Uni — Restaurant in Boston

This review is based on an experience on Friday, November 20. I know the date well because it was my BIRTHDAY. I made a reservation and indicated it was for a birthday dinner. If you're going for nothing else, the food here is GREAT. It's presented well and the chefs do an amazing job. The communication, service, and attitude from the GM however is unacceptable. I was seated in a hotel room (should note that NO mention of this was made in advance, until I arrived and then walked up an ugly tiny staircase.) The hotel room had a sofa, a radio from the 1990's and a tv as well as sofa. The table had no decor and the chairs appeared to be from IKEA. Certainly not the experience I was prepared for or expecting. I arrived at 7:15p for my 7:15 reservation. I was seated promptly however, it took over 50 mins to receive a cocktail. Allow me to elaborate on the several miscommunications that occured from this point on. Waitress arrives, who was lovely for the most part might I add. Waitress takes my drink order: Belvedere martini, only slightly dirty, with olives... 30 mins later, bar back arrives. Announces "Gin martini?" and motions to hand it to me, I say, "Sorry, it's a belvedere martini, perhaps it's for the other room?" He goes into the other room, attempts to deliver, however the other patrons correct him with what they've ordered. 10 mins later, my waitress returns, and hands me a GREEN martini.... my other party who has known my cocktail for FIVE YEARS, says, "I know you're not going to drink that, it looks like olive juice." I take a sip, it's legit STRAIGHT OLIVE JUICE with a splash of vodka. I motion to the waitress, "Sorry love, but I have to send this back, it's just too much olive juice. I'm sure it's not your fault but can they just make it with a teaspoon or something of olive juice? Thank you."

NOW enter GM (Kate I believe.) She arrives 15 mins later or so, it's several minutes past 8pm and says, "Hi, do you mind, I've made this drink several times now so can you take a sip and see if this is to your liking?" Sip. Great! Moving on. Flash forward two courses of meals, and now attempt to order a second. To waitress; "Love, can you make sure they make it just like the last one? Belvedere martini. Slightly dirty, just a smidge of olive juice? Thank you." Now, bar back comes up, hands me a martini, GREEN, AND IT'S NOT EVEN VODKA, IT'S GIN. I've been drinking the same thing for over 8 years. I know my cocktail. I profusely apologize to the waitress; "I'm so sorry love, but I have to send this back. It's not the correct alcohol. They made it with gin." AND up comes Kate (storming in might I add) and proceeds to tell me the following: " Hi, um, so clearly we're not on the same page here - we've made several of your drinks which you've sent back. I try to explain there's somehow a miscommunication but she cuts me off and says, "So, we're not going to be doing this any longer."

I reply with, "Are you able to just put vodka in a glass with a little bit of olive juice on the side and I'll make it myself?" She says No. She says, "So is there something else I can get for you, wine?" I tell her "no thank you". My guest and I were horrified at the encounter and left feeling disgusted with her demeaning remarks. To top it off, the waitress was well aware this was my birthday dinner, made no offer for dessert, simply brought the check, probably because of the strange interaction with her GM and shooed us out the door. Really makes me re-consider ever returning here based on this horrific interaction. They should be appalled at how their management treats patrons, especially when the restaurant community is suffering so greatly right now. EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED, so much so that I have shared this experience with all friends who asked what I did for my birthday and the horrific experience I...

On a rare night out with the wife, we thought Uni could be magical. We love sushi. We're happy to splurge on our time together. The rub is this place is gas station takeout quality for Michelin star prices.

We did the omakase. Thinking they know the best stuff. They upsell you on a better one, which should have been a sign that this is more a marketing effort than a culinary effort. But we did it. The first course was these "uni spoons". It's sea urchin and raw egg yolk. It's gilding the lily with can't miss ingredients, so sure it was great. Oddly for a very expensive signature item that the waiter made sure to hype up, it came in a dingy little plain spoon. Perhaps somebody in the kitchen thought this was elegant simplicity. To me it just seemed like somebody had nicked the silverware from a public school dumpster. Not to judge a book by the cover, but it was a real sign that something's off with this place. Note to self: Next time I'm paying through the nose for a hyped up restaurant and something is so clearly slipshod right from the start, just walk out. Let them sucker somebody else in.

