Saaaaaaaaaamba!

Happy circumstance, which I'm not allowed to diclose, I find myself with some fellow Spaniards in the City just around lunch time on a Wednesday afternoon and decide to attempt the mission of having lunch at SushiSamba. If you check on the website of the restaurant, they state that they now take bookings 2 months ahead - I tried booking and failed miserably, as I was only doing it 1 week in advance, how dare me? - so we had a tough one ahead of us.

We walked in, it was 4 of us, and the first step was getting pass the first hostess (beautiful blonde) who was kindly letting a young man know that they don't take bookings for the terrace for drinks over the weekends but that he, and his friends, were more than welcome to come and join the queue (good plan for a Friday evening even if queueing is a national sport); as we wanted to have lunch, she said that we accomplished mission 1 and were eligible to the 34th floor - only the lift ride ascending over the city would be worth it (you can see the Gerkin from the top!).

When we arrived upstairs, there was a another hostess (this one was brunette, if I recall correctly). One of my fellow companions, the one who has been framed, made the first attemot to get a table. However, brunette hostess said that everything was full :-( but we were welcome to sit on the sushi bar. That's when I decided to go with all I had and tell her the full story, with a big smile, about my fellowship coming all the way to Spain and the fact that I had tried to book a table 2 weeks in advance; she seemed to buy what I said, or simply she got bored of listening - I can talk - because she allowed me to complete this phase and get to talk to the boss of all hostess, the one an only person in charge of the tables! So there I went, flapping my eyelashes and with the kindest smile, in order to try and conquer the third lady. After a few minutes of neogotiation and talking about the poor visitors coming all the way from the southern kingdoms, I think she took pity and gave us the last table available. Mission accomplished!

This post is already long enough but I need to talk about the food. This Peruvian-Brazilian-Japanese restaurant is really cool, and I wish it would have been a nicer day to enjoy the view even more. But what would London be without the cranes and the clouds?

Back to the food, sorry! The ceviche here is not my favourite, you should already know if you read about 'Sour and Happiness' (if you haven't, please do), but they have Padron Peppers and just that made me happy. The rolls are extremely good, best California Maki that I ever had, and definitely try the Sea Bass, it's mind blowing. We didn't taste any of the meat dishes but they smelled lovely. And the cheesecake for dessert was a-m-a-z-i-n-g!

Just be ready to take your credit card for a tour, and in case you don't want to be concious about it, there is a sommelier that will make sure you try a few sakes to ease the pain.

DETAILS:

SushiSamba - www.sushisamba.com/‎ - Heron Tower  110 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AY