This is a new restaurant in Stepney green describing itself as an exclusive Mediterranean restaurant. It is in the same building as the old Soma Bar and it follows a trend of pubs turning into halal eateries.
Really it’s a rather expensive kebab shop that also sells a few soft drinks as well as freshly made juices which are also on the pricey side .
The kebabs are really very good and they are some of the best in the area. The Lamb Shawamas and lamb shish kebabs are certainly the best you will find in Stepney but the bar is hardly set particularly high by the competition!!
I visited Soma Kitchen with a friend and despite the good quality of the kebabs I have some concerns about this restaurant. There are problems that need to be addressed if the Soma Kitchen is to be a success.
We had Falafel, lambs liver and Dolma as a starter. The Dolma was described as stuffed pepper and indeed Dolma is stuffed vegetables which can include peppers. We got stuffed vine leaves however and my friend wanted the peppers in particular as stated on the menu so she asked for them and what came back was like something from out of a tin. We think it probably was tinned and this is not good. Initially we were also given pastry stuffed with cheese rather than the liver so we had to send that back too. Some of the staff seemed to have problems with the menu and I ended up wondering if they could actually read or maybe they had just not bothered to familiarise themselves with the menu.
. With the exception of the stuffed peppers, the starters were of a reasonable quality when we finally got them.
I have had the Lamb Shawama kebab here in the past and it was very good. This time I had a lamb dish fried with tomato and peppers. It tasted too much of tomato for my liking , as though it had lots of tomato puree in it. I don’t know how the dish should taste however so this is not a criticism. My friend had chicken Shish which was plentiful though she commented that the rice was a bit cold.
We also had a fresh carrot juice with Ginger which was made in the restaurant. It tasted a bit watered down to me.
We ended up paying about £14 for a starter, a main, a carrot and ginger juice and a tea. Some money was deducted for the difficulty we had with service.
If the service had been good we would have been happy to pay the full price which would have been about £17. I would have given it about 6.5 out of 10. Chaotic ordering procedures and staff with little knowledge of the menu and poor English who sound like would-be local Asian gangsters does little in the way of making the restaurant feel exclusive or even high quality and I really think these serious teething problems will need to be addressed if the restaurant is to attract students, lecturers, hospital staff and other locals that will need to use it if the place is to thrive or even survive long term. It is unlikely that the chicken shop masses of Stepney will even give the Soma Kitchen a look in as it is probably beyond their price range. This is fair enough when it comes to the kebabs. I have had a Lamb Shawama in the Soma Kitchen and it was nice and very large. There was loads of everything. the meet was spicy and of good quality. There was also plenty of salad and pita bread. At £8.95 it is not something most people would eat regularly and a smaller kebab for £5 might be a good seller.
My friend and me both agreed that we could give the Soma Kitchen no more than 4 out of 10. If they sort things out in a month or 2 I will report back.
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