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Sushi UO
- Nearest Transit:
-
Delancey-Essex Sts (F, J, M, Z)
- Hours:
Tue-Sun. 6:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.
- Parking:
- Street
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$$$
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good for:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Beer & Wine Only
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"Ever since I have tried their Harushika Tokimeki Sparkling Sake here...I have been searching for other places that sells it, but…" read more »
4 reviews for Sushi UO
Absolutely amazing - suggest taking no more than 4 ppl - tables are small, place is small, but its some of the best sushi/japanese fusion you will ever have
chef david studied under morimoto and his team in japan and opened up this literal whole in the wall, for his first restaurant they are creating a big buzzzzz
i've been to the bar downstairs, 151, and the one next door, snt jeromes, numerous times and you'd never UO existed, which makes me wonder why i'm even yelping this because then more ppl will want to go and itll be harder to get a reservation....ugh
the only thing that let me down was no dessert menu - they are working on it and cant wait to see what they have in store
what we ordered (not the name on the menu, but its what i call it):
duck dough balls, 5 balls in a row, as you eat them starting from the 2 on the outside and moving in, the balls get spicier, food + fun = fab
got a comp tasting of their potato soup w/ some green stuff in it - i could drink that stuff all night
hamachi carpaccio - the cutest things i've ever seen in my life
sashimi roll - tuna salmon yellowtail wrapped in cucumber w/ ponzu (can get it almost anywhere, but this was so fresh i felt like the fish was just caught 2 minutes before hitting the table)
pacific roll - crab avocado...i forget, but it was goooooood
since i was disappointed with no dessert menu, they comped us small glasses of plum wine
to drink:
nigori - deelish....endless sake menu
kirin light - the usual for me & my bf got an asahi black, rare and very good
sidenote...celebrity sighting - jeff staple was at the table across from us, was going to say hi but didnt want to interrupt dinner and i'm a pussy
On the subway ride home from Sushi Uo, J turned to me and said, "Becca. Please. No more hip new restaurants that we know nothing about, OK?" He said this not because he's a crotchety old man, but because Sushi Uo was just not worth the money.
Oh, it's quite pretty inside, and I suppose the whole speakeasy thing is still a bit of an allure. And SOME pieces of fish were very delicious. But not all of them were, and they were TINY!!! At first we thought, "Wow, $19 for 12 pieces of sashimi is a very good deal!" And it is, at a normal restaurant where those pieces are larger than a postage stamp. J ordered an additional roll and a piece of uni, and he still wanted a slice of pizza afterward. And no, he is not a giant oinker.
Our food took waaaaaay too long to come, and the cheapest bottle of sake was $45. FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS. I like to think I have a pretty discriminating palate, but when it comes to sake, to me it all just tastes like...sake. Give me the cheap stuff. I'm not ashamed. Oh wait, Uo doesn't have any cheap stuff.
I was extraordinarily disappointed in the value/price ratio at Sushi UO. The sushi is of an -acceptable- level, and per-piece isn't terribly expensive - about on average for the neighborhood. And while nothing was out-and-out bad, a great deal of it was out-and-out boring.
The composed dishes, however, were where things really fell apart. Smoked Duck Takoyaki on paper sounded a bit more exciting than they were. But any smokiness the duck had was lost thanks to the sauces - a chipotle mayo, and a bbq sauce - drizzled over the top. More importantly, there was very little for the price - $15 got you five rather small little balls, about a bite apiece. Also on the skimpy end was an appetizer of beer-braised short ribs - and aside from there being barely enough in the bowl to even warrant calling it an appetizer, it was a bit too chewy - perhaps not braised long enough? The flavor was lacking as well. Supposedly there was fennel in there, but I didn't taste any. Nor did I taste beer. I tasted boiled meat, that was about it.
Spicy tuna with "crunchy rice" fared little better - I've had this dish at a few Japanese places and Sushi UO's version was sadly lacking in crunch. Also a minus was the fish itself - curiously bland, and completely hidden, flavor-wise, under a chipotle mayo. Yes, the exact same chipotle mayo that topped the aforementioned takoyaki. I'm sorry, but with a rather small menu, you shouldn't be going back to the same well more than once. Come up with something different for one of them - wasabi mayo, tobiko mayo, frickin' peanut butter mayo, whatever.
Rolls were unexciting, but again, that tied right into the overall blandness of the fish. A "sashimi roll" - a few kinds of fish rolled in a thin layer of cucumber - had nice presentation, though it didn't hold together particularly well when it was time to eat it. And it really just tasted of cucumber. The ponzu that came with it was nice, though ponzu isn't exactly rocket science.
All in all a disappointment, especially given the much higher quality to be found not too far away.
