SushiSamba Park & Co.
Today I had the chance to have lunch at SushiSamba Park and dinner at the new "in" pizzeria, Company. I'll start with SushiSamba. SushiSamba is located on Park Ave S between 19th & 20th st and serves a Japanese, Peruvian and Brazilian cuisine; but should really focus on one and you can tell the owners put decor over quality of food. The sushi bar is under an artistic light fixture, but the rest of the celling that isn't covered by this fixture isn't attractive. However, the rest of the restaurant is appealing to the eye and is trendy enough for even the most high-brow socialite. Now for the food. In my opinion as I stated earlier, if SushiSamba focuses on serving only one type of food it would do much better; but since they decided to serve three different types of food they run into a slight problem. I only ordered the Japanese part, which was good, but not nearly as good as it should have been. I ordered the chicken teriyaki bento box. The chicken teriyaki was good, but the sushi that came with it was sub par and the miso soup was incredibly salty and if you could imagine what urine tastes like, SushiSamba's miso soup would taste exactly like that. But I've only ordered the Japanese cuisine and as I've heard their Brazilian and Peruvian dishes are much better. The service was up to par for a restaurant of this standard. For lunch SushiSamba isn't a bad choice as I could have made a much worse choice than their $14 bento box (which is actually a lot of food); but I wouldn't exactly go there for dinner as by looking at their menu, can be a bit pricey and the food isn't worth the price tag.
Company (or Co. as it is also known as) is a small upscale pizzeria in Chelsea. Co. is owned by Jim Lahey and quite honestly is a gold mine (not as much as Pastis, but its still bringing in a lot of profit during this recession). Co. is designed as a typical pizzeria but has a bit more style and elegance to it. The wooden panelling in the back adds a nice touch, as well as the chandeliers made of material and parts of an accordion. Its a small place and can only seat 50 people (there are 2 communal tables and about five 2-person tables and another two 6-person tables) so it does get pretty crowded. Company does not take reservations so you may have to wait. From tonight, 6:30 PM is their busiest time for dinner, and the crowd dies down at around 7:30 PM. The reason why this place is packed is for the sole fact that the pizza is good...really good. Co. makes small 4 slice pizzas that are made for one person, and they basically smother it with toppings. But the chefs at Company do this in such a way that the pizza turns out to be light and enjoyable rather than heavy. The Margherita was the best pie out of all of them, followed by the Flambe pie (cheese, prosciutto and caramelized onions), the Ham & Cheese pie, and then their "Special Pie" which this evening was the "Bird's Nest" pie (cheese, asparagus shavings, black truffle and quail eggs). The Bird's Nest pie wasn't too good in my opinion as it was complicated and the quail egg was too overpowering for the rest of the flavors, but the rest of the pies were phenomenal. These pies were also relatively inexpensive ranging from $13 to $24 a pie ($24 was the special pie, the other 3 pies were about $15 each). The staff was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable and they looked like they were having fun doing their job, which is always nice to see as a patron. In conclusion Co. does live up to its hype and was worth the visit, just be ready to wait at least 30 minutes to be seated.
