SOTO.

My mother came into the city on Thursday evening so we could attend a performance of the New York City Ballet's Nutcracker. It was absolutely lovely!!! All the young child dancers were absolutely adorable and engaging. And the principal dancers were such a pleasure to watch - they made everything look marvelously effortless and elegant. It really put me in the holiday spirit!!

We then ate dinner at Soto, a phenomenal Japanese restaurant in my neighborhood. You would never really notice this restaurant on 6th Avenue because there is no signage or name indicating it exists. The view into the restaurant is obstructed by a white wall with a few slits cut-out so you can barely peek inside.


I was feeling adventurous and wanted to try something I had never eaten before. So our first dish was the sea cucumber intestine which you mixed with seaweed and raw quail egg. Although I'm happy I gave it a chance...my brain just couldn't get over the slimy texture and the EXTREMELY salty, ocean taste.


Next up was the Chyu Toro Tar Tare, which was absolutely DELICIOUS and MIND-BOTTLING (term I stole from BLADES OF GLORY) and made me forget all about the sea cucumber intestine incident. Chopped fatty tuna with avocado coulis, garnished with caviar, chive, and nori and served in a sesame ponzu sauce. There was something mixed into the tuna tartare that really made it out of this world - but I don't quite know what it is. This has got to be, hands down, the best tuna tartare I have ever tasted in my life.


Next up was the Minute Steamed Tai, which is a quick-steamed Japanese sea bream with ginger scallion oil. This was marvelous. The thin slivers of fish were nice and soft and held the ginger and scallion flavors quite well. After the tuna tartare, this was my second favorite dish of the evening.


How could a meal with my mother go without me ordering LOBSTER. This was the Steamed Lobster with Uni Mousse dish - layers of steamed lobster and uni mousse wrapped in a lotus wrap and garnished with smoked uni and caviar. The presentation, though quite lovely, is absolutely pointless and destroyed when you actually dig into this delicious monstrosity. The crispness from the cucumber and lotus has a nice bite when paired with the creamy uni and lobster mixture. Really lovely dish, as well.


Then the Saba Ginger Roll - made of clam and ginger. I have never had clam in sushi before and it was really quite good!!!


And finally, we have the mochi ice cream dessert. Strawberry, green tea, mango, red bean, and vanilla. The strawberry was wayyyyy too artificial-tasting and who wants to eat vanilla mochi?? But the mango was very nice. As was the green tea. The red bean, surprisingly, had no taste.

This meal was fantastic. We were very impressed with most of our dishes, and it is hard to impress mothers. I will definitely come back to try some of the other unique dishes Soto has to offer!!!!