I think there is a built in "fact check" on a board like Chowhound because there are enough active posters to call out a review that seems too far out of the ordinary. I am not sure about this Fogo one in particular, but I would also hate to not believe a review because it was too good.

Any "glowing description of a visit to the new Fogo de Chao" is obviously spam if it's anything like the one in Atlanta.

We had a great time at the new Fago in Baltimore. It's not fine dining like the Milton Inn or Prime Rib, but it's a lot of fun, the food is pretty good and the concept is interesting. I'd been to another one in NYC, and thought Baltimore's stood up pretty well.

The only thing that ruined the evening for us was the 35 minute wait for our car at the end of the evening. People who came out well after us got their cars first. There was absolutely no order in the valet parking. They couldn't even tell us if someone had gone to get the car. It was very annoying.

Having spent many years writing promotional copy (albeit largely for movies,) the Chowhound posting strikes me as having a professional ring. Perhaps it's a "plant" from the restaurant's advertising or PR agency. Or maybe it was posted by a copywriter, in no way connected with Fogo de Chao, who honestly adored the place and raved about it in "advertisingese." Either way, I'd be more impressed with the mini-review if it was just slightly less enthusiastic.

If it's reported as spam, the Chowhound team is pretty good about deleting the posts. I've done this to several posts. Also, if it's obvious that a restaurant is spamming chowhound, I won't ever eat there -- I've been boycotting places for years because of that.

The post is question is pretty obviously spam. One good clue is to look and see if the poster has been posting and commenting regularly, or if they just signed up to do the one post.

We went to Fogo for dinner last night, and I must say it was the better churrascaria than Greenfield's off Rockville Pike. My wife and I were the first ones there, and the salad bar itself was amazing. We think it was well worth the price considering the extra services that we were getting; and the unlimited fried sweet plaintain side dish was delicious. My only gripe was seeing all the gauchos running around at dizzying speeds while carrying the meats and a huge knife was a bit scary and overwhelming...nevertheless the service was definitely superb. In the end, since we were so full to the point of being sick, we agreed to only go there once or every other year...