Chima - Charlotte Restaurant Week

Thefoodbaby.com bottom line:

• You get to summon unlimited amounts of meat to you with a colored chip?! Genius.
• Beware of the salad bar: it’s delicious, and dangerously filling.
• The variety and quantity of meats were impressive, but no one selection resulted in meatgasm.

Let me tell you a little bit about me. There is nothing on this earth I love more than meat. I am a loud and proud hardcore carnivore. I named my dog Bacon. My college friends and I call ourselves The Meat Crew, and we have annual Meatunions. I could go on waxing philosophical about my affinity for all things meaty, but I will spare you…as I assume you get the picture by now.

So my husband and I were having serious marital issues because he had never taken me to this glorious place called Chima. A wonderland where people magically appear with different slabs of seared animal flesh, and carve unlimited amounts onto your plate! I was getting ready to divorce him if he didn’t take me soon. Fortunately he saved our marriage and we went last night with our freakin amazing group of friends from our ‘hood.

We stopped by Bentley’s on 27 for a drink (PS Jordan chardonnay is to die for!) and then headed over to the meat palace. Our table wasn’t ready when we arrived, so we headed upstairs to the bar for more booze consumption. Unfortunately, it was about 30 more minutes before we were seated. They should know better than to do that to 12 hungry people dying of anticipation. We finally did get seated at 9:30 and let the games begin.

A few of us opted to graze the salad bar. We held ourselves back and grazed lightly because I had been strongly advised about the dangers of the salad bar. It’s so beautiful and everything looks so delicious – even the most dedicated meatatarians could slip up and over-fill. I couldn’t resist some tiny samples, and grabbed bites of calamari, shrimp salad, prosciutto, blue cheese and walnuts on endive, and a seriously phallic spear of asparagus – every bite of which was delicious, especially the shrimp.

Salad bar selections

Then the meat party began. Each person is given a chip, and you flip the orange side up to summon the meat. I started with salmon and swordfish, which were great and topped with a tasty caper sauce. Next up: leg of lamb. This ended up being my favorite meat of the night – it had a nice salty sear, and the rarest slices melted in my mouth.

The dankalicious leg o' lamb

Some good but not stellar meat selections: sausage, baby sirloin, and flank steak. I didn’t care for the pork ribs – the sauce was good but the meat was tough and fatty. The biggest let down of the night? The bacon-wrapped filet.  This was the piece de resistance I had been waiting for….and it was just okay. I asked for medium rare, and got medium well (sacrilege!). The bacon was way too bendy and fatty, and the meat wasn’t much better than the sirloin. So, I opted to return to the leg of lamb and stayed there the rest of the night.

Various meat selections from hubby's plate

I would like to point out that I had some excellent wines. I’m kicking myself for not remembering the names, but an amazing malbec, and a malbec/cab blend that was on special. Naturally I over-consumed and ended up super wine-drunk by the end of the night.

The service was mediocre – not terrible (aside from being seated 30 minutes late), but just average. We did have to ask the manager for a few select meats we hadn’t seen yet, but after that they were promptly delivered.

Overall we had a blast, as always…and the atmosphere and food were definitely respectable. Upon weighing myself this morning, I felt smug for only gaining 1.5 pounds. I’m glad I finally experienced Chima, and that my husband and I aren’t headed for divorce court.

Still married