Day 118: Happy Birthday, Julie!

"Umami" has been quite a big buzz word this year. It's a difficult word to define so click here to see what Wikipedia has to say.

Tonight, to celebrate her birthday, our friend Julie arranged a group dinner at a Japanese restaurant in our neighborhood called - you guessed it - Umami! Despite the fact that Umami is just 3 blocks from our house, we had never been there before, but we will definitely be back.

My husband and I arrived early, so we sat at the bar and had a cocktail. Off to a good start.

Once the group had arrived, we sat down and perused the menu. The only strike against Umami the whole night is that they are part of that tired SF trend of "family style". Where I come from, family style means that the portions are huge and meant for sharing by whole table. Here, it basically means that the kitchen is too lazy to organize themselves appropriately to ensure that right order is delivered to the right diner at the right time. I'm kind of over it.

We decided to forego the whole table shares thing and my husband and I shared, as we usually do. Our first item to arrive was the mini tuna tartar tacos, which came three to a plate. We each had one and the third was eaten by the birthday girl. These little guys were totally adorable and yummy. What a great idea!

Next, we had albacore tuna sashimi, which arrived with some greens and seaweed salad on top. In the bottom of the very hot bowl was some ginger over which the waiter poured some ponzu sauce. It sizzled and slightly cooked the tuna - hard to describe, but a visually lovely dish and very tasty, too.

After these appetizers, we got rolling. Not out the door - there was too much good food left to eat! We got our sushi rolls on. The Three Samurai had tuna, yellowtail, and salmon with avocado inside. It tasted fresh but was a bit bland - nothing special there. The Geki-Kara roll, however, was divine: tempura shrimp, avocado, and cucumber inside with spicy tuna, tobiko, jalapeno, and eel sauce on top. That was a real winner.

And of course - because this was a celebration - there had to be dessert! We ordered two items for the table: pineapple crumble, which was far too sweet and a dessert roll. There was gelato wrapped in chocolate cookie dough, sliced like a sushi roll, with a chocolate dipping sauce and wasabi whipped cream. The reaction around the table to the whipped cream was quite negative so I didn't even try that - but the roll itself was delicious and such a creative and fun idea.

All in all - this was a great dinner and a fun night. It had been awhile since we tried a new place in our neighborhood. Welcome to our restaurant rotation, Umami!