Last night my wife and I went out and enjoyed a magnificant dining experience at Uchi, a sushi bar on South Lamar in Austin, TX.
We arrived around 6:45, and were told that there was a 35-40 minute wait for a table, but we were lucky to grab the last two seats at the sushi bar.
Throughout the night, the place seemed to get more-and-more busy. I’m glad we arrived when we did, or we wouldn’t have stuck around.
Uchi means “house”, and like many sushi bars in Japan, Uchi is located in an old refurbished home. The Executive Chef, Tyson Cole, was named One of America’s Best New Chefs of 2005 by Food & Wine Magazine.
A quick summary of Uchi would be: amazing food and presentation, but a bit pricey.
Sitting at the sushi bar, we were quickly served our drinks (pinot noir for me, just water for my wife) and our sushi chef (Jay) quickly served up our first two orders of sake sashimi (fresh atlantic salmon).
The salmon was artistically presented in a large bowl of crushed ice, with fresh mandarin orange slices and a large tulip garnish. Salmon sashimi is probably our favorite sushi, and the sake at Uchi was as good as I can remember having anywhere — it seemed to just melt in our mouths.
Next we tried an endo sushi roll (seas bass and snow crab rolled in rice paper with golden tobiko, japanese cucumber, and asian pear salsa). Once again, the presentation was almost too pretty to eat (though we did). It was good, but very light in flavor, Of all of the items we tried, it’s probably the one we wouldn’t order again.
Needing to rebound from a bit of a let down, we moved on to two orders of akami sashimi (red meat tuna). And we weren’t dissapointed — and at $24 per serving (five pieces of fish per serving), I would hope not. Once again, the sashimi stood on its own — just a savory piece of bright red raw fish. My wife said she caught me at least twice closing my eyes while savoring the flavor and texture of each bite of the akami.
I ordered another glass of pinot and then Jay prepared us an order of hamachi sashimi (baby yellowtail), wich was served with cinnamon infused pears and a grape jelly. The fish was exceptional on its own, but the grape jelly was a great compliment. We both really enjoyed this dish.
We finished the night with one of Uchi’s most popular sushi rolls, the shag roll (tempura fried bond roll with salmon and squid ink sumiso sauce) and one more glass of pinot. It was almost like eating desert.
We knew we’d eaten a bunch of sushi (hey, slivers of raw fish just aren’t all that filling), and we tried to guess what the damage would be. We guessed $131, and weren’t far off. The cost for the night: $141 (before tip).
Note to self: eat before you go to Uchi for sushi next time. However, we both agreed that it was worth every penny — the entire meal and dining experience was exceptional. We’d highly recommend it to sushi lovers.
