Sushi Samba, West Village

Angela and I visited Sushi Samba in West Village for our monthly dinner date. The space has a trendy, but casual lounge vibe. Sleek, modern interiors with natural touches. We were seated in outside, away from the dining room, which ended up getting very noisy later in the evening. Wish we had known about the rooftop terrace!

Sushi Samba serves Japanese, Brazilian, Peruvian fusion cuisine. I’m glad I had a $50 gift card as the menu as a whole seems a bit overpriced. There weren’t that many meatless entrees on the menu, but they did a nice job with the dishes we ordered. The vegetable dishes were also more reasonably priced.

We started the evening with the Brisa Caliente ($13) cocktail. A strong and spicy mixture of tequila, ginger liqueur, mango nectar, lime, passion fruit, and serrano chili.

As a fan of mushrooms and poached eggs, I had my eye on the Mushroom Tobanyaki ($15). Japanese mushrooms and garlic croutons on a sizzling platter topped with an organic poached egg. You have to break the egg and mix it into the dish. It was quite salty, but I enjoyed this mushroom dish. Check out the hot sizzling action!

Our other appetizer was the Grilled Eggplant ($8) with pickled oshinko (Japanese radish). Eggplant can be a little tricky to cook, but this was beautifully grilled. Nice flavor, meaty texture, browned exterior. The large pieces of eggplant were very filling.

Sushi Samba’s rolls are pretty interesting. Angela ordered the Ezo Samba Roll ($12.50) with soy-marinated salmon, asparagus, red onion, chives, sesame, and tempura flakes. Instead of a seaweed wrapper, the Ezo is wrapped in soy paper and served with wasabi mayo.

I ordered the Amazonia Samba Roll ($11) that has a swiss chard wrapper. It’s filled with portobello, takuwan (pickled daikon radish), and cucumber. Not quite as spectacular as Beyond Sushi, but not bad overall. The swiss chard wrapper was a bit annoying to bite through though.