Soji Modern Asian Restaurant

Having worked in a restaurant kitchen, I can tell you there are the songs that our valued guests hear—contemporary jazz, a little Michael Buble if you’re feeling kicky—and then there are the much ruder anthems that shake through stainless steel while the cooks drink cheap beer and clean up the night’s work. But Soji Modern Asian Restaurant was still full of diners and the sun not even set when Biz Markie, Vanilla Ice, and the Sugarhill Gang swaggered through the speakers.

Soji is a disjointed place. Sunlight falls in from high windows yet the hallway is lit in hallucinatory purple and neon signs detail each room’s purpose (Noodle Bar; Sake & Cocktails; “Hello Gorgeous” announces the Self-Esteem Corner). The soundtrack traffics in post-Reagan hip-hop. Menu fonts mix chunky serifs with terse American Typewriter. Chef Ryan Andre, known to most locals from his recent turn as executive chef at City Pork Brasserie & Bar, is not Asian. And in an era when we’re prodded to value cultural distinctions, Soji is all over the map.

But it works, particularly because the new Government Street restaurant signals that Baton Rouge’s food scene can be both cheeky and chic. Beneath the neon and defiantly fun soundtrack, dishes are deftly prepared—though if you want little to no interference, you’ll enjoy the raw bar—with homemade noodles, imperious cuts of beef, and oh-hell-I’m-worth-it chicken fat bombs working their way through a variety of dishes. Many experiences can be had at Soji: the word means “gathering of people,” but the guy alone at the noodle bar teasing the chefs seemed as happy as anyone. We opted for cocktails (I had the Basil Gardens in a chilly julep cup, with gin, lemongrass, and pineapple; my husband enjoyed the Smoke Signals, a variation on an Old Fashioned with a singed stalk of rosemary wedged between ice cubes) but the sake sure tempted me. Three of our four dishes had rice (and the fourth had rice noodles), but the repetition ended there: the onigiri (Japanese rice balls) each hid a pocket of short ribs and gravy inside and were served over a long scrape of spicy mayo, vegetables studded my daughter’s fried rice (phew), and the basmati rice in my Imperial Wagyu Bo Luc Lac merely liaised between marinated cabbage, pickled onion, mint, spicy Nguyen sauce, and generous cuts of sirloin. In my husband’s Drunken Noodles, the homemade rice noodles almost disintegrated on the tongue—golden and silky, I mistook them first for caramelized onions. Sweeping up a sliver of duck egg and chile with each stolen bite, I closed my eyes and let Biz Markie’s keening take me away. Soji, I think, has what Baton Rouge needs. And you say it’s just a restaurant …