Since the moment I saw a beautiful picture of a parfait, I have been wanting to visit Momoya SoHo. Now, Momoya has a few locations, but I heard they all have different menu options. Interesting but also confusing. So, be aware, if you saw something you want to order from one spot, that doesn’t mean you can get it from all locations. I didn’t know this before we headed to Momoya Soho, good thing we went to the right place!
The inside was long and a narrow, with counter seat on one site, and tables on the other side. We visited one weekend, a bit before 1:30pm, and it was very quiet. I guess it was between brunch and late lunch/early evening dinner. We had a reservation just in case. We were greeted with a welcoming smile, and taken to a table. If we were having sushi, we would’ve asked for a counter, but since we were going for something different, we wanted a table.
I know I wanted their glorious parfait, but we decided to make that into a nice lunch and a dessert. The item we had in mind was under Sushi & Sashimi entree menu, and they come with a choice of soupe or salad. We wanted to make sure we leave enough room for dessert, so we ordered one large-ish item to share. The staff was so kind enough to provide salad for the two of us with the one entree. We apreciated that so much! The salad was very fresh with great citrusy dressing. I loved how it had some blueberries in there.
So, what did we order? We went with something that looked so enticing and beautiful, Momoya Box ($65). It is a Chef Tasting of Mini Chirashi Bowls. Look at these beauties! Looke like a mini jewelry boxes filled with delicious goodness. This could be for a one person, if you are hungry.
I believe the ingredients for Mini Chirashi Bowls change based on what is in season. We received a great array of seafood and fish, and also dashimaki tamago, which is a sweet Japanese egg omelet next to shrimp. It was sweet and had almost like a pacake texture. Most sashimi pieces such as yellowtail came with two pieces, atop sushi rice. That made it easier to share among the two of us, but not always.
The middle row was more decadent. One had King crab with caviar and chu-toro tataki, the middle one was regular tuna and fatty tuna sashimi, and the last one was salmon with ikura. Don’t they just look amazing??? King crab with caviar was so amazing, plump and had a nice salty-ness to it. Chu-toro Tataki, or medium fatty tartar was smooth and delicious. Fatty Tuna had a beautiful marbling, generous thick slices. Salmon with ample of ikura was great too, salmon just melt in your mouth. We so loved them all!
The last row had one with scallops, middle one with shrimp tempura, and the last one kin-medai sashimi, which is a golden eye snapper. My hubby loves scallops, and these were nice and large, plump and fresh. Tempura was not my favorite, but it was nice to have a crunchy item among all the other ones. Snapper had torched edges which added smoky flavor that I enjoyed.
The individual bowl is not large, so if you want to order this for one person, it is perfectly doable. If you want to share this like we did, it can be done too. We shared all the bowls, so it was not super easy, but not that hard to do. As I mentioned, most sashimi pieces came in two, so that was nice. All the ingredients were fresh, delicious, not fishy at all. They were plated beautifully, nice to look at, just like looking at precious jewels. Not only they were pretty, but flavor of each bowl was as great as I wanted them to be.
Now that we were satisfied with the savory portion, off to the sweet portion… I saw a picture of their seasonal parfait on SNS, and I really wanted to try one. We visited Momoya SoHo in July, so their parifair was Summer themed, called Hana Kanmuri. To me, it looked more like Spring than Summer…Anyways, look at this masterpiece! Isn’t it just fabulous?
The parfait came with a pamphlet, explaining the inspiration behind this creation by the pastry chef, Norie Uematsu. It also had listing of all the ingredients that went into making this parfait. I counted and had total of 17 layers of ingredients! Wow! You lift the top part off the parfait, so it essentially becomes two desserts.
The top part of this delicious artwork was created with Flower Corn Candy arch, Cassis Red Bean Mousse, bright yellow Egg Yolk Uiro Mochi, Macaron with Sakura Chocolate, Matcha Cookie with ladybug icing, Matcha Sweet Potato Cream, and Yomogi Puff. I know, so much is going on with just the top portion! It was fun to take them apart, one by one, and taste different flavors and textures. They all went well together, with matcha flavor being the center, without overshadowing others. Yomogi puff was interesting, kind of savory flavor against other sweet flavors.
The parfait came with Golden Orange Honey Syrup on the side. The staff told us to pour that over the bottom portion of the parfait. It is always fun to pour a delicious syrup over a dessert… It brings out the appetite in you even more, in my opinon.
The bottom portion here in the glass included Mint Espuma Foam, Acai Amazake Strawberry Sorbet, Pistachio Ice Cream, Rhubarb Compote, Raspberry Shiratama Mochi, Vanilla Custard Cream, Vanilla Crumble, Berry Sauce, and Rose Wine Red Shiso Jelly. The red bean flavor was strong, and rhubarb and berry had strong acidic, tart flavor. The honey syrup was necessary here to balance the sharp, tart flavor in the glass.
The bathroom is in the back, at the end of the bar counter, on the lower level. Once you get to the bottom of the stairs, you will see the entrance to the bathroom.
The bathroom was interesting, it almost felt like a large unisex bathroom. They had a beautiful area with sinks and mirrors. Then, two doors unisex bathroom stalls.
We had a nice lunch here. The food was tasty and satisfying. The dessert was as beautiful and exciting as I wanted it to be. The service was friendly, polite, and very welcoming. The experience at Momoya Sosho made us want to go back again for more tasty food and a new parfait as the season changes. I believe the Momoya Box and the seasonal parfait are only available at Momoya SoHo, so if you want to get these beautifies, make sure to head over to Momoya Soho, and not other Momoya locations.
Momoya SoHo – 47 Prince St, New York, NY