10143 Saskatchewan Drive NW, Edmonton

Fumaca is located right along Saskatchewan Drive. It’s in the old space that New Asian Village used to be in. In case you’ve never had Brazilian Rodízio, it’s a type of all-you-can-eat restaurant that features a large salad bar, and has table-side service for grilled meats where servers come to your table with knives and skewers. In Edmonton, you can get this style of Brazilian cuisine at Pampa, where they offer a similar Brazilian Rodizio.

Right now, during their opening, Fumaca is offering a free glass of wine with their dinner service, which is $44.99. During their dinner, they offer 14 cuts of meat, and grilled pineapple! There’s a vast amount of meat to choose from!

The key with Brazilian Rodizio is not to fill up too much on the salad bar. The salad here is a fair size, with lots of toppings to choose from. There are pasta salads, cheeses, salads, and dressings. I usually opt to get a little bit of pasta salad as my carb. It’s smaller than Pampa’s salad bar, but will soon undergo a bit of renovations to double its size!

One that sets it a bit apart from Pampa is that they have a fair amount to choose from for their warm bar. There is breaded eggplant, chicken & bacon mac and cheese, and warm veggies.

Our meal started off with some pao de queijo. These are gluten-free Brazilian cheese breads. At first I was taken aback with the texture, because it’s a bit different from what I know. I learnt that the way they serve it is actually more traditional Brazilian, with a bit of a crunchy outside, and warm inside. It uses a combination of two doughs. Overall, still really good!

If you’ve never been to Brazilian Rodizio, you’re given a chip that’s either red or green on other side. Green signals for the serving staff that you want meat, and red signals that you’ve had enough for now. For meat, since there’s so much to choose from, I’ll highlight a few of my favourites: The rump steak, the parmesan pork, the pork sausage, and the grilled pineapple!

The rump steak was really tender and delicious. Not too salty. Overall really good. Very similar in taste and quality as Pampa. The parmesan pork was also similar to pampa.

The pork sausage is what really surprised me. I’ve been to Pampa numerous times, and I have never liked the pork sausage. I get it every time thinking that I will like it, and am disappointed each time. I find the one at Pampa really dry and not that enjoyable. The sausage at Fumaca was really good! Moist and flavourful. I had second helpings of it.

Another couple things that differs is that Fumaca offers Beef ribs, and grilled pineapple. The ribs are slow cooked for 16+ hours, and are incredibly tender. Definitely recommend getting this too. The grilled pineapple is grilled with sugar and cinnamon and is really good as well! Great balance and good to eat between cuts of meat.

The garlic shrimp was also another favourite of mine! cooked perfectly, and perfectly garlic-ey. Really good. Pampa offers shrimp seasonally but it seems like Fumaca will have it regularly!

For dessert, I had their cheesecake and the creme brulee. Both of these were pretty good! Not that I really needed dessert after stuffing myself with meat.

Overall, I had a really good experience at Fumaca. All of the meat was comparable to Pampa with a few bonuses. I was hesitant to come and try it out and at first, I was thinking what’s the point? I live 5 minutes away from Pampa, by foot, so is it worth the $5 off to drive? For giving it a try, I would say it is definitely worth it to try. It was a beautiful day out and we actually took a pogo (now Communauto) there, and walked home across the Walterdale (to burn off the calories we just ate!). It’s slightly cheaper and overall, it’s definitely worth the try. Come during the next month to take advantage of their free glass of wine with dinner.