Patisserie des Ambassades - Review

Intro
Patisserie des Ambassades - Slightly Recommended
161 W 22nd St, New York
Btwn 6th and 7th Ave
Phone: 212-255-5106

Stopped by this place on a recommendation from a friend who grew up in Senegal. Patisserie des Ambassades serves home style Senegalese food, which I've never had before. I've been to Ethiopian restaurants which are hella fun to eat, but very different from Senelagese food. Since Senegal was a French colony at one point, I saw similarities with French colonial food (e.g. Vietnamese) rather than African food. Overall, I give the restaurant a 73/100.

My Menu
1) Nems **
2) Lamb Mafe (special of the day) *
3) Fish Fried Rice (special of the day) *

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way * Good ** Great *** What the F – in a good way

Dish Comments
1) Deep fried vietnamese style spring rolls stuffed with some earthy ingredients - maybe mushrooms? You also get the same style of sweet, salty dipping sauce that you usually get at Vietnamese restaurants. They're so tasty, I could eat 20 of these...
2) Basically a tomato based stew that is thickened with a small amount of ground peanuts (or peanut butter). Yes...ground peanuts. The weird thing is I had no idea peanuts were in there until I found out about it online. It seemed just like a thick Italian style tomato sauce, but nonetheless quite satisfying served with a side of white rice. The lamb in the stew is very tender and there were pieces of large carrots. Surprisingly, I thought the flavors would be more amped up, but it's a little muted. More homestyle cooking but still happy with the dish. Make sure to ask for the hot sauce - it's homemade and kicks it up a notch!
3) Didn't quite catch the name of this dish, but it was basically rice that was fried in tons of vegetable oil with bits of fish (i think cod), cabbage, some salty puree, and okra. I didn't dig it so much at first, but it definitely grew on me. Plus, it's awesome the next day.

Overall Restaurant Experience (73/100)

• Food 7.4/10 – Homestyle Senegalese cooking. Nothing out of this world, but still relatively tasty.
  
• Service 6.5/10 – The service was quite subpar, but then again it's a tiny little joint so you can't expect that much. Everyone is very friendly and nice, but there was absolutely no customers there and they forgot my drink order and it took a while to get the check. The staff were always chatting in the back kitchen, so it was tough to get a hold of them.
  
• Atmosphere 7.0/10 – Looking like a tiny coffee shop or diner - around 15 seats. No one was there when we first arrived at 7pm (on a Thursday), but one couple showed up as we were leaving. It seemed like they were doing decent take out business though.
  
• Price 8.0/10 – Place is very reasonable with the majority of the entrees at $12-15. Portions are very large. We had seconds of the fish dish the next day, which were even more tasty.
  

Closing Comments
I liked this place, but I wouldn't necessarily go out of my to eat here. I would stop by if I was in the area though. There's another location in Harlem, which I may have to check out to see if it's tastier than this place...