Underwhelmed at Ma Soba

The decision to dine at Ma Soba on Friday evening was based on the fact that I had purchased a Groupon a few months back. I want to say I paid $15 for $3o worth of food. That's a sweet chunk of change off the final bill right there. After a glass of wine at my place, Tricia and I walked over to Beacon Hill for our 8:00 reservation.

We entered and observed a staff member on the phone at the hostess stand. Not bothering to look up, he didn't offer a greeting or even make eye contact. I didn't expect him to immediately end his call, but after a minute of standing there, a warm smile, a wave, or a one minute please hand gesture would have been welcome. It took a good three minutes before another (or the actual) host looking a bit disheveled skirted over to greet us us. He took our name and let us know they were preparing our table. Shortly after, we were lead down a small flight of steps by the upper dining room, past the sushi bar, and seated in a lower level dining room. Among us were deep red table cloths and wooden chairs with various Asian inspired logos carved in the backs and overlooking Cambridge Street were floor to ceiling windows.
The same sleek wooden chairs with Asian carvings line the bar located near the entrance. Ma Soba offers an attractive atmosphere with potted plants and vases of flowers placed in various spots along the dining rooms perimeter.

It took quite awhile for our waitress to come around. Tricia and I had plenty to chat about, however, we were starved! Our waitress got the job done just fine after the initial wait, but didn't add anything to the experience, either. First, we checked out the drink menu - wine and beer only. I always order hot sake when I'm out for sushi.

And I always order a large. Love me some piping hot rice wine. Love it even more when served in a tastefully designed ceramic set. Tricia prefers a sweet fruity martini, so she was slightly let down that there was no hard alcohol to be offered. In the end she was satisfied with a 22 oz Kirin beer.

To start we ordered Edamame ($4.45) to share and I got a Miso soup ($2.95). They were both just so-so. First of all, neither came out hot. I regularly begin my Japanese dining experience with these menu staples, two of the simplest items, which I just assume will be done well. Looks like they are easily taken for granted! The edamame, while I appreciated the presentation in a cute wicker basket, was slightly soggy and not hot.

My soup was flavorful and had a decent amount of tofu and wakame seaweed, but the fact that it was lukewarm upon arrival left me dissatisfied. I have a feeling these starters sat around waiting to be expedited for a little too long. It's nice to be able to linger over appetizers like these. They deserve to be savored and enjoyed. When they come out just barely warmed, eventually you are munching on downright cold soybeans and sipping a mediocre soup.

When out for Japanese, we often look no further than the maki roll menu. Ma Soba boasts a wide variety of enticing and creative rolls to choose from, separated into four sections: Basic Rolls, Fresh Fish Rolls, Tempura Rolls and Baked Rolls. This was a nice touch. You could tell someone put a lot of thought into the menu and it really did help us narrow down our choices. As it turns out, we ordered three rolls off the Fresh Fish section and one off the Tempura. To begin we have (left to right) the Spicy Tuna Rainbow Roll ($11.95) and thethe Sundrop Roll ($10.95) with mango, shrimp, cucumber and avocado.
Next is the Rock & Roll ($10.95) with tobiko, spicy tuna, baked scallop, gobo and cucumber.
and the Ans finally the Super Crunch Roll ($11.95) boasting spicy crab, shrimp tempura, crab and cucumber.We are all about the heat factor, clearly. Three of those rolls have a hot pepper icon next to them on the menu indicating "hot & spicy" and have spicy in either the title or the ingredient list. We were overjoyed when we received an amazing looking plate relatively soon after we ordered.

I couldn't wait to dig in, post taking photos of course. But that has always been the way, even before I was a food blogger. The rolls were mostly good, but not excellent. I was ever-so-surprised and a little disillusioned because I had read reviews singing their praises on Yelp, in local magazines, and even a few other Boston blogs! The reviews tend to focus specifically on the sushi and maki. We plain and simple did not enjoy the Rock & Roll. The spicy tuna concoction (red) was to mushy in consistency and it completely overpowered the other flavors and textures in the roll, namely the scallop. Something was "off" about it. That being said, we did enjoy the components of other three rolls. We ordered the perfect variety - where the sweet juicy mango in the Sundrop Roll contrasted nicely with the spicy kick of the Rainbow Roll, and the crispy tempura in the Super Crunch was a welcome bite of goodness. However, the execution of the rolls left much to be desired. The maki were falling apart effortlessly in our chopsticks.

The chefs have matching attire and sure look like they know what they are doing back there!

I do think we got a good amount of sushi for the price, with eight rolls per order we had plenty to eat and for the most part tasty combinations. Overall, taking into account the non existent hard alcohol drink menu, the lackluster edamame and miso soup, and the poor execution of the maki, Ma Soba leaves much to be desired. It pains me to say, knowing the praise received by others in the past, I have tasted much better sushi in this city. Unfortunately, they didn't live up to the hype!

Tricia and I headed to meet up with friends getting their drink on at Delux. Picture taken last summer with some of my favorite girls before Holly left us for NYC.

I was glad to see Holly on her short visit in town! I drank a couple Magners, and called it an early night!