Ma Soba

Groupon strikes again! When it comes to Chinese or Japanese food in Boston, Ma Soba used to be a go-to, but over time I have found other, better places to satisfy those cravings. However, there was a Groupon for Ma Soba that Nick's sister bought and we were more than willing to accompany her.

Ma Soba is a larger restaurant on Cambridge Street, decorated in an Asian motif without overdoing it so that you feel like you are at Epcot Center. The menu has a large variety of traditional Asian noodle dishes and sushi rolls. Having had their sushi before and, sadly, not loving it, we decided to mix things up a bit this time. For an appetizer we shared a Dim Sum basket that had a selection of steamed dumplings. The shrimp dumplings were good, however, the dough was a bit sticky and was difficult to take out of the bowl. The consistency of the pork dumpling was not very good - not much taste and almost a bit dry.

Next, we shared some sushi rolls. The first was the Hawaiian roll, which was a tuna, avocado, and California Roll.

Hawaiian Role
Being eel lovers, we also ordered an eel tempura roll.

Eel TempuraThe sushi here is always OK. The flavor combination are not too exciting or inventive, but the fish is fresh. I wish we had read the description for the eel tempura roll more closely: it was made with cream cheese, and to me, the texture is all wrong. There really wasn't anything wrong with the rolls, I just tend to think there is better sushi available in the city. Although, for $10 - $13, it's not too bad of a price point.

Wanting to try something new on this trip we also ordered some of the noodle dishes. The first was the shrimp pad thai.

Pad ThaiThe pad thai has some good spice to it, but the dish was a bit oily for my taste.

Malaysian Seafood Fried RiceNick had the Malaysian Seafood Fried Rice, which was good. The various components of diced scallops, shrimp, snow peas and crab paste were tasty but ended up tasting like your standard fried rice.

I ordered the curry beef chow fun, which had stir-fried fresh broad rice noodles with South Asian flavors.

Curry Beef Chow FunWhen the dish came, there was not much in the way of visual interest, and I was also put off my the giant pieces of green peppers throughout the dish. Green peppers are one of my BIG dislikes, but thankfully they were large enough for me to pull out. This dish had some good spicy flavor, but the noodles were a bit mushy for my liking.

Once again, nothing wrong overall with our meal, but I was not overly impressed with it either. Unfortunately, I always walk away feeling like I spent a good chunk of change without being entirely satisfied.