The food here was good when we went about 2:00 pm. We were only customers there. The Samarkand is a mom and pop place. The wife tried to be helpful but her English was very limited. Fortunately there was a young man, Jonathon, who was there from the Rabinite whose job it is to make sure everything is kosher. He was a great help to us in ordering. We got a pickled salad of whole pickled tomatoes, and egg plant. Then came some bread which cried for butter. Little meat pies came next and were quite good with a tomato-based sauce, thicker than salsa but without the mexican pepper spice taste. Next we had a skewer apiece of lamb and beef shishkabob on a base of wonderful rice w/ slices of raw onion. Of course we had hot tea to go with it all.
Inside the restaurant, it was clean and nice. Much better than you would think it would be from outside.
Would have liked to see some sort of sauce to go on the shishkabob and rice. Was good but a bit pricey but not terribly so.
Jonathon wound up sitting at our table and talking to us during the meal (at our invitation). We really enjoyed his company. Thank you Jonathon for making our lunch into something special.
We'd go back again and try more and varied dishes. Perhaps we'll find a saschlik (which they seem to call shihkabob) with a sauce.
All in all a very enjoyable meal.