Thus started a parade of dishes that went from mediocre to bland. Hamachi, one of my favorite fish, came out as a rubbery square with a pear (?). It tasted like... pear. Oysters came with some sort of pomegranate thing that ruined the oysters. Not a good sign when you just scrape it off to try and enjoy the oysters. A tataki seemed like they tried to sear the edges gently with a torch, but was just dry and cooked. Lots of the food seemed to have been kept under a heat lamp. From the wontons with some gross sweet thing inside that had crumbly pasta pulling away from soggy bags that had clearly been left in the broth too long. A plate of four types of fish was all equally bland and dry. And they don't even use sushi rice. I get the impression there's an attempt to be creative, but really they're just getting ahead of their skis.

The guys bringing you dishes mumble through a description while avoiding eye contact. They tell you basically nothing. One described our scallops as "madai" which is not the Japanese word for it. Why not just use the English word? Kind of shows the lack of care the staff takes with the whole thing. Each course came out wham-bam one after the other, making it hard to even talk never mind slowly enjoy things. I get you're trying to turn the table, but don't be so damn obvious about it.

And then the bill comes. We're pondering if we should salvage our rare evening together by going somewhere nearby. And staring at that bill made me a bit angry. If you're going to charge Michelin star prices, at the very least don't suck. But it's just treating me like a money cow, happy to chomp on dry hay and still willing to squirt that sweet milk of money out of my udder.

Do yourself a favor. If you want the Uni experience then just go to Grubhub, sort by star rating, and get yourself the cheapest one star available. If you want sushi go...

tl;dr - Not all that it's cracked up to be. Having lived in Boston for 10 years, Uni was always on the bucket list. For my birthday this year, my spouse decided it was time. To be clear, we knew how small plates worked and knew what we were getting into price-wise. I also lived in Japan for a while, and both of us have significant sushi experience.

Straight to the food - the dishes ranged from quite good (just one dish) to offensively bad. For the price point ($20-35 per small plate), anything less than good is unacceptable. Miso soup - sour, did not have much miso, no tofu/wakame. How do you mess up miso soup? Nigiri - barracuda was interesting (good). Chu-toro (my favorite cut of tuna) was good, but nothing special. Bream was eh. Okonomiyaki was a joke. Tasted like a $5 appetizer from a neighborhood Asian "fusion" restaurant. Except they added ikura on top. Octopus was super salty, and came in a hot sesame oil which cooked it and made it really chewy. We couldnt eat more than a few bites of it. The only dish worth mentioning is the tuna tataki with foie gras. Man, this dish was so good. The foie gras was high quality and perfectly seared. The tuna was fresh and the tataki was done perfectly - we could cut the tuna with our chopsticks. The garnish was fun and added lightness and acidity to the dish. It's clear that this (and maybe their cook-it-yourself wagyu) were their "signature" dishes. Worth the $35 price tag. If only every other dish was even half this good. Overall, food was disappointing.

Ambience - Really dark and noisy. I do think it does a little discredit to the food - presentation is dulled by the dim lighting.

Service - This also really disappointed us. Our server, Mark, was an "eager salesman." Every item we asked about, his immediate response was "Oh, I LOVE that one." That spiel got increasingly hard to believe as we ate plate after plate of mediocre food. He also spent the entire night talking only to my spouse, who made it clear to him that it was my birthday and that I will be the one ordering. No change in behavior. At then end of the meal, they brought out one lit candle on a dish. No complementary food or drinks. This is not necessarily disappointing, just an fyi for those looking to celebrate their birthdays here.

Overall, an eye-opening experience to an oft-referenced sushi restaurant in Boston. We chalk this down as a learning experience and will refrain from recommending it as a place to get sushi in Boston in the future (apologies to those who've gone in the past based on our...