Umeko restaurant: Take no prisoners and go for the lobster!
Written: Oct 29 '00 (Updated Mar 25 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Mass quantities of lobster, sushi, sashimi, crab, and more typical Asian food
Cons: Not top quality, no ambiance
The Bottom Line: If you're craving a broad range of seafood and Asian ethnic cuisine AND you're on a budget, head for Umeko's!
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| smiles33's Full Review: San Francisco |
On a budget, but can’t get enough of seafood delicacies like lobster, sashimi, clams, crab and raw oysters? If you believe quantity and variety are factors that can outweigh quality on occasion, you can’t miss out on Umeko, a Japanese seafood restaurant in San Francisco’s Japantown.
Located at 22 Peace Plaza in the heart of Japantown in the Miyako shopping mall, Umeko is located on the second floor of the often deadly quiet mall. The mall straddles Geary Blvd. and Post St., between Webster St. and Laguna St., and Umeko’s is located on the side closest to the Miyako Hotel. It doesn’t help that the mall has been under construction as the plaza is renovated, because it appears that very few people wander in here. Yet surprisingly, Umeko’s is always quite full when I’ve gone there on a half a dozen trips.
One caveat, I didn’t take very good notes because I wasn’t planning on writing an epinion as I was concentrating on eating a lot! It wasn’t until after we finished dessert that I thought of writing one, at which point my brain was sufficiently depleted of blood--it all went to my stomach--so I didn’t think to copy other details down like pricing and hours of operation. Thus, some details are missing and I apologize. Umeko doesn’t have a website and other reviews on the web have old pricing information and no hours listed.
Focus on the food and ignore your surroundings
Let me tell you, the customers are not coming here for ambiance. The place is styled in what is a straightforward, no-nonsense décor. You walk in and see the two buffet bars in a narrow front room, then walk past to one of two dining areas. The front dining area is a dark room with large, solid wood tables (like huge slabs of wood) and benches, with a few booths. The adjoining room to the right is brighter and more reminiscent of a typical hole-in-the-wall restaurant with standard tables and chairs.
So there isn't much to say about the room. This is a place focused intently on mass quantities of food. And, most inconveniently, there is no restroom inside. One must walk out and go around the corner to use the mall’s public restroom.
As for service, the servers were all polite and quick to retrieve dirty plates, replenish one’s napkin supply, and fulfill requests. There are at least 3-4 servers to the two dozen or so tables of diners (only half of which are full), so the server/customer ratio was low enough to quickly meet most diners’ needs.
Advance to the buffet bar and attack strategically!
Admittedly, this is not the place for top quality sashimi or sushi, even though Umeko’s offers over a dozen different kinds of sushi. Yet for $17.95 for a weekend/holiday dinner (the most expensive it gets), $15.95 for a weekday dinner, and either $9.95 or $12.95 for weekday lunches (I know it’s considerably cheaper because they don’t offer lobster), one can definitely get one’s money’s worth by loading up on a variety of dishes.
One of the main attractions for dinner, lobster is served once every 30 minutes. Keep your eye out for when the server walks through the front dining room from the kitchen with the tray and be one of the first there so you can get a claw and a tail. It’s now limited to two pieces per person each serving, so eat quickly and return for more! The first time we went, before this new rule, my fiance, brace33, and I loaded our plates with 4-5 pieces!
The sauteed crab was average, not particularly flavorful, and a far cry from the likes of Crustacean’s tasty roasted garlic crab. Brace33 liked the clams, returning for seconds of the tiny shells. He noted they’re a bit peppery, but I don’t like clams so I didn’t try any.
On the other hand, what we believe to be scallops on the shell were delightful. They aren’t the standard round scallops, but looked somewhat like long mushrooms and were chewy. The shell was large, about the size of an open hand. If you have an idea what this might be, leave a comment! =) We were too focused on eating to stop and ask a server! Tossed with cilantro and flavored with a possibly soy sauce-based seasoning, this seafood dish was so good we each had 2 shells and split a 3rd one.
The sashimi offered was tuna, salmon, and yellowtail. Not even close to the best I’ve ever had, but at least it was offered as I never like hiding the rice from nigiri under shells or crab pieces! As for the sushi, there was a large number of different kinds, including soft shell crab rolls, California rolls, and nigiri--slices of salmon, tuna, and eel on rice.
You are reading an epinion by smiles33. If it appears under someone else's name, it has been plagiarized! Please report it to Epinions and email me to let me know: smilesesq@yahoo.com. Thanks.
One of my favorites here are the raw oysters. They’re large--about the size of a Mint Milano cookie from Pepperidge Farms--and not in the shell, but delicious when dressed in cocktail sauce and lemon, with a bit of wasabi since regular horseradish isn’t available.
The other dishes are more disappointing. The baked salmon was dry and not worth the stomach space. On past occasions, I found the mussels to be a little bland, so I usually skip these now.
There are a number of hot dishes I avoid: Teriyaki chicken (bland, not worth the stomach space), vegetable tempura (too crispy, as the batter isn’t right), Chinese spareribs (tasty, but also not worth the space-—maybe try one piece), Potstickers (looks decent, but never tried), steamed vegetables, and Lemon Chicken (tried one piece—batter was unusual and there’s not enough chicken). I’ve never tried the egg rolls, fried rice, fried noodles, or regular steamed rice as I see them as fillers that take away space from lobster! And I generally avoid the Hot and Sour soup, Miso soup, and assorted cold dishes (marinated cucumbers, salads, fresh fruit) for the same reasons.
For dessert, there is fresh fruit, cookies, and ice cream (mango, lychee, green tea, taro). We both had the mango, which was good enough to have a second serving!
Roll me out the door!
This is the kind of restaurant you go to when you want to stuff yourself silly! The food is not meant to be slowly savored—you’d detect the deficiencies if you paused between each bite. Instead, enjoy the variety and make multiple trips back to sample others. I usually attend to the other dishes when I’ve had my fill of lobster, sashimi, sushi, raw oysters, and the scallops on the shell. Thus, we try to limit our visits here as there’s no use working out and trying to get into shape if you frequent this establishment on a regular basis!
Update:
We recently went to a real sushi place, Godzilla Sushi on Divisadero, just a few blocks from Umeko. I had a delicious platter of sashimi and was immediately struck by what I had been missing with all those buffets! This high-quality sashimi actually MELTS in your mouth, so that very little chewing is required! And while the price of the platter is about the same as Umeko's spread, I found myself totally enamored with the food. So, again, as I warned in the beginning, Uemko's is not the place to bring your sashimi aficionado friend who's visiting from out of town!
NOTE: UMEKO RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED!
Recommended:
Yes
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