Soma Diner

THIS PLACE HAS JUST CLOSED. I had the“pleasure“of seeing the inside of their kitchen a day or so after they closed. To the people who have eaten here in the last few months, my sincere apologies. To those of you who have raved about the food, you wouldn’t be, if you had seen the inside of the kitchen. Even if you didn’t, you had to have noticed how black the carpet was, you had to have felt the layer of grease on every surface, you had to have squinted to try and see out of the filthy windows. I just don’t get it. There’s is a difference between a «hole in the wall’ or a «dive» and filth. This was the latter. I am so grateful I never ate there.

One of my favorite places in b town. The staff is great. Everyone I take here loves it. The chef is very accommodating. Food is awesome for fair prices.

The spicy peanut calamari is awesome! Eggplant out of this world and the shrimp and grits were delish

Surprised to see this place had less than four stars. Soma’s has wonderful food and a great wine selection. Things can get pricy but it is worth every penny. Ignore the other reviews– Soma’s is exactly the kind of restaurant Bradenton needs more of.

Awesome truffle oil and parm fries!

The smell in the restaurant is terrible, food was so, so, service was slow and the place was dirty. We will stay away from them.

This was awesome when it first opened… Saturday night was a dissapointment, sadly. The restaurant smelled of mildew and the ceiling was patched sloppily. My steak salad was cooked well done vs. the mid-​rare requested. The rest of the meals were excellent though. The overall ambiance was depressing and the carpet was extremely dirty. The service was very slow also. We won’t be going back until I see some improvement in the reviews. Sorry :/

My husband and I ate at the Soma Diner for dinner. It was so delicious. I had the shrimp and grits. It was really good with an amazing sweet chili sauce. My husband had beef and macaroni and cheese which was also very good. We split a pound cake with sake sautéed berries and ice cream that was fantastic. Would definitely recommend it.

Won’t go back. If you haven’t been don’t bother waste of time and money.

I went here because I saw SOMA and knew there had to be a San Francisco connection (it has a double meaning here). The chef went to the culinary academy in SF. Don’t believe all those naysayers on Unilocal.This place has great food. Loved the spicy shrimp with grits and bacon (everything tastes better with bacon) with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
Be sure to try the butter sautéed angel food cake with strawberries, blueberries and ice cream for dessert.

TERRIBLE!!! DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME! GO TO EZRA! Shame on you Dave Shiplett !!! You have left this restaurant to be managed by incompetent minions. Our over eager and giddy server shamefully did not know how to serve a bottle of wine. I was also given a broken chipped wine glass. The «cooks» were not aware of any of the menu changes. The food and menu were pedestrian at best. I had the Bento Box. The soup was watery and cold. The waitress kept bragging about the Veggie spring rolls (one of the menu changes) and how everyone begged for them to be back on the menu… they did not bring them to me!
We also ordered Chicken Parmesan Schnitzel with tomato fondue, & mac & cheese. This was pathetic. Tomato Fondue??? Are you kidding me??? This was Cambells tomato soup out of the can! This is something a college student would make after smoking a big bowl of weed. Chicken breast with mac and cheese and a can of tomato soup… Whatever Dave!
The décor inside is like a dorm room. The table we were sitting at had a hole patched up with what looked like gum???
The food took an hour to come out. Even the table next to us did not get their salads for about 45 minutes. Actually. no food was coming out of the kitchen for a while. Maybe that had to do with the fact that the «cooks» were outside smoking and texting on their phones. This is an armature operation. Dave has gone downhill since EZRA and thank god his ex wife has continued to maintain the standard they are known for while Dave has taken a low road. I heard he is venturing into another restaurant downtown with a partner. Maybe he should fix things at SOMA that he has neglected before he does that! I will NEVER go back!

