Uchiko

Uchiko, the sister restaurant of Austin's Uchi, received mixed reviews from me. I'm not a big fan of Japanese cuisine but I am very familiar with how a wide range of raw or cooked seafood should be prepared. 

The edamame sprinkled with coarse sea salt was grilled, which gave it a great smokiness.  

The uni or what is better known as raw sea urchin was delicious and very fresh but not worth the price of twenty dollars for two bites of the actual meat. 

The sushi rolls were perhaps the only items on the menu that received positive reviews. The george and crunchy tuna rolls were excellent but the unnecessary sauces that they were served with lacked flavor.

The wagyu beef served with a hot Japanese hot rock was quite a disappointment. Not only was the grade of beef not up to my standards, the thin slices of meat stuck onto the rock each and every time I tried to sear it. The sashimi style hamachi met my expectations in taste and quality but fell short in how it was prepared. The slices of fish were very inconsistent in thickness and was mostly sliced too thickly.

The desserts were awful and complete disasters. The photo above is of the tobacco cream which actually consisted of cream steeped in tobacco and scotch flavored ice cream. The cream tasted like dirt fresh from the ground and was slightly salty. The photo below is of the fried milk which was just as terrible. The vertical thin chocolate cookies were suppose to taste like Oreo cookies but tasted more like the bottom of burnt brownies. I give them credit for the creativity of the dishes and the perfect quenelles of the cream but taste comes before anything else. Each component clashed and every bites was increasingly unappetizing with a disgusting after taste. I took one bite of each dessert and immediately sent them back. I recommended that they rethink the desserts completely because no one wants to end a meal with such an upsetting experience.