Critic's Review
It took them longer to open this place than it took to close it; Samba House was the most predictable failure since the M-Bar. $12,000/month rent for this place makes it difficult for someone with zero marketing to make a profit on.
$24/ft rent, $9.30/ft CAM charge and a 3% procurement fee. These strip malls just love their empty buildings.
Review 6/7/16
The Samba House opened after a long wait; they missed the entire season after going multiple rounds with the hood police. I'd come by last week and there wasn't a car in the lot; at the time I didn't know about their lunch schedule so I opt'd not to go in. Today I got here at 1pm and there were a lot of cars. I wondered if they really did good business between noon and 1pm and nothing later on? Seemed odd. I checked a few things on my phone as I contemplated whether I wanted to go in; in 15 minutes not a single person went in, and 2 people came out. I decided to go in anyway.
As I walked in there were a couple of employees sitting at the end of the bar, seemingly with nothing to do. I asked for a table and a server walked me into the dining room. There was 1 other person in the entire place. This used to be a Melting Pot; a place I'd never been because fondue isn't my thing; so the place is virtually all booths. But it's not as nice as the photos I'd seen.
The lack of attention to detail started with the table. Some sort of towel on the table with salt and pepper.
They don't (apparently) even have a printed menu for the restaurant. She put a ragged take out menu in front of me and tried to push the rodizio. Really, a rodizio for 2 people? How does that work? I asked for an iced tea and looked over the menu. They also have a "lunch special" which is one meat with 3 sides (with the $19.95 Rodizio you get 5 sides). Obviously there's no sides buffet like at the big places. But I couldn't find the meat choices on the menu.
When when she returned I asked where the meats were listed "Oh, they're not on there, but I know what they are". Great. Sausage, Chicken, Ribs. Sirloin. Nothing worth $20. I asked for a few more minutes.
The tea was delivered with a straw, no spoon or sweeteners or fruit. I tasted it and almost spit it out; sweetened raspberry or something. VERY sweet.
I asked if they had unsweetened and they don't. Another lack of a plan; every restaurant in South Florida has unsweetened Iced Tea. I asked for a lemon and she brought me an entire lemon, cut into 4 pieces.
I ordered Pork Ribs with beans, cheese bread and a salad. She told me the ribs would be 10 minutes. So the wait began at my empty table.
Everyone in the place was speaking Portuguese (I assume). The music was all foreign language. Not bad music.
They have a pretty nice wine closet.
Waiting and waiting. I was thinking that they could have brought out the bread and the salad. Maybe it was all on one plate. I had no idea what the portions would be like.
28 minutes after ordering she came out with the "side" salad.
A pretty big and awkward salad. Hearts of Palm, green olives. Frisee lettuce. No dressing on the salad. Just the table oil and vinegar. A real culinary experience. I wondered why they couldn't bring this out 20 minutes earlier.
Next out were the other sides.
The beans were very loose; probably a bad idea to order beans without rice. I tasted the bread; not a bad taste but kind of spongy. More like cake than bread.
The ribs came out looking like an unexpected block of meat. The lettuce garnish didn't catch my fancy, but I saw an opportunity to get some edible lettuce into my salad.
The thing with the ribs is that they were not braised or cooked "low and slow", so it was difficult to cut to separate the ribs. Good thing I had a sharp knife.
The ribs were good, if nondescript. There were just broiled or something; no noticeable seasoning or sauce offered. I'd had enough of the salad and beans; I had to wait a few minutes for my server to return to give me my check.
Even the receipt was amateaurish. No company name or "Have a nice Day". As if they didn't really know how to set up the POS system.
Conclusion
At this point I can predict what a place will be like before I go, and this place was pretty predictable. Their lack of presentation for the restaurant was an early warning sign; this place is a complete and total mess. They haven't done the basic thinking through process of opening a restaurant; The menu is awkward and poorly conceived; there's no flow to the service and the food is basic and uninteresting.
What we have here is an incomplete idea that is poorly implemented by people who don't know what they're doing. There's nothing I can say that will make this place any worse than it is.
*******
Theoretically open; they don't seem to speak English and they don't answer the phone during the day. $36pp for the dinner rodizio. $40 with a soft drink; still a high price point for croquettes and sausage at a restaurant with no track record.
Their theory here is that they're $11 cheaper than Texas De Brazil, but that's really not true in the summer, when you can regularly score 1/2 price and $10 off coupons. They're not making any effort to convey any information in English, so I suspect that this will be a hangout for the local Brazilian population.
*******
The latest disaster to hit Fort Lauderdale continues to limp along; nothing like a new restaurant completely missing the busy season. They haven't even applied for a sign permit yet. I guess converting a fondue restaurant to a Rodizio wasn't as easy as they thought. Nothing like $12,000 in unexpected expenses; and months of not being open.
If they took this place 1 month earlier they could have just opened up without jumping through any hoops; if a restaurant has been closed more than a year you have to get everything approved like it's a new space.
I was surprised to see it's going to be a rodizio. Do they know that Texas De Brazil has a big shiny rodizio restaurant 1500 feet away?
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A Brazilian woman from Coconut Creek is opening a Brazilian restaurant in the space previously occupied by The Melting Pot. This is a pretty big, expensive space for a first timer. I doubt she'll be remodeling, so it could open quickly as the place has been closed less than a year.
They plan to open in February.
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