Surf & Turf - Grilled sirloin steak and lobster with asparagus and potato confit. Beef on Weck - Thinly sliced sirloin braised in red wine and fresh horseradish served on a silver dollar Kimmelweck roll. Chicken Caesar - Grilled chicken medallion on crisp Romaine tossed in Caesar dressing and served in a Parmesan tuille. Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup - Grilled bread with smoked cheddar served with charred tomato soup. Chocolate Kumquat Martini.

(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Tucked into its spot on Allen Street like the perfect puzzle piece, Sample invites guests to a nightly cocktail party. This whimsically themed restaurant was conceived as husband and wife Adam and Jennifer Goetz strolled New York City thinking about new ideas for Buffalo. After brainstorming, they headed back home to get to work and brought in partner Ed Castine and chef Aaron Dombroski from Tru in Chicago. The idea: a modern approach to eating, ordering bite-sized creations, either one by one or in groups of three or more. Although a fairly unique concept in our area, food in miniature, served in trios, has been hitting the culinary world for the past decade, most notably with Thomas Keller’s tasting menu at his Napa Valley restaurant the French Laundry. What makes Sample so innovative is bringing these haute cuisine ideas to a hip space at a reasonable price.

Adam Goetz and Aaron Dombrowski worked together on designing the menu. Smartly, they began with notable Buffalo favorites like beef on weck, sausage with pepper and onion and surf and turf. For specials and future incarnations of the menu, they hope to stretch our culinary boundaries a bit more. The challenge is to take Buffalo’s dining crowd from the traditional appetizer, entrée and dessert mode to a more fun, creative, do-as-you-will approach to eating. Compared to a cross between sushi (ordering by the piece) and tapas (the Spanish version with slightly larger portions), Sample ultimately defies definition. Come in, enjoy as little or as much as you want, but most of all have fun.

Jennifer Goetz’ talents as an art director are revealed as soon as you come through the door. The décor is post-modern 1970s, from the color scheme of browns, whites and oranges to the fun details placed throughout the space. The high-ceilinged, square room with upper dining room loft and prominent metal-railed staircase has cool brown walls, walnut flooring and a creamy-colored glow coming from the seating area above. A semi-circular bar stands front and center, as does a large flat-screen TV ideal for game watching. The custom-made concrete bar is inlaid with shards of brightly colored glass. The most unique detail is an entire wall covered with large, back-lit, square screens of fabric. The design on the fabric is abstract, incorporating the orange and white colors of the restaurant with random, black line figure drawings. These art pieces tie the entire space together, with the outlines of the people depicted on the screens mimicking the crowd gathered in reality at the bar.

I solicited the tasting talents of one of my girlfriends that evening. We decided to have a girl’s night out and Sample is a perfect place for this type of evening. We first perused the drink offerings. With unique cocktails such as an orange hot chocolate with vanilla vodka marshmallows and a very reasonably priced, 25-bottle wine list with eight wines by the glass to choose from, Sample offers a wide range of beverage delights. Both of us being wine drinkers, we chose the Zumaya Tempranillo from Spain ($5) and a Californian red blend called Beauzeaux-Bozo ($6). The waiter, asking if this was our first time to Sample, was enthusiastic and informative in explaining the how the menu works. A “cocktail party” consists of a choice of six or nine menu items and a complimentary glass of champagne or wine for $19-$24 per person. You can also order individual pieces. Both of us opted for the nine-item “party,” and with our respective choices were able to try everything on the menu, with some favorites overlapping. The samples come out three at a time on rectangular plates, with the timing of the courses to our liking, at a leisurely pace.

The first trio included cappuccino, a mushroom soup with rosemary foam, fish and chip and grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. Both soups contained about three ounces each. I preferred the tomato soup, as it was chunky with bits of charred tomato, and the small grilled cheese sandwich measuring less than an inch square was very tasty and brought me back to my favorite combination as a child. (I wonder if my mother gave me the same portion size back then?) The mushroom soup was good but a bit on the salty side. The topping of foam on the soup, a nod to the new trend of molecular gastronomy, was potent with rosemary flavor. The fish and chip consisted of salt cod, lightly battered, perfectly fried and then placed over Napa cabbage coleslaw on a crispy homemade potato chip.

Next came another three bites. When biting into the sausage with pepper and onion, the spice from the chorizo sausage blended perfectly with the char from the fire-roasted pepper and grilled scallion and was nicely balanced with the sweetness within the corn arepa. The steak and egg was cooked perfectly, the one-half-inch-thick piece of steak was medium to medium rare and the quail’s egg yolk was just perfectly medium. When I bit into this the yolk remained firm, not overdone, and the steak was nice and juicy. Another favorite for me that evening was the linguini and clam sauce, a littleneck clam topped with white wine and garlic prepared angel hair pasta. I could have eaten a whole plate of those little guys, the clam sweet and moist and the al dente pasta full with flavor. For the samples containing lobster meat, such as the surf and turf and the club sandwich, they give you a nice firm portion of lobster tail meat, so rest assured your $3.50 will be well spent.

One thing I must note is how well everything was prepared. When serving a one-bite creation, the bite has to be technically well prepared with tastes that excite the palate. At Sample, you can truly savor the flavors, and it makes you want more.

They offer trios of mini desserts as well. My friend opted for the crème brulee trio. Three china soup spoons were filled with chocolate, espresso and traditional crème brulee and lightly crisped on top with caramelized sugar. The traditional fared the best as the other two, although full with flavor, had more of a pudding-like consistency. I went with the chocolate trio: a chocolate covered strawberry, a chocolate chip cookie and chocolate ravioli topped with berry sauce. All were good, but the ravioli wasn’t really to my liking as the consistency was a bit chewy.

Sample is a fun, creative place to eat and drink with friends. Inside its walls lies a party waiting to happen. Use the space for happy hour, late night eats or long rambling dinners with friends. The menu will be enhanced by nightly specials and will change a couple times a year, so the novelty of these cute little tasty items will not soon wear off.