Soseki

20 Bury Street, 1F, London EC3A 5AX.

Seasonal food is good food. One prime example of tasty seasonal food is strawberries; small and relatively little taste throughout the year but wonderful and sweet during the summer. Soseki is a Japanese restaurant that only serves quality seasonal food throughout the year. The way this restaurant functions is that they don't tell you what you're going to eat; they only tell you how the meal is to be made. So if you want to eat here, probably best to be open-minded about what there is to offer. We went in April.

Hanashi - kaiseki kappo course with sushi selection (£50-60 per person)

This is a hefty 11 course menu that encompasses an appetiser, soup, sashimi, a grilled dish, deep-fried dish, pickled dish, steamed dish, a main (rice or sushi), salad, a dessert, and chocolates. We probably spent 3.5-4 hours in the restaurant, as each dish was served one by one.

Sakizuke appetiser: overview

Sakizuke appetiser: Broccoli with tofu

Sakizuke appetiser: (left) diced octopus with pickels and
(right) dough ball with a sweet plum sauce

 

Sakizuke appetiser: slice of pork on a bed of spring
onions with wasabi/mustard on the side

 

Sakizuke appetiser: white turnip with salmon roe

Sakizuke appetiser: refreshing lemon drink with ice
and lemon rind

The appetiser was an amazing sight with lots of mini things to try (I love mini dishes/canapes!). However, other than the looks none of it taste particularly spectacular, it was nice but not WOW (then again, Japanese food is refined for its subtle tastes). The lemon drink at the end was meant to cleanse your palate before the next dish, the wanmono clear soup. The soup was very nice, the flavours were not very strong but perfectly seasoned. I couldn't really pin-point the flavours. However, the soup was slightly thicker than initially expected - kind of gooey - slightly. The soup came with a deep fried dough ball (I'm not entirely sure what it is, but there wasn't a filling - if you're expecting any!)

Wanmono clear soup

The next course was the sashimi. It consisted of salmon, squid and yellow tail. Everything tasted pretty standard for what you expect sashimi to be - nice and fresh.

Sashimi course: (from left) salmon, yellow tail and squid

The next dish was the grilled dish (yakimono). I thought this dish might be the usual chicken yakitori that you find in some Japanese restaurants. In fact it was beef that was grilled on the stone serving plate so it caramelised, and then it seems they added a stock to cook the veg. This was very very yummy! The long mushrooms were very nice and had a slightly chewy texture. The carrot was slightly hard for my liking. But overall very nice dish. Recommended!

Yakimono: grilled beef, with carrot, asparagus, shitake mushrooms,
 these long yummy mushrooms, and sprouting broccoli

Next was the agemono dish (aka deep-fried) and as predicted - tempura! I'm not a huge fan of tempura. But the prawns were cooked to perfection - if not just very slightly raw on the inside. But uber uber yummy!! The creamy wasabi sauce was very nice but I wasn't so keen on the sweet 'bbq' style sauce - too sweet for my liking. But it’s nice to have a choice - in case you get bored with either sauce. After this rich course I was not hungry at all. 4 courses down, just 7 more to go…!

Agemono dish (deep fried): tempura prawns, okara, sweet potato and peppers.
Two sauces, a creamy wasabi sauce (right) and a sweet peppery dark 'bbq' sauce (left).

Right, so on with the next course.. the vinegared course (sunomono). Ok it is rather small. But I'm not complaining! This dish came in a very cute box. This dish was a piece of octopus with okra and a bit of jelly on the side. The jelly was slightly sour (as you would expect) but not overly. Quite nice overall.

Sunomono course: the box

Sunomono course: box opened. Piece of octopus and
okara with a slight sour jelly on the slide

Next was the steamed dish. Steamed egg with what I believe is pork and spring onions. Very nice, better than most other places I have tried.

Mushimono (steamed) dish: steamed egg with pieces of
pork and spring onion

Finally the main course: a choice of either the sushi selection (maki and nigiri) or shokuji (rice dish). We decided to have one of each dish and share between us. The rice dish on that day was chicken rice – which was much nicer than I expected - though I was exceptionally full by this course so I probably didn't fully appreciate it (that is finish it). The sushi selection looked great – they even put edible gold leaf as a finishing touch on the plate! The taste however, was not bad but just sushi. I’m not a fan of cooked spicy tuna, so seeing that on the plate was a bit disappointing (particularly when you have to pay an additional £10 for the sushi selection). Each main comes with a salad (grated white turnip, sliced radish, salad leaves and sesame in a yummy dressing), with miso soup, and pickles on the side. The salad was seriously yummy.

Shokuji rice: chicken with grilled asparagus

Sushi selection: (from top) salmon/avacardo maki (x2), white tail nigiri,
 scalop nigiri, salmon nigiri with a spicey paste and chili, spicey cooked tuna sushi and salmon roe sushi.
Served with edible shredded gold leaf (left) and pickled ginger on the side (right).

Salad: white turnip, radish, salad leaves, red onion, sesame and dressing.

Last but not least, the dessert and chocolate. The dessert was green tea ice cream with mixed berries, with a mango sauce on the side, and mochi with red bean paste. The chocolate was a plain truffle and crystallised ginger. The green tea ice cream was good, better than most places, but it would have been nicer if it was slightly more bitter (I love bitter green tea ice cream, if it tastes predominantly like vanilla ice cream that looks green – thumbs down). Wasn't particularly keen on the red bean mochi, but overall it was ok.

Dessert and chocolate: green tea ice cream, mixed berries, mango sauce,
mochi with red bean paste. Plain choclate truffle, one with crystalised ginger inside.

Overview of the entire experience: we went during the evening on week day so it was pretty empty with probably about 3-4 other occupied tables. We were sitting opposite the kitchen with approximately 5 chefs. They seemed pretty bored and due to the lack of customers, a lot of attention focused on us - which was a bit awkward. Otherwise our waitress was attentive and attempted to explain what each dish was (even though she predominately spoke Japanese). The food was nice, more to the standard side (maybe I don’t have a refined Japanese palate). The toilets were nice and clean, with 'premium' soap, which is always a plus.

Overall atmosphere: 6.5/10

Food: 7/10

Service: 7.5/10
Recommended? Yes for the first visit and experience, but unlikely to go back