Restaurant: Samar (a Stephan Pyles concept)

We've been eating out a lot, well, every day this week so I haven't posted any recipes (thus, more restaurant reviews than usual).  We'll be cooking up some new dishes this week so stay tuned!

About Samar. . .

Samar opened up a few years ago in downtown Dallas, and I'd been wanting to try it since I love Mediterranean, Spanish and Indian food.  I was thoroughly and completely disappointed.

While I understand that a restaurant can have an "off" night, when I told a friend of mine about my experience, she said that 2 of her friends (separately) told her that they had awful experiences as well.  While the restaurant is very intimate and beautiful, the food and service were the worst I've experienced at any restaurant.

The restaurant only holds maybe 75 people and wasn't busy, yet:

• It took over 15 minutes to get our drinks.
• Their 'Specialty Cocktail' menu only has 11 cocktails listed, and yet their bartender didn't know how to make one that our friend ordered.  It wasn't like he ordered an off-the-menu cocktail -- it was one that was listed ON the menu.  Their excuse was that another bartender had created the cocktail and didn't teach the other bartender how to make it.
• I wanted to order the Sherry Cobbler cocktail, but they were out of an ingredient.
• When the server brought the drinks out, he brought out the wrong ones or maybe he got confused.  There were 7 of us, and he set down 3 drinks and then took the other 4 back to who knows where.
• Our friends ordered a dish which they were out of.  Note: We went on a Thursday at 7pm when a restaurant should have a delivery, be prepared, and not be out of anything yet.
• The falafel, naan, hummus and chutney were all fine but nothing to write home about.
• We love foie gras and ordered the 'Potatoes and Chorizo' that has a fried organic egg on top and Hudson Valley foie gras.  It was by far the WORST foie gras in appearance and taste I have ever had.  If you didn't know what it was, you would've thought it was mistakenly placed on the plate ~ just a piece of fat thrown on the side. 
• I was really looking forward to the 'Seared Bay Scallops' -- and now that I'm looking at their menu again online and realize it was listed under their 'Small Plates,' I guess I can understand why the scallops were just 1/2 an inch in diameter.  I was expecting larger ones and at first thought (with excitement) that the olive oil poached potatoes were the scallops.  To my dismay, they weren't.
• Finally, dessert.  It's really hard to mess up dessert, but they managed to do so.  I ordered the 'Chocolate Samosa with Candied Rose Petal Sauce.'  The rose petal sauce was amazing in flavor and interesting in texture, but the samosa was hard as a rock.  It had the texture and consistency of something that has been baked or fried before and then was microwaved again.  The 'Dark Chocolate and Spiced Pecan Baklava' was hard to cut into and not flaky at all. 

All in all, it was the worst restaurant experience I've ever had.  While I usually try a restaurant 3 times before I give up on it, I won't be going back since others seem to have had similar experiences.