I really wanted to like them - it's a nice space, the staff is friendly, and you can't have enough good sushi places in the 'hood. But after spending $100 my girlfriend and I were both still hungry. That would make sense if we were dining at Morimoto or Soto or something, where I could easily spend three times that - but it's not like UO is dropping foie gras and uni all over everything. They're not making "haute sushi" by any stretch. Sushi UO needs to raise its game - especially in terms of VPR - if they want to compete in the LES Sushi field.
I expect UO to be popular for a little while out of the gate, though. The hipness of the "hidden" space will bring people in regardless of the food on the plate - for the time being. Go if you want to feel "in the know" about the cool new hidden sushi joint. But if your concern is a decent Japanese meal, go hit Sachiko's on Clinton or something.
So - I've lived in Tokyo. And while I was there, I spent at least 3-4 times a week eating kaiten sushi (y'know, conveyer belt sushi) at a joint in the JR Meguro Atre.
I didn't think much of it - until I came back to America and bit into a rather pricey sushi piece. And almost projectile vomited.
I mean, I didn't even go to the 4-star sushi places in Japan - kaiten sushi has the quality of an OutBack Steakhouse - and yet even mediocre sushi in Japan is painfully superior to most sushi in America.
I don't use wasabi or soy sauce on my fish - yea, my Japanese co-workers used to call me a cat, because I kept insisting that "I want to taste the fish." Well, this American fish, I could taste the freezer burn, I could taste the poor fish quality (i.e. bland bland bland, with tinges of industrial aftertaste).
Most sushi places in America turn out stuff called dragon rolls or phoenix rolls (wtf?). And, unless you get a suger daddy, the affordable sushi house doesn't serve stuff like raw shrimp brain.
So, I had been avoiding sushi in America until I simply couldn't whiteknuckle it anymore and ended up finding the conveyer belt sushi at Whole Foods (Bowery). Until the quality started to also go horribly downhill...
Then, I was invited to go to UO Sushi. I've been there twice - once in late- Sept. 2009, and about 2 weeks later in mid-Oct.
The 1st time I went, I sat at a table with my boyfriend and two dear friends. We had the #3 Daily Select Plate, Spicy Tuna Roll, piece of Hotate (Scallop Live), piece of Uni (Sea Urchin - *drool*), and piece of Toro (Fatty Tuna - trust me, there is a HUGE difference between regular tuna and fatty tuna). And, had Kurosawa Kimoto Junmai Sake (which is room temperature).
The fish was FRESH. It had a clean finish. And, the price was right - sushi places in Hoboken, NJ charge the same for approx. the same quantity. But, the quantity of sea urchin was generous for $6 - I was able to share portions with my boyfriend (even though I wanted to eat all of it myself).
The 2nd time I went, I sat at the sushi bar, and left my fate in the capable hands of David, the head sushi chef (he's in the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com...). He's this 20-some year old American guy who speaks Japanese and orders the fish from Tsukiji Market in Tokyo everyday. That's right - he orders from Tokyo. Raaad.
So anyways, sitting at the bar is highly recommended. Having David decide what you're gonna eat is also high recommended. He gave us everything from a type of ceviche to a Mexican style taco-esque sushi dish to gloriously fresh, unadulterated, good-ol'-fashioned sushi. My sushi-purist heart was...soaring.
Then I asked, "do you have raw shrimp brain?" (oh, by the way, we're not talking about those shrimps they serve at cocktail parties. We're talking about these long muthafuckers that have a mild, buttery taste and texture when devoured raw)
David looked at me with shiny eyes. "Girl after my own heart!"
That's right, people. If you want raw shrimp brain - go to UO sushi. Go and slurp out the green gooey mess to your heart's pleasure. I like to stick my tongue in there to get all the good stuff out, and squeeze that head nice and tight and suck.
Anyways, I don't understand why Americans expect to get stuffed from sushi. You're not eating BBQ ribs! It's very clean food, so the feeling of fullness is different than having a bowl of pasta. The portions at UO are average, and are not overloaded with avocado and cream sauce and huge wads of sushi rice. I am not totally opposed to cream cheese in my salmon roll, but I prefer the fish to be the star.
Is UO Sushi a budget meal? No. The plate of sashimi is $37 and is appropriate for one person. However, for the quality of fish, I see this as an excellent deal. Plus, if you ordered a similar plate at a very high-end place, it would be more expensive for not that much difference...and if you ordered it at your average sushi house, it would be maybe $28 for some suck-tastic slabs of stuff they wanna pass off as sushi.
I didn't really try any of the cooked plates, except the Enoki mushrooms cooked in butter. I love Enoki mushrooms and I love butter, so it's a win combination. But I usually come to sushi restaurants for the fish.
As an end note: the ambiance of the place is great. Great decor. Comfortable. Nice wait staff. Again, I really recommend sitting at the sushi bar and having Chef David take care of you. Remember - shrimp brains, Toro, Uni. Don't leave UO without trying 'em.
