With all the hot weather warnings and storm warnings, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to slow down the trip a little bit.  Poking around on Slashfood/Huffington Post Food, they had a link to ‘Top 10’ restaurants.  One of them happened to be nice and close in Austin – uchi.  And given I wasn’t likely to visit any of the other cities or restaurants, I was ‘convinced’ that this would be worth the money.

Early in the afternoon ~4pm when I dropped by the restaurant to find out a good time to have dinner.

“Not 8pm” made it fairly simple.  Late lunch and a desire to see the Bat Flight  made me drop by after 9pm.  I was told I had good timing as a couple at the sushi bar was just wrapping up.

Free waiting area snack – roasted cauliflower

Free appetizer – some kind of sorbet

Ramune!   It was on the menu, and I just had to order it.  Since I was on the bike, no sake or wine.   But still not a good decision, the Ramune was much too sweet and kind of ruined everything I had with it.   Ordered green tea to cleanse the palate.

Flounder

Poached littleneck clams in a dashi broth with a tomatillo kimchi

Sea Bream Nigiri

machi cure
smoked baby yellowtail ٠ yucca
crisp٠asian pear٠marcona
almond٠garlic brittle

I probably got some of the dishes above wrong.  So many dishes and flavours, it’s hard to keep track.  And to be honest, I can’t say I was really listening when they were telling me what was in each dish.  Still rather loud in there and I realized it wasn’t likely I would ever have these dishes again… or bother to try and reproduce them.  My apologies to the servers and chefs who tried their hardest.

Uchi is definitely worth visiting if you’re in the city.  Everything was delicious and service was a delight.  The 10 course omakase was a bit pricey, so might be best to be around for the happy hour/sake social menu.