Uchiko

4200 North Lamar Boulevard
Austin, TX 78756

So this year, in a rare aligning of all the planets, my mom, dad, brother and I were all back in Austin at the same time, without any other people staying with us. It was like a reunion of family life back in 1998! J and I wanted to take the parents out for dinner for all the birthdays and other random things we have missed, and I made a reservation at Uchiko since I had eaten at Uchi a long time ago and still have fond memories of that meal. Sadly I did not take into the account how uncomfortable my parents would be with the price of the dishes. It was only tempered by the fact that our 6 pm reservation allowed us to ask for the happy hour menu, which our waiter was kind enough to arrange even though apparently it is usually restricted to the bar area. Anyway - the happy hour menu is full of reasonably priced things, so we ordered a bit off of that, but since it was a celebration dinner we still wanted to let my parents have anything else they wanted. My dad spotted mackerel, which he loves, but he did not clock that ordering it as sashimi would mean it was raw. And everyone at the table except for me DOES NOT like raw mackerel. On top of that, 7 tiny slices were $20. I know fish can be expensive, but mackerel is one of the cheapest fish to buy, so that was hard to reconcile. There were some dishes that were standouts (in particular a salmon and kale dish) but also a few that were just ok but nothing special. In the end, while the parents appreciated the gesture, I think they would have been happier at a more mid-priced restaurant, so let's try again next year.