Umi Sushi - one star

2806 Shelter Island Dr.
San Diego, CA 92106
(619) 226-1135

I'm fairly easily satisfied by a restaurant. If the food is reasonably good, the service reasonably attentive, and the price commensurate with the surroundings, I'm generally happy. Stuff happens sometimes - orders get misplaced, wait staff gets busy, and so on. For the most part, I understand these things. Usually, all it takes is a "sorry about that," and it's forgotten.

This is why I don't review restaurants online: what I consider satisfactory would most likely be inadequate to a true connoisseur or reviewer. Alternative, what I consider unsatisfactory is probably appalling. Therefore, I probably should write about Umi Sushi.

I was first introduced to this restaurant shortly after it opened. A friend of mine worked near San Diego Airport, and this was a good location about halfway between us. It was quiet, the seating was easy, and it had a lunch menu that allowed you to have a decent meal for between $7 and $10. I ate there about one a month for quite a while; the food was adequate, and the only notable thing was that they had katsudon on the menu, but not available. Ever. For a year, I'd order katsudon every time I came in, only to have the waitress apologize that it wasn't available.

The trouble began when I took my wife there for dinner. She is far more expert in Japanese cuisine than I am and pointed out the deficiencies that were just below my conscious, such as oversalting of most entrees and overcooked vegetables, that I noticed after they were pointed out. I ordered tonkatsu that night, breaded pork cutlet, and it was very thin and tough. She said that this was indicative of a more Korean tradition of cooking than Japanese, and I got lots of grief for taking her to a place that looked good out the outside but was less than adequate on the inside.

After that debacle, I stayed away for a while, then had the hankering today for a nice, leisurely Japanese lunch. I went back to Umi Sushi and got there about noon. The menu had changed, and the lunch now ranged from $10 to $14 for entrees.

By ten after I had ordered chicken teriyaki, tako (octopus sashimi), and a sake. The sake and tako arrived within ten minutes and were fine, but twenty minutes later I hadn't seen a waitress nor received the rest of my meal. At quarter of one, another waitress came by and presented me with my check.

After pointing out that I hadn't received my meal yet, she asked if I wanted another sake while I waited. That came within a couple of minutes, and finally, at almost one o'clock, my entre arrived, hot but tough and underseasoned, and sitting on a bed of overcooked vegetables. Now late, I wolfed it down anyway, then asked for the check. It came, now augmented with the second sake that I had been offered.

On the way out, I told the hostess that a quality restaurant would have at least apologized and probably given me the second drink free. She smiled and said, "Thank you." I don't know if that was obliviousness or a language issue, but I'm surely not coming back again.

And they still don't have katsudon...