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CARLOS REIGNS SUPREME ON THE MARKET
By LARRY BLY
7/26/99
OK, in my several years of talking restaurants on Roanoke.Com, I’ll have to admit that I’ve stayed away from this one—not because I don’t like them—but because I know and like a lot of people involved in the operation of this restaurant. So I thought I’d hold out until some of my friends no longer worked there—but NO ONE EVER LEAVES (well, not very often).
This classy little restaurant on the Roanoke City Market just keeps doing what they do best: fresh-to-order-every-time dishes with a marvelous flair for sauces and flavors and presentations. If you ever had a chance to walk into the tiny kitchen area (why is it that many of the finer restaurants, even in Washington, D.C., have kitchens the size of closets?) you’d see rows of pans on burners, each making delicious to-order items for every single plate. I honestly don’t know how they do it without scalding themselves to death, given such tight quarters.
My dining partner (and business partner) went for lunch recently, just because I hadn’t been there in ages. No change. Just excellent food and service as usual. I had the featured special: fresh salmon with scallops finished in a wine caper sauce. Pasta and veggie. Now you could put capers on an old shoe and I’d eat it, such is my love for this little pea. But put it atop a huge chunk of salmon with this sauce and, well . . .
Usually a fresh soup is also offered as it was on this day: cream of mushroom. They often do a feta cheese number on either the soup or a sauce for steak . . . yummmy every time! Many restaurants stop offering soups during the hot months, which would be as dumb as not offering salads during the winter. Carlos almost always has a nice soup to offer.
Aside from wonderful seafood dishes with wine garlic sauce, white wine lemon sauce, Brazilian sauce and any number of other sauces you might imagine, try the not-so-usual vegatarian menu items: Pasta Tropicana (angel hair with hearts of palm, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms and scallions in a white wine sauce), pasta with artichokes in a basil and light cream sauce, and Pasta Brasieira (linguini with fresh tomatoes, bell peppers and onions in a light tomato sauce). My friend had that one and precious little of anything remained—unusual for my picky partner who is famous for eating everything, save one last bite, which he irritatingly leaves on his plate every time. And his equally irritated parnter (me) must point out each time by proclaiming: "You couldn’t eat one more forkfull, for goodness sake?" Such is our dull conversation from day to day. Honestly, I think he just likes to hear me say it.
Other veggie plates abound, as do veal and shrimp and chicken dishes galore. Lunch or dinner, no matter, every dish is a treat.
The staff includes family, friends and assorted other fairly dedicated souls who work hard and efficiently in the intimate space. One man’s "intimate" is another’s tight workspace, I suppose.
Yes, my server and my greeter are friends who gave me a little extra attention here and there as friends would do. But chefs from the kitchen are routinely hailed to the dining area for compliments, so my table visit from the back was not unusual. Depends on how busy they are and how much sauce they’re wearing at any given moment—this type of cooking is not for the timid—you gotta be willing to sling some sauce, baby.
I insisted on having a slab of the homemade tiramisu. It’s a bit different nearly everywhere you go because it’s a dessert that depends on interpretation by its creator (in other words, how much liqueur, if any, is used and a few other variables). Tiramisu, in some restaurants locally that offer it, will be of the frozen variety. But this one and the cheese cake are both made by Maggie, who also greets you at the door most days and nights. With all those burley men around, it’s the only time she’s allowed to dabble in the kitchen.
The CARLOS BRAZILIAN INTERNATIONAL CUISINE restaurant "secret" is no secret at all—j ust great food, beautifully presented always . . . and ALWAYS ABSOLUTELY CONSISTENT!
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