barbecued dishes are quite tasty. Though I must say that after a few rounds the meat start tasting the same as they are basically seasoned the same way. From a value standpoint, I would select Rio's as their dinner price is $15 as opposed to $25 for the Midwest Grill in Cambridge. The Midwest Grill location in Saugus is cheaper at $21. But if you go for lunch, their prices are all basically the same around $14-13.

If you are interested hurry, both offers can be purchased through October 23rd or until they run out. The Midwest Grill seems to be the more popular with close to 1,000 vouchers being sold. But the Midwest Grill voucher expires on March 1, 2012 while the Rio's voucher never expires.