"When Tropeiro opened on Sackville Street (on the corner of the aptly named Brazil Street), loads of people quizzed us as to how it faired against Pau Brasil. Normally, we don't like to compare restaurant for restaurant, as it's often down to personal choice - and this is certainly the case when trying to compare Manchester's two Brazilian establishments. Both are excellent churrascarias and, having visited both on many occassions, we're just at home at either.

Tropeiro offers some of the finest meats available in Manchester city centre and, for just £18.95 for all you can eat (£12.50 for the same offering at lunchtime), there can't be many better value for money meat feasts in Manchester. The salad buffet is superb with plenty of choice and enough to keep a vegetarian happy and very stuffed. Although if you are a veggie, you should be warned that the meat on offer to the carnivores sat alongside you is actually presented and cut from the sword at the table.

The meat is fantastic and it just kept on coming... First up was Frango (chicken legs wrapped in bacon), a cut so big we were starting to regret eating so much from the excellent salad bar. These doubts were doubled within seconds when the waiter remerged with his sword boasting Alcatra (sirloin steak) that was cooked to perfection and cut to a size that would have justified the rodizio's £12.50 price tag alone. The Costela de Porco (pork ribs), were very tender and flavoursome, whilst the Linguica, (spicy Brazilian sausages), were also very tasty and bursting with flavour. The Cordeiro (leg of lamb) was our personal pick of the cuts, sliced of the bone with the flavour of rosemary and salt oozing out - just writing about it now, is making my tummy rumble! Fraldinha (saddle of beef), was the only cut that got the thumbs down from our party but that was more down to personal taste rather than the quality of the cut and we were disappointed that Picanha (salted sirloin steak) wasn't on offer the lunchtime we carried out this review. From our previous visits, you can see why this is the favourite dish in Brazil. To finish, we opted for the Chicken Hearts - little bean-sized cuts with a taste similar to kidney.

There's plenty of drinks to choose from too. Caipirinha is the Brazilian speciality whilst bottles of Palma Louca Brazilian beer (£3.70) help wash down the wonderful meats. There's plenty of wines to choose from, although sadly none from Brazil during our visits. All in all, Tropeiro is an excellent addition to Manchester's restaurant scene and certainly one that we will revisit on many occassions (as we already have). Whether or not it's better than Pau Brasil is hard to say - 2 of our team say it is, 2 others beg to differ - as we said earlier, it's down to personal choice and you won't go wrong visiting either. Even better, why not visit both!" ~ restaurants of manchester, manchester 24/12/08 (visited on a friday lunch)