Get some lime with that shake

BY DAY, SOCCER MOMS, BY NIGHT — samba! Such is the double life of Ummba, the Brazilian churrascaria that recently opened next to the food court at the Westfield mall in Century City.

Technically a cafeteria-style lunch and dinner spot that serves Brazilian cuisine (picanha, salada de horta) to weary shoppers and office workers, Ummba morphs into a boisterous nightclub, complete with samba dancers on Sundays, when Brazilian Night kicks off at 5.

According to Ummba manager Michel LeChasseur, you can tell who the real Brazilians are by the way they shake their hips.

“I guess you have to learn that at a young age in order to be able to move that way,” he said on a recent evening.

“I’ve had to leave the bar a few times to go dance,” said Luciano Dos Santos, a bartender who ends most of his sentences with “darling.” (“Straight up, darling?” “Would you like a lime, darling?”)

Crowds are also drawn to Ummba’s (fairly deadly) caipirinhas, which, as Dos Santos tells customers, means “the little country girl” in Portuguese.

Not everyone comes to experience Brazil’s national cocktail, however.

“Can you do pomegranate martinis?” a woman called out from the bar.

“Coming up, darling!”

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-- Nicole LaPorte