Oregon Sushi Restaurant Review

Umenoki Japanese Restaurant
2330 NW Thurman St
Portland OR 97210
503-242-6404

Friday, May 31, 2002

Food Quality: A, so far
Portion Sizes: Typical, so far
Overall value for the dollar: A, so far (need to go back for more data :)

Note: this review is based on a quick lunch only, so I don't have a full rating for the sushi quality.

I went here for lunch on Friday, May 31, 2002. Service was immediate, no doubt partly because I arrived at about 2:15 pm, close to the end of the lunch period, so the restaurant wasn't too busy. The booths are separated by screens, so I couldn't get a good view of the other customers (not that I'm the eavesdropping sort anyway), but I could hear a couple of Japanese businessmen chatting behind me, which is always a good sign. I ordered a teriyaki chicken and sushi combo plate (I forget the exact name of the dish, but it was $9.95). The meal began with a small green salad and a bowl of miso soup. I could have used more and larger chunks of tofu in the miso soup (the only place I seem to find tofu tolerable, for some reason :), but let's face it, that's a personal choice and I didn't really come here for the miso soup (which was otherwise fine) anyway, so let's just skip ahead.

The service was very swift: my lunch arrived while I was still sipping my soup. Lunch was served in a large, square bento box with sections for the teriyaki chicken, coleslaw (thinly slivered cabbage and carrots), four pieces of nigiri-zushi, and some ginger and a dollop of wasabi. A pair of gyoza and a bowl of steamed rice were served on the side.

The chicken rested in a sweet, slightly tangy sauce with some body to it. I presume it was home-made: it's not the same-old sauce they use at the corner "bento" stand. The nigiri were very good, and included maguro (tuna), sake (salmon), and two other white fish (hirame or hamachi, perhaps). I also forgot to ask what was in the gyoza, but whatever it was, it was delicious. Two weren't enough: I could have eaten half a dozen of them. No complaints about the steamed rice, either, although I really didn't get a chance to test its consistency directly, since I used most of it to clean up every drop of the teriyaki sauce, which was too good to waste.

I also didn't want to waste the wasabi, and I should really know better by now. The nigiri already had a stripe of wasabi, of course, and I kinda over-did it with my wasabi/soy sauce soup. The leftover was scooped into the teriyaki-rice, so I finished the meal by alternating bites of rice with drinks of water and napkin-wipes on my brow. I must learn restraint with the wasabi burn. Must...learn...restraint. :)

I must also return to Umenoki for dinner: they have a $25 sushi/sashimi combo platter that's just begging to go home in my stomach. :)