Senor Buddha

I really didn’t like it here.
In short, only go here if you can afford an expensive risk.
I will try and be helpful.
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I was told this food was Asian Tapas. Maybe this person lied to me.
I have to be honest, I don’t even know what constitutes as Asian food. I was thinking Yo Sushi but less fun. If you’re thinking it will be ANYTHING like Yo Sushi, Moshi Moshi etc, you’re completely wrong. If you are unsophisticated with food, you can put all your faith in me.
I didn’t really feel there was any Asian influence in the food I ate. In fact, when I asked for green tea, the waitress practically laughed at me. Maybe I was stupid for asking? I still have no idea.
I was sitting with a party of 6 Unilocalers around a tiny table near the door. It was very uncomfortable. The seats were not wide enough for me to sit in a normal eating position. I kind of had to balance on the tips of my toes under the table. Good workout, though.
Everybody was uncomfortable. I kept worrying every few seconds because I could see that people were about to knock things over. Cutlery bombs were dropping all over the place. I was a nervous wreck.
I still don’t really know what I ate. I avoided most of the dishes and just sipped on about 18 glasses of cucumber water.
It’s been just under 2 weeks since I ate here and the only real positive I can remember is the duck. The duck was cooked wonderfully, crispy on the outside and erm… just well cooked on the inside. I don’t even really like duck though, I was desperate.
The pork belly was all fat.
The dishes were small.
The foamy halloumi was tasty.
The vegetable croquettes were alright.
I didn’t each much else. It just didn’t look particularly appetising to me. There were a few seafood dishes served and I don’t like seafood.
It was all just very confusing for me. It’s also on London Road which just doesn’t feel right for this kind of offering.
Like I said, I am not a particularly sophisticated or adventurous foodie. If you are, this might be worth a try. But at approximately £7 per dish, be prepared for an expensive evening.
If you’re not, just go to Yo Sushi. You’ll find me sitting comfortably, sipping green tea.

From the name of the place you might think this was some sort of East meets West fusion tapas. But as far as I can tell this is just your standard Spanish tapas, but with a gastro-​twist (you know, foam on stuff and dobs of various purees). The venue is nice enough, if a little on the small side, with the cooking done right before your eyes. As part of an organised Unilocal visit we got to try pretty much everything on the menu. There were some really nice dishes and generally there were more hits than misses. My particular favourite was the lamp stew. The croquettes were nice too. The food here is of a high standard, but I can imagine that you might go away hungry unless you were to spend quite a bit of money. This restaurant falls into the «give it a try» category as far as I’m concerned.

3.5 Stars!
I went to Señor Buddha last night with a group of Unilocalers — I’d been looking to try this place out for a while was glad of the opportunity to go.
It’s a very small restaurant, which I guess gives it a very intimate feel. The bit where I was seated wasn’t particularly comfortable but it was okay!
As for the food, the dishes were small but delicious. I really enjoyed the Tuna and the Halloumi dish. Special mention goes to the goats cheese mousse with beetroot. That was super, the cheese was so creamy and light, and didn’t have an icky coating that sometimes happens when you turn cheese into a mousse! The Beetroot had a slight taste of ginger to it — it really worked so well!
I’m not a massive wine drinker, but the wine we had was nice.
The food was of a great standard, but I did leave still feeling slightly hungry — I know tapas are for sharing but I think you would have to order quite a bit in order to feel full. I’d definitely come again to give it another go, perhaps just with my other half for a lovely date!

