Everything on the menu (all of which is served family style) looked amazing, but Sweetmonger and I decided that the best way to fully appreciate Uchi's cuisine was to go with the tasting menu. It started out extremely promising with a wonderful amuse, the center of which was a kiwi sorbet. This tiny dish was very intricate and I cannot remember all of its parts.
Our first course was thinly sliced flounder served with Spanish olive oil, smoked sea salt, yuzu zest and a crispy quinoa. It was a light, delicious start. This flounder was followed by a equally delicious seared scallop dish. The scallops were served with mangoes, candied oranges, a brittle and some yellow sauce that I cannot think of. The brittle offered an intriguing contrasting texture, and this dish left Sweetmonger and I extremely satisfied and wanting more. At this point, Uchi was 3 for 3
The next dish was sugar-cured, maple-wood smoked hamachi, and it was served with an Asian pear and yucca crisps that acted like spoons. Again, really good. Next came grilled mackerel with toasted sesame seeds, charred shishito and watermelon confit. I am usually a huge fan of mackerel, but I found this dish merely really good and a slight let down compared to the 4 earlier courses.
Our fifth course was near perfection. Absolutely amazing blue fin tuna came with cracked pepper, Fuji apple slices, goat cheese and pumpkin seed oil. As in the hamachi dish, the apples acted like spoons with the remaining ingredients topped on. The tuna was about as perfect in flavor and texture as anything can be and the goat cheese was smooth and wonderful. The dish was certainly one of the culinary highlights (along with the surprisingly delicious creamed spinach from Stubbs BBQ) of my visit to Austin.
Uchi followed this up with a fig-leaf wrapped halibut. It was easily the whitest and most tender piece of fish I have ever eaten. It was served with some golden raisins but that's about all I can remember.
I am at a loss remembering our next course, even after looking at its photo. All I know is that it was raw tuna served two purees, one of which was pesto based. There were no obvious flaws and it was pretty damn tasty. Not the same can be said for what we thought was our main course. Uchi gave us grilled wagyu ribeye, lightly sauteed spinach and a white peach puree. Unfortunately, this was nothing more than a good salad. The ribeye was a little over cooked and the white peach puree was subtle in flavor. As a main course (or what should have been the main), it was quite a let down. Making matters worse was that on the menu I saw what Uchi called a "bacon steakie" which is a twice cooked pork belly. I mentioned to Sweetmonger how good that sounded and how I hoped that it would be on the tasting menu. Compounding the disappointment of not getting the pork, the couple next to us did. And for a solid five minutes, all they could talk about was how amazing it was. I was jealous.
Sweetmonger and I were surprised that another savory course came our way. Seared foie gras and foie gras mousse showed up with corn and cerano peppers. This really could have been the highlight of the night. The seared foie, corn and peppers created a rich, buttery yet distinctly Mexican flavor. It was really quite amazing, but the placement and construction of the dish are hard to get over. There is absolutely no reason why seared foie should be served after wagyu beef or as the ninth course in the meal. It is just way too rich. Furthermore, for the life of me, I cannot understand why foie gras mousse was on the plate. Seared foie or foie mousse is one thing. But both? How do you expect any normal person to be able to eat that as the ninth course in the meal?
Finally, our dessert was chocolate creme sandwiched between a coconut cracker and served with a dark chocolate ice cream. It wasn't very creative but it was very good.
The food at Uchi is good and some of it is borderline exceptional. However, the progression of the meal was uneven. I felt that in the middle of the meal the kitchen was just sending out dishes without regard as to where they fit into the overall scheme of things. This was certainly the case with the foie course.
More offending, however, was the price of the meal. The tasting menu at Uchi is priced daily and we were quoted a price at the beginning of the night. However, when the bill arrived, our waitress informed us that the chef had changed the menu in the middle (surprise surprise) of our meal and tacked on $16 to the quoted price. Sweetmonger and I were not informed of this until our bill came. Despite protests, we paid the bill and left. The extra $16 is not that much, especially on a tasting menu, but to change the price in the middle of the meal without informing the diner is extremely unprofessional and absolutely ridiculous. I contacted the general manager over this and he apologized and said it should not have happened. But that should never happen. Even so, the food was very good but I am not willing to call it a great restaurant after one visit.
Uchi
801 South Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78704
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