Carmine's Brazilian Grill

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This is a great concept for Albany area, but it was like pulling teeth to get what you wanted when you wanted it. The starter bar was small, but good and had interesting options, although only a couple brazilian sides. It felt like the chef really worked on those items idividually and nicely. Unfortunately, even though this was a buffet (meat served tableside like in Brazil) the food took to long to come out of the kitchen and to make its way around. I think I was only able to try 2 types of beef and only a forkfull of each as the servers cut you one peice and move on to the next persons plate. Other items that night were shrimp, pork, turkey, chicken, lamb and sausage. Not that they were not good, but where is the beef man? Traditionally a Churasscuria has like 8 cuts of beef. I have seen the pictures of the kitchen online and I beleive their grill is too small to accomodate the volume of food needed to move fast enough for thier diners. Also, from what the server said they only have certain things on certain days. I wanted to try the fried polenta, as it is the heart of the Brazilian side at this type of restaurant... No dice, maybe another day. Also, the staff cut me some pork that was raw as well as some beef and lamb. They really need to be trained better as to when to bring the large skewer back to the kitchen to be put back on the grill. What scares me is that they were also serving chicken, thank god it was cut small and wrapped in bacon. Anyway, I have the upmost respect for Chef Carmine, but he needs to get another grill so that they can have the volume needed to accomodate thier patrons. I have been to Brazil multiple times and they shave off as much cooked meat as possible from the skewer and then head back to the grill swapping the uncooked inner meat on the large cuts and bring out a new one in the rotation. Overall it was a cool epxerience, but there is definately alot of things that need to be worked on before this place is taken seriously. I have had better Chuhask pretty much in any other restuarant in the states. Try "Texas de Brazil" somewhere and you will see what I mean. Sorry Carmine, get some Brazilians in the kitchen (trust me) and maybe salt the meat or marinade it slighly for a couple days to make it more tender. Also, train the staff big time. The cutting was sloppy and serving raw meat is going to kill somebody.