Seo Restaurant in Midtown East: Cold Soba to Keep the Heat Away

When you live in the greatest [culinary] city in the world, you are inclined to try as many different restaurants as possible. However, there are some restaurants that are worthy of second, third, or even fourth visits.

One such restaurant is SEO Restaurant in Midtown East. I came here during Spring Break due to its proximity to my friend's NYC apartment and fell in love with its chewy Inaniwa Hiyamori Udon. For my second visit, I came with a big group of 8 people. We started off with a bunch of appetizers. The first to arrive on the table was Steamed crab dumpling ($10). The mustard sauce was really spicy...probably had a bit of wasabi in it. The shumai isn't as heavy as most shumai at Chinese restaurants, yet still maintains rich crab flavors.

The Calamari Salad ($10.50) came in a plate with iceberg lettuce (sort of disappointed by the choice of greens), lightly sauteed calamaris, and lame slices of tomato surrounding the whole thing. I really liked the vinaigrette that resembled a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar.

Jidori Karaage ($8.50), or fried marinated free range chicken, was quite greasy and fatty. I opted for the bitter greens on the side. The chicken didn't look crispy enough for my liking anyways.

We also had some kind of seafood broth/soup with clams, seaweed, scallions, and calamari. The broth had very deep, ocean flavors from all the clams in the bowl.

For my main course, I opted for Tenzaru Soba cold soba ($17) with cod dipping sauce and shrimp and vegetable tempura. Admittedly we had a big party, but it took forever for our noodles to arrive! Also, one person in our group didn't get his entree until I was half way done with my meal. I was disappointed that the soba only had scallions on the side to put in the dipping sauce and no grated radish.

The soba lacked any interesting, unique flavors. Instead, it just tasted like any other soba you would have. I suppose I should have stuck with the inaniwa udon. Oh well.

There were kabocha (my favorite!), shrimp, and portebello mushroom tempura. The mushroom tempura was the oddest thing ever...it was way too juicy! My second experience at Seo Restaurant was definitely not up to par with the first visit.