Underwhelmed. This is probably the best way to describe my experience at Soseki. I don’t know why I was struck by a case of “so-whats” after dining at Soseki but unfortunately, despite the good service and the nice atmosphere and quality of food, that’s how I felt. Soseki is a kaiseki-style restaurant, meaning Japanese haute-cuisine. Kaiseki is basically a succession of dishes which balances the taste, texture, appearance, and colors of food. Translation: good-tasting food that looks and feels good.

Much is made of Soseki’s location near the Gherkin. Admittedly it is a beautiful location and the views from the giant almost floor to ceiling windows are fantastic. The restaurant itself is quite attractive inside too with wood and oriental paneling (including the embedded screen print in our table with glass across the top.) Its an intimate restaurant able to sit up to about 40 people max including a sushi bar about 10 people can sit around, four “pagodas” and a tatami room which is practically sealed off from the rest of the restaurant.

All meals at Soseki are served “omakase” meaning you won’t be able to order anything off an a la carte menu but instead you are subject to the whims of the chefs in the kitchen and their decision on what you’ll eat on any particular night. I asked the maitre d’ whether this meant that potentially that no visit to Soseki will be the same and he answered in the affirmative. He said it was because the day’s menu depended on the ingredients available on the day meaning everything you eat is fresh and seasonal.

Sandra and I took advantage of a 50% off offer on toptable. Since we were having half off we decided to go for the most expensive omakase – the £65 ‘Hanashi’ sushi-kappo menu: 12 dishes (13 if you include the palate cleanser.) This is what we had:

The Dishes	How They Looked	The Comment
Sakizuke (appetiser)		Three tiny portions for our appetisers which included truffle potato with onion, lotus root and saffron and some other veg I can’t remember drizzled in some sort of miso sauce! Quite mild tasting.
Mushimono, Sashimi, Wan mono soup		Our next three courses were served together. Starting with the mushimono (a steamed dish) which consisted of a steamed egg custard with chicken. Sandra didn’t find this dish particularly appealing and I must admit if I’d never had steamed egg at home before the soft consistency and mild flavours would have had me feeling a bit ill. Next was the sashimi which consisted of salmon, yellow tail and another white fish I couldn’t identify and I couldn’t understand what the waitress said. Finally we had the Wan mono soup which tonight consisted of deep fried mackerel. This dish was particularly strong in flavour. I liked it the most of the three “courses.”
Nigiri sushi		You can’t ever go wrong with Nigiri sushi. Again featuring the three fish from our Sashimi we also had prawn and my favourite barbecued eel (unagi.)
Agemono (fried)		Like Nigiri sushi you can’t ever go wrong with Tempura. Tonight it was in the form of tempura prawn plus veg (sweet potato, carrot, capsicum.)
Yakimono (grilled)		The Yakimono tonight consisted of a braised beef (very strong in flavour and very tender) and steak (cooked almost rare.) Both dishes were fairly tasty.
Gunkan sushi, Maki sushi, Tomezakana sunomono, Miso soup		Our final “courses” before the dessert were served altogether. Gunkan sushi, is a way to put semi-liquid ingredients in sushi form. Our Gunkan sushi was topped with the salmon and yellow-tail. The maki sushi had barbecue eel in one and something unidentified in the other. The Tomezakana sunomono is a style of dish which was described as the penultimate vinegared dish. Tonight it seemed to be some sort of veg plus crab in vinegar. We’re unsure whether this was supposed to be the palatte cleanser.
Dessert		Our dessert consisted of four mini portions. The first was a slice from a mini chocolate swiss roll, green tea ice cream, a kebab of slices of fruit and a mouse/cheesecake type dish. Not a bad way to finish off the meal.

So, it sounds alright doesn’t it?

Ever since leaving the restaurant I’ve been trying to work out why I was so blah about the whole meal. I guess it boils down to the fact that there was just nothing that stood out and said “Wham! Look at me! I taste great!” or “I’m spectacularly different!” There was truly nothing that made Soseki different, in my opinion, from any other Japanese restaurant in London. Sure the food was high quality and great attention to detail paid in presentation – just a shame that I was expecting some sort of magic and the magician just didn’t deliver tonight.