12.06.07
Review of Sala One Nine, Wednesday November 2007
35 W. 19th St. and 5th/6th, 212-229-2300
Great for: dates, sharing food, catching up with several friends
The Boyfriend and I had lots of double dates in November. This one was with my friend S and her boyfriend. A friend of ours suggested Sala, although it turned out that he meant the one on Bowery. This is a new branch. It’s a surprisingly huge restaurant – there are a few tables in front with a bar, then another bar about midway in before the rest of the tables. We’d made an 8:45 reservation because that was all we could get, but arrived at 8:15 to see if we could get seated earlier. They accommodated us about 10 minutes later. We had a cute corner table that would be perfect for a very romantic date, as it feels kind of sheltered from the rest of the restaurant.
We started with the tuna bocadillo, which came in 2 giant triangle portions of seared tuna with onions. They were really hard to cut – we ended up just eating half and giving the other to our respective boyfriends. They were ok, not great. The tuna was a bit chewy for my taste. The salad de la casa, which had romaine, tomato, white asparagus, tuna and olives, was very good, so that we were politely fighting over the last few scraps. We liked the shrimp al ajillo (in garlic) a lot as well.
From the larger plates, we got the chorizo and paella. We liked the chorizo a lot and wished there was more of it – I guess the grill plates are supposed to be medium tapas. It was savory & cooked just enough to be juicy without getting too dry. The seafood paella was all right, very average. It was big enough for the four of us after all the starters but nothing special.
We had a pretty attentive waitress who made sure everything went smoothly for us while we were obliviously chatting away. I really like the lighting and the way they set up the place as well. It’s very sexy and romantic, but also great for a bunch of friends. The food isn’t the greatest, but when you have enough drinks & dim lighting, it’s lots of fun.
Rating: 6.5 / 10
Our cost: $160 for 4 people (1.5 drinks each)
Noise level: good, considering how many people were in the restaurant.
Chance of walking in: Medium, although as people realize there’s a second Sala I’m sure it will get harder.