Food & Service 4 stars
An early evening weekday dinner was enjoyable and the food didn’t disappoint. I had the Juicy Lucy burger a 12oz burger on ciabatta stuffed with cheese (lots of it) and served with lettuce and tomato. I added a side described on the menu as onion rings, but in actuality was a huge portion of fabulous onion straws.
My wife enjoyed the Chicken Cobb salad and although she wasn’t blown away it was beautifully prepared and she enjoyed it. Pictures of both items are attached to this review.
We ate two «simple» dishes (we were eating to live — not particularly dining) but this menu does offer some very creative and tasty items. From this update don’t consider this just a burger joint. See first review for where they really shine.
Service was prompt and pleasant and now bumped to 4 stars. The thing that is most clear as stated in my original review; food is what this place is all about. Excellent quality, perfectly prepared by a kitchen that cares.

Well I love Ezra, his former restaurant, and I enjoyed a business lunch at Soma over the holidays, so I decided to stop by for supper after watching a sunset in Bradenton in March.
We ordered crab cakes, fresh fried sweet potatoes and a double cheeseburger and drinks.
One crab cake had some crab while the other had even less! The crinkle cut sweet potato fries looked packaged — so I asked the waiter who responded, «Do you know how difficult it is to make sweet potato fries?»!!!
Ok, that’s one way to answer — not very helpful though!
The cheese burger was greasy and looked unappetizing on the plate and was even less when I bit into it. To be objective, I asked my wife for her opinion Before stating mine. She thought it was just okay.
Perhaps it was just a miss on that Saturday night yet given the response by the waiter, the inconstancy of the food across the board, we will not be headed back to Soma.
We enjoy Thai Wasabi on state road 64′ and Michelangelo, on state road 70, and John Dough’s bakery on University Parkway for last minute good food for lunch and dinner.
We have been back to Ezra several times And always enjoy the food there.

It has been a bit more than a year since I wrote my review of SOMA Diner. And I’ve been going there and taking friends there for most of that time. Not as often as I would like, but as often as I can.
What I like best at Soma is how the menu changes every few months and besides being seasonal also try to combine interesting flavors in ways I might not have thought of or have only experienced in places like San Fran, Hong Kong and Toronto. Like the hosin glazed pork chop I had the last time I was there. Just a touch of fermented black bean mixed so nicely with the flavors. I do have a soft spot for asian flavors and there is plenty of that here. But the skill with with things are prepared is consistently top notch. I know other reviews have complained of certain things but I’ve never experienced these issues in the many times I’ve been there. Service has always been friendly, personable and excellent.
I’ve taken friends, family and people I’ve just met to SOMA and never been disappointed. They’ve all enjoyed not only the food but the experience with the staff. The last guests I took there said the shrimp and grits were the best they ever had. The thing is, these are done with a secret concoction of asian chili pastes and they are truly different but still inspired by traditional shrimp and grits. I think that is what I like most about the food here, they seem familiar but the combinations of flavors have reimagined many things you might be familiar with. OR put things in combinations that work, but you never imagined.
During the week they typically run some specials. I believe thursday is half price bottled of wine, and wednesdays appetizers are either half price or two for one, not sure witch. Don’t quote me on these and just call ahead and ask.
If (when) you go, be sure to try anything with oysters (they have the magic touch with them) and the crakalin calamari salad. Also, they have been doing cooking classes once a month every now and then and those are very much worth going to. Not only to learn some things but just to get a chance to interact with Chef Dave and see how he puts things together and try out the new ideas he is exploring.
SO, I’ve bumped them up to 5 stars because it has been consistently good and imaginative for many visits. I hope it continues to be so and please go give them a try and see for yourself. A friend called it a little oasis of great flavors in Bradenton and I have to agree with her.

