Boi de Ouro Opens in CMN

Ping Chen of Fort Smith said she spent more than $3 million to build, furnish and open the 8,600-SF Boi de Ouro, a Brazilian restaurant, in Fayetteville’s CMN Business Park.

Ping Chen and her husband, Steve Chen, own two restaurants in Fort Smith: Peking Palace, which they opened in 1978, and Shogun, which opened in 1999.

Ping Chen said she went to Brazil on vacation four years ago and got the idea to open a Brazilian churrascaria, or steak house, in Arkansas. She made two more trips to Brazil to research the idea.

Boi de Ouro, which is Portuguese for “golden bull,” opened on Oct. 10. The restaurant has about 200 seats for diners.

For dinner, Boi de Ouro serves 18 different kinds of grilled Brazilian meat, along with six hot dishes, a dozen salads and 18 sauces. For lunch, the restaurant has six meats and five hot dishes. During Saturday and Sunday brunch, there are 10 meats and six hot dishes.

The fixed prices (which include all the food a person can eat) are $16 for lunch, $20 for brunch and $31 for dinner. Drinks aren’t included in those prices. Boi de Ouro has a full bar.

The grilled meats include top sirloin, flank steak, chicken, filet mignon, pork ribs, sausage, pork loin, Brazilian shish kabob, beef ribs (which are cooked for five hours) and rack of lamb.

Boi de Ouro is open from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on weekdays for lunch. The restaurant is open for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Brunch is served from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Orlando Veronezi, manager of Boi de Ouro, said the restaurant is the only “authentic” Brazilian steak house in Arkansas. The ovens were imported from Brazil. So were some of the 30 employees, including chef Vanderlei Roman, who is from Rio Grande do Sul, the region of southern Brazil where churrasco (Brazilian barbecue) originated. Veronezi said he’s still waiting on Brazilian charcoal, which includes pine wood. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused a delay in the shipping, Veronezi said.

Veronezi, who lived in Brazil for 28 years, worked as a lawyer before deciding to go to culinary school at Johnson & Wales University in Miami. He opened four Brazilian restaurants for four different companies before Ping Chen hired him to open Boi de Ouro.

Ping Chen was born in China, grew up in Hong Kong and moved to Fort Smith in 1981.