Jonathan Kerridge and Oswaldo Abolio found new location suited an expansion into a business with some bold-stroke flavours
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Angeline Gough enjoys a coffee while studying at Soma
It’s like stepping into a pair of warm slippers. Soma has that kind of feel.
It’s tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Main Street so it feels like it’s under the radar.
Soma was once a coffee bar on Main until the landlord took that space over; in the new location in the same neighbourhood, owners Jonathan Kerridge and Oswaldo Abolio decided to expand the food department and opened a bistro that’s casual enough to work on one’s laptop, read the paper over a beer or have a full-out meal. And there’s always good music filling the room.
They’ve appropriated an idea from Salt, the oh-so-hip charcuterie in Gastown. On a blackboard, there’s a mini-charcuterie menu as well as a great beer list with unheard of brews, like Innis Gunn, a Scottish beer, aged 72 days in a whisky cask.
My partner was mesmerized by the beer list and I had to snap him out of his hynotic trance.
“How often do I get so excited over a beer list?” he asked, explaining his mental absence. On weekends, you’ll also find brunch offerings on this blackboard.
The chef is Jeramie Adams, who has worked at Oasis, Lolita’s South of the Border Cantina and Bin 941 and 942. You’ll find some of the bold-stroke flavours that he’s picked up, cooking at the Bins, in dishes like fricasee of duck with roasted shallots, portobello and nugget potatoes and herbed cream sauce. And here’s the sweet part — it’s $14.
We tried the meat and cheese tasting ($15 for three items), opting for wild boar salami, caribou fig terrine and Roaring 40s Blue Cheese which was very good. There were jellies and mustards accompanying each item and slices of baguette and I’d be happy to pop in to lunch on this or the Tasting Trio, with hazelnut fig tapenade, marinated olives, feta/white bean hummus.
I tried the fish of the day (ling cod) and he cooked it up with love, teaming it with sweet roasted shallots, thyme hash, sauteed spinach and truffled caper aioli.
For lunch one weekend, we tried a chicken salad sandwich and a Niçoise tart. The sandwich was yummy with a fat layer of good chicken salad; the Niçoise tart, alas, wasn’t as successful. I expected a pastry crust but it was a baguette with a stylized Niçoise salad atop.
Desserts weren’t knock-outs. Pumpkin bread pudding would have been unremarkable were it not for the caramel brandy sauce, worthy of licking down the plate. Citrus-infused goat cheese cake was nicely presented in two half spheres but it had a dry consistency and the crust was tougher than my fork.
For a hip little joint, the service is attitude-free and helpful with suggestions. The next time you have the urge for a Monty Python Holy Grail Ale, check it out.
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SOMA
Overall: 3 1/2
Food: 3 1/2
Ambience: 3 1/2
Service: 3 1/2
Price: $/$$
151 East Eighth Ave., 604-630-7502,
www.somavancouver.com
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.