Uchi Restaurant

Uchi Restaurant on 801 S Lamar Blvd in Austin TX

The half-full glass: original, tasty, and contemporary menu delivered with outstanding service
The half-empty glass: fish quality, while good, does not match the menu, service, or prices

I appreciated the traditional sushi house ambiance at Uchi, but the needle on the decor pointed a little towards bland and a bit away from simple Japanese. I blame the wallpaper, the time of day, and my long exposure to Houston sushi bar interiors. Uchi compensates a bit with a cozy outdoor seating area arranged with low laid back chairs.

Let's start with a highlight - outstanding service. Uchi employs a very attentive knowledgeable staff that easily accommodated my haphazard ordering style (I never order all at once). Our server took a lot of time talking about dishes, ingredients and specials.

The basics worked out well. The edamame was clearly not the previously frozen kind, the miso was delicately flavorful, and the green tea came in my own pot - what a treat!

My online preview of the menu excited me to the idea of trying Japanese black snapper. Keep in mind that I have no benchmark for comparison for this fish. The texture stood out the most, being extremely tender - but not at all mushy, it fell apart exquisitely in my mouth. While the piece tasted very fresh, I found the flavor a bit too subtle.

Madai (Japanese black snapper) at Uchi

Don't panic, things go quickly uphill starting with grilled baby octopus. Uchi coaxes maximum flavor out of these little red charred tentacle balls. The texture seemed as non-rubbery as octopus can get. Three small piles of salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper come on the side for dipping. Remember the sugar sticks that you dipped in the packets of sugar (Lik-M-Aid's Fun Dip)? Like that but with seasoned infant invertebrates instead of pure sucros.

Baby octopus at Uchi

Now for the big finale - the zero sen makimono. Yellowtail with avocado, crispy shallots, yuzu kosho, golden roe and cilantro sided with a spicy sweet red pepper sauce. It's been a while since a roll impressed me (futomaki at Nippon, I think), so I was really happy to have these ingredients come together in a balanced flavorful experience. Great stuff!

My wife ate the hot rock wagyu beef - a cook-it-yourself-at-the-table experience. This brought instant flashbacks of my bachelor party. I expected a geisha with a strong Boston accent to pop up at any second and berate me to drink more. Good times. Oh yeah, my wife loved the beef dish - apparently a lot of flavor.

Okay, so clearly Uchi steers away from traditional Japanese. But the food and service deliver what the setting cannot - a unique, contemporary Japanese inspired foodie experience. The depth of the menu deserves second, third, and fourth tries at this Austin sushi gem. The Uchi omakase for two still beckons.

Eat well.

Notes:

• We ate lunch at Food! Food!. I had an excellent black bean soup.
• We spent a while at Bicycle Sport Shop. This place goes on forever with bikes and bike stuff. They have a coffee bar in the store and a pro section with nothing but high-end awesomeness (including a drool-induced shirt stain producing GF Superfly).
• I drilled my back on a rock and stressed my MCL during my Reimer's Ranch pre-ride. I also feel compelled to mention my flemmy hacking cough. All perfect racing ingredients.