Unfortunately, this place fell short of expectation.
I was really excited to come here, but I really didn’t feel it had reached its potential from start to finish.
The wine was good, not great, although the wine list looked good and quite affordable.
For somewhere doing tapas, I felt that the tables weren’t really big enough to accommodate sharing.
So, on to the food… I felt like the «Japanese/​Spanish» thing did not come through. The Spanish — yes. The Japanese — absolutely not.
I felt that they needed to either pick a side, or do Japanese food in a tapas format. So, do sharing plates of Japanese food. Here is what we had and what I felt about each one…
Lamb and aubergine stew — lovely sauce, aubergine was too spicy in my opinion and too soft, but the meat was lovely. Not very Japanese though.
Asparagus with cashew and cheese — the hostess didn’t know what the fruit or seeds were on this dish — I liked the sweet and savoury, but needed an infused oil like a lemon oil.
Hallumi with lentils — LOVED the hallumi with lemon foam — great foam. Lentils were slightly undercooked, but it was a crowd pleaser.
Lamb croquets with picked veg — not a bad croquet, but I wish the vegetables hadn’t been pickled, and were warm. I understand what was being attempted to achieve but it would have gone much better with the beetroot ketchup on the next dish, maybe with some salt baked beetroot too.
Vegetable and ginger croquet — huge portion which was great, and I could see the ginger being a Japanese influence here. And it worked. Thumbs up! But the beetroot ketchup wasn’t very punchy or earthy as it should be, sorry. Bit grainy too. Would have replaced the beetroot ketchup with watercress or something else really fresh.
Next up was the Octopus! Beautifully plated, delicious caviar with squid ink, lovely wasabi and a generally well balanced, beautifully cooked dish. This one alone deserves 5 stars.
The pork belly — well cooked, lovely crackling but the cut of belly was just super fatty, sadly. The sauce with it was delicious.
Scallops with black pudding — a classic combo of scallops, cauliflower purée and black pudding. You could tell the black pudding was hand made — really lovely. Scallops were perfectly cooked. Cauliflower purée was grainy (again) and not as flavourful as I have had it before.
Clams and scallops — this came with aubergine which was spicy and cumin coated to the point where I couldn’t feel my tongue (I’m sure at this point the staff will be smiling and saying «good, she deserved it, critical cow». Fair.) the scallop was, again, perfect, but the clams didn’t add anything to this dish. Personally, I would go back to the drawing board on this one. Doesn’t work.
Next up! Duck! I was excited for this. I tasted the duck, orange purée and apricot purée, as well as the fennel by themselves. They all tastes great separately. Unfortunately I felt that the proportions were wrong with this dish. Less vinegar in the fennel, more fennel, more orange and apricot purée, less duck. The purées were delicious — give me more!
Tuna «tartar» — tartar is generally tiny cuts of fish or meat with lemon juice, capers, onion/​shallot and seasoning. This was not tartar. This was delicious cubes of fresh tuna. They really were great, and the ham and wasabi avocado was AMAZING! I want a whole tub to take home. Probably my favourite dish.
Last but not least (if you’ve got this far, give yourself a pat on the back), goats cheese mousse with beetroot. FANTASTIC. GET THIS. The mousse was light, the pickled beetroot was tangy and cut through the creamy goats cheese, and the caramelised beetroot was sweet, complimenting the goats cheese. Seeds were unnecessary, but you can’t win them all.
SO! Overall verdict — bit pricy sometimes but if the standards went up I would be happy to pay the same. Weird location. Decent wine list, service needs tweaking (serving wine by the glass AT the table?! Take it to the back and do it there), and learn your menu — it’s a big part of the dining experience.
I’ll be going back in 6 months to see if things have changed. But a 3 out of 5 because it really does have potential. Keep going and keep enjoying what you do. You could taste the passion in the food.

Señor Buddha is a nice little restaurant situated along busy Preston Street. It’s fairly new and among other things-​one look doesn’t really take to get what they truly have to offer. Their speciality is Asian Tapas!
We had an opportunity to dine in as Unilocalers as organised by our lovely ambassador Sophie. The Asian Tapas in my mind was driving me insane. What is it all about? Without looking at the website and menu of course. The red wine we had was nice and aromatic, just the way I like it. Then the dishes started to appear. It’s a lovely set up-​tapas, being able to share and try a bit of this and that around the table. I liked the Mutton stew and the duck. Everything else was also nice and I’m thankful to have been able to try a different kind of Wasabi that isn’t green. May I stress the duck was well seasoned and the one that stood out from the rest. Compliments to the chef! Asian Tapas means Southeast Asian fusion, I think… And most of the dishes deserve some Michelin star rating being well-​presented.
Only three stars I’m afraid. The quality of the food was superb, don’t get me wrong, but I left the restaurant still a wee bit peckish. And they could do with comfortable seating as I felt my ass bones sticking to the wooden bench by the window. Hint, there’s an upholsterer just opposite them. Hopefully they will latch on sooner or later.