An awful experience. We just returned from an attempt to have dinner at the Soma Diner. When we walked in we were told that we should have «called ahead» although there were three to four open tables and only one other couple came in after us. They said they would «fit us in», in retrospect we wish they hadn’t. My wife has celiac disease and needs to avoid wheat or flour which we explained to both servers in the area. We ordered their «juicy lucy» burgers since burgers are easy to do on a gluten free basis. We explained the burger could not have any bread, onion rings, etc. After a 40 minute wait, they brought the burgers out, both of which had buns. We sent them back and explained they needed to be remade since the burgers had been in contact with the rolls, but in 2 minutes they were brought back out with one of the burgers off the bun. We obviously objected and they brought them back to the kitchen and said they would expedite their completion. We waited over another 30 minutes before we walked out without seeing a hint of our dinners. So after an hour and 10 minutes we left hungry, and angry. We overheard them saying that they had let an individual from another party back into the kitchen to cook for his party since it was his birthday. This strikes my as highly unprofessional and possibly a health code violation. Maybe this is why the cook was so distracted and couldn’t be bothered two cook two burgers as requested, in a reasonable timeframe. Do yourself a favor and STAY AWAY !!

Don’t even try to use mapping software or navigation to find this place, it will take you over to a residential area on the other side of the tracks. We drove around for a while and then found the sign by the road and there was actually parking. They are about one block behind the dreaded Central Café, and close to where I work. So I plan on coming back soon with my work buddies.
The waitresses are overly excited and friendly, but there is nothing wrong with that. We chose a seat hidden in the back. Sure, our bill was $ 46, but we ordered a ton of food to see what they had to offer. I highly recommend the specials– there was a crab bisque the day that we were there but I completely forgot to order it. Most of the items have an Asian flair.
Keep in mind that anything cheese related here will *TASTE LIKE IT HAS* more sour cream than cheese, like the mac and cheese and the cheese grits, for example. The Mac and Cheese ($ 5) had chunks of ham and edamame beans stirred into the ziti and source cream sauce concoction. Which made it taste more like baked potato topping than the ultimate goal. The Tuna Tataki ($ 9) was a very small serving that I would normally pay less for even at an overpriced sushi bar. The tuna was still a tad frozen in the middle and there was no watermelon, as mentioned on the menu. The House Salad ($ 5.95) was a small bowl of Greek salad with chickpeas, the dressing with very nice and light. But, not worth the price.
They were sold out of the Tiger Shrimp and Grits ($ 11.75) that day, but the chef was kind enough to make it for me with fried flounder that they use for their Fish and Chips dish. The flounder tasted excellent with the light tempura batter and the sweet chili sauce, but it became soggy when stuck to the *WHAT TASTED LIKE* sour cream grits. The Lucy Burger ($ 10.00) was fairly bland, even when stuffed with cheddar cheese instead of the house gorgonzola, served on CHIBATTA bread. The Sweet Potato Fries ($ 2.25) were perfect and made the meal.
This is definitely a great and expensive lunch option for those of you that work in the area, but I definitely would not recommend driving out of your way to eat here. A way better option than Central Café, even though the atmosphere is not as nice.
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After writing this review, I had the sous chef send me a nasty email to my personal email account stating the following:
«All i ask is to at least ask the wait staff or chef before writing a review on food when you dont have a sophisticated palate to sort out the ingredients in a dish.» This was for my sour cream comment because all of their cheese dishes TASTE LIKE SOUR CREAM! The taste could be good for some and terrible for others.
I wonder if the actual chef or owners know that this person is contact random people about their business and basically chasing them away. Interesting… Feel free to message me for the full text.
I will not return to this place now just because I was personally attacked for posting on Unilocal what should be posted– a freaking review. Even by common folk like me with unsophisticated palettes. AVOID!

I’ve lived in this town my whole life and never noticed this place until a friend strongly recommended it. To give you a slight idea; it’s a small place with a small parking lot. when you enter you notice three things, the bar, the paintings and the menu. The food is not cheap but not too overpriced however they have Amazing chefs. Every dish is prepared exceptionally with the chef’s personal touch. The bar is great as well. It too is small but the bartender is VERY knowledgeable about the wines.
Recommend.