The Sample Room

If you have difficulty making decisions, the Sample Room wants you. As the name implies, this brand-new, swank café bar is centered around sharable, nibbleworthy combination platters—3,500 possible combinations of veggie, meat, cheese, and seafood treats. That goes for wine too: Try a number of vintages with a flight of three 2-oz. glasses. Our entrees were nothing terribly exotic—smoked pork loin and turkey breast, with mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables—but it’s comfort food done elegantly and in good-sized portions. We recommend the carefully spiced and smoky cream of mushroom soup. A stone’s throw away from a cardboard-box factory and Gabby’s Saloon, the Sample Room brings casual class to the neighborhood. It’s inviting and comfortable contemporary interior in dark browns and warm colors, under a restored original ceiling, is quite the change from the slightly seedy Polish Palace it replaced. On our visit the space seemed a trifle loud, even at one-third capacity, but service was friendly and eager to please—our coffee was topped off no less than five times, and the manager proudly made the rounds showing patrons a turn-of-the-century photo, discovered during remodeling, of the old bar and its much-mustachioed regulars. It might be nice, in future, to see the place add a patio out back to take advantage of the river view, but on our next visit our biggest problem will be choosing which of the four dessert chocolates to try first. The Sample Room, (612) 789-0333