Dad at Fogo de Chão

What started out as a promising week work-wise turned sour Monday evening when I had to stay until 8pm to help fix a bug. It wasn't a huge deal really but I don't like to leave a situation unresolved, even if I'm not the cause of it. I put in some long hours Tuesday as well but Wednesday I made a point of leaving early, around 5:30pm, so I could go meet my Dad for dinner.

He was in town for work so along with a co-worker of his named Ken, we met up at McCormick & Schmick's in Crystal City for drinks. I was thinking we could just do dinner in the Arlington area but Ken had heard about a Brazilian restaurant in DC that he wanted to try. Right away I knew what he was talking about: the famous rodizio Fogo de Chão on Pennsylvania Avenue. I'd actually been there before back in February when I was visiting the area and was quite fond of their authentic selection despite the lack of chicken hearts.

Rather than hop back on the Metro, we got in the Audi and headed over there where we spent a good 10 minutes looking for parking before finally giving up and just paying for a garage. The meal we had was truly sumptuous, fit for a king really. My Portuguese was a bit rusty but I managed to order a few things in the native tongue including one of the best caipivodkas I've ever had.

Dinner was followed by a quick tour of northwest DC and a discussion about why there were so many cops on Connecticut Avenue and 17th Street. My theory was that this was the route intended to take either Hamid Karzai or Perez Musharraf (or both) back to their residences as they were dining at the White House that night. We didn't stick around long enough to find out.

Though I was sad to see my Dad off at his hotel, I was also happy that I got to see him at all. Living so far away from California, it's not often that I get to see friends and family from home. This Christmas will mark the first time in a year that I've been back and I'm looking forward to it with great fanfare.