Last week Leeds saw the launch of a new restaurant. Bar Soba. Finally a new eatery which isn't a burger bar. Bar Soba is the newest edition to Merrion Street along side, the not long opened Manhatta and The Pit and old classics such as Verve and Mojos.
With the perfect location selected Bar Soba offers a downstairs bar space, serving cocktails and a range of around the world beers then upstairs a modern dining space. I'm really quite impressed with the interior and the vibe Bar soba has created. Serving up pan-Asian style street food, the bar is unlike any others in Leeds. After attending the launch last week I was keen to actually sit down and enjoy just what Bar Soba had to offer.
To start my friend Kel ordered the Thai sticky pork ribs £5.25 (sang som rum and lime marinated pork ribs finished with a sticky hosin glaze), I choose the char siu pork steamed buns £4.50 (with ginger plum). My starter didn't come across as very well executed, the sweet sticky pork filling was lost I the mound of "steamed bun" which engulfed any chance of flavour the meal had. I'm not sure if the bean sprouts were simply there to fill the plate, as they added nothing. Other than making an already dry meal...well worse. I would of like to to have seen some dressing on these to add another flavour. Even my efforts of trying to drizzle a little soy sauce to the meal to add flavour was laughable when it simply seeped through the basket onto the table. The two pieces of ginger plum was nice but not enough to added a "sauce" to the dry meal.
I had a sample of Kels pork ribs, which looked meatier than my meal and more flavoursome however the pork was greasy to say the least and any hosin glaze that may have been there was masked by the film of grease which filled my mouth.
Forgetting the mediocre starters we moved onto the main courses. I finally decided on the Miso beer fillet with a honey glaze £15.95 (with pickled shitake mushrooms, tempura vegetables, rice and ginger soy dip) after lusting over most of the menu.
My views on the restaurant quickly changed when I tried the beef which melted. It was a shame the plate was cold (although it did appear some mild attempt had been made to warm it) as everything cooled rather quickly. I usually expect this when beef is cooked pink in the middle (as I like it) it isn't going to stay warm for long, but I expected the tempura vegetables to be fresher and crisp. It seemed they had no crisp fresh texture and tasted again a little greasy. The rice was plain and had no fragrance or taste which didn't add much to the meal, other than bloat me, which patted down onto my plate also cooled pretty quickly. The ginger soy dip wasn't doing much either. By the time I had enjoyed the beef I was left with a plate of plain cold rice and greasy battered veggies, twiddling my thumbs.
Kel ordered the Lemongrass and coconut chicken £12.95 (with a light green curry sauce and indonesian fried rice). Kels not as harsh as me when it comes to critiquing food, she did say the chicken was really nice, although she did look a bit taken a back to find prawns in her rice. I'm not sure if it's common knowledge Indonesian fried rice will contain prawns. This could maybe be explained on the menu or by the waiter. Again like the bean sprouts, the salad accompaniment was "undressed" sat looking a little shy on the side of the plate not adding the greatest amount of flavour.
The one redeeming factor of the restaurant was the staff, attentive always smiling and generally an asset to the place. Don't get me wrong the restaurant is an amazing designed space in a brilliant location, but far more attention needs to be paid to details...and the bean sprouts. Even the cocktails lacked ambition with what looked like fruit juice poured over cubes of ice, this is a picky one, but when I order a cocktail I want crushed ice.
There is currently 50% of main courses vouchers at Bar Soba running on Pink Gorilla voucher website.
SAMMIE