Uchi Scottsdale — Restaurant in Scottsdale

Q: What did Rose tell Jack in the Japanese dubbed Titanic movie? A: "I'll never let gyoza."

With multiple locations across the country, Uchi has made a home in Scottsdale and what a privilege. Tilly was our waitress and I'm pretty sure this Minnesota gal is now a part of our family.

Four of us came on Friday at 4PM for Happy Hour. We all did the Signature Tasting which is an eight-course tasting for two featuring their favorite dishes and signature bites along with some other dishes. Here's the breakdown (‡ = raw):

Oyster ‡ seasonal chef selection: The oysters we had were from Puget Sound, Washington. Delightful, sweet, creamy, and not too briny. It was fresh and a great way to start the meal.

Brussels Sprouts - fish caramel, lemon, chili: I love me this tiny cabbage and these were delightful. That rascal, Jon H., is a brussel sprouts hater and commandeered all the sprouts on the table.

Bincho Nigiri ‡: Suggested to eat with your hands, as the rice is warm and delicate, and to flip it fish-side down on your tongue. I'll be honest. This was the least impressive.

Avocado Nigiri: Described as "small but mighty" and accurately described. That same rascal, Jon H., hates avocados and still ate his nigiri.

Hamachi Temaki ‡ yellowtail, nori, koshihikari rice: Is it weird that I got Vietnamese spring roll vibes from this? I think it was the mint but as a spring roll lover, I absolutely enjoyed the temaki. It was served with a delightful yuzu sweet & sour sauce.

Kabocha Tempura - Japanese pumpkin: I was already feeling full by this point so I ate half of my tempura but wowzah. Perfectly crisp, gorgeously golden, it as as if King Midas touched this kabocha himself.

Hama Chili ‡ yellowtail, ponzu, thai chili, orange supreme: One of my favorite bites of the night. The Thai chili salt on top gave the mild delicate hamachi a lemongrass flavor profile. It was delightful.

Wagyu Gunkan ‡ tamari: We had actually received a different wagyu dish we had ordered (see below) and comparing the two, this wasn't as good. The cool raw wagyu with the warm rice was a little off-putting.

Walu Walu - grilled escolar, yuzupon, candied citrus, myoga: One of the favorites of the table, this gorgeously grilled escolar swam in a bright sauce. Perfectly flaky and moist, this fish had us looking for more!

Warm Banana Cake - chicory, buckwheat, white coffee ice cream: What a way to cap a very fulfilling meal. I only had a couple of bites of the cake because my ribs were starting to hurt from how full I was. I wish I could have had a bowl of ice cream alone. It was so sooo good.

We also added some more items on the side:

Uchi Salad: Best described by Tilly as a taco. You pick it up, swirl it around the sauce, and chomp it. It was fresh. It was delicious. And honestly, they need to jar that salad dressing and sell it.

Pork Skewers: Served with slivers of beets and topped with a spicy chimichurri. I had one cube but that cube packed flavor. It was hot & spicy, and I'm not talking about the sandwich over at McDonald's.

Wagyu Carpaccio: Get this. It's so good. It comes as four bites but you will wish all four bites were yours.

Crispy Rice Cake: This was a surprise offering and wow, such flavors.

Two bottles of Otokoyama Junmai...

We were excited to eat the Uchi. We are big sushi connoisseurs and have lived in the San Francisco Bay area and traveled to Japan multiple times.

We got a reservation on Feb 13th for the sushi bar. The place was packed, the hostess told us that they had to move all the reservations an hour back because they had to open an hour later due to some technical issues, so they opened at 5 pm that day instead of 4 pm.

My husband and I ordered through the sushi chef who seemed rather inexperienced with the menu. Granted they only opened a month or so, therefore everyone had to familiarize with the system.

We sat down, I ordered one omakase (the 10 course) and my husband does not like omakase, so he ordered several ala carte items. We waited quite awhile for our order, it was understandable, as it's new and the place was packed. It was very chaotic and loud. The decor is very nice and the colors were soothing and contemporary

The 10 course omakase came for me, started with 2 oysters, Hamachi, a crunchy roll, a sakana mushi, 4 nigiris, quail, lamb, bluefin tuna. one wagyu nigiri and coconut pudding. The raw fish was good but nothing exceptional. The sushi chef hardly paid attention to us, as he was just trying to keep up with orders. I was never told that quail and lamb was part of a sushi omakase- otherwise, I would have never ordered it. I only wanted fresh fish and seafood at a sushi omakase.

My husband had the typical nigiris for scallops, tuna, salmon & shrimp tempura. I had one drink and my husband had 2 drinks.

While fish was fresh, there was nothing special or exceptional. The coconut pudding was average. My husband did not have dessert.

The sushi chef did not pay much attention to us as he was busy with many orders. It was so loud and chaotic, we were glad when the meal was completed. We asked for the check and it took 25 minutes before our bill arrive and my husband paid the bill and we were glad to leave the noise and chaos behind.

Fast forward a two weeks later, my husband was going through the restaurant receipts and handed me the receipt for Uchi and I noticed that they charged me $300 for the omakase for 1 person. As I recall, the omakase was $150 per person when I inquired with the sushi chef and they definitely did not give my husband the omakase. I had one of each course and 1 dessert for the omakase. Our total bill came to $452.73 excluding tips. On the bill, there was no quantity for the omakase charge, only list as $300- omakase. I kept copy of the receipt and the itemized bill. So, whoever printed the bill basically charged us for 2 omakase.

I have been trying to call and speak to the manager to confirm about the charges but all you get is recording and press 5 to leave a message. I have left several messages and try to give them a short message about why I was calling and the voicemail cuts you off.

It has been a horrible experience. No one deserves to be overcharged. I will never be back.

Fair warning to all who eats there- please check your bill carefully...

This place sucks. I don't blame the staff, but the poor rating is because of the food for AZ restaurant week. If this is supposed to entice me to come back well it failed miserably.

The restaurant was busy, but it took 2 hours for us to be fully served and the courses didn't come out in the correct order. There was a period where for about 40 minutes no one checked on us and no food was served after we finished the uchi salad and they bussed it off of the table.

I feel like most people are ranting and raving due to the fact it's expensive or is a status symbol to come here instead of actually wanting to eat good Japanese food. Maybe the normal menu is better.

I attached the menu from AZ restaurant week website since I didn't take any photos of anything. You can't really see in the restaurant anyways since it's pretty dark.

The uchi salad was okay, but it's butter lettuce with a salad dressing. Nothing special.

The hama chili was actually swapped out for a salmon roll for the in person menu, which was a slice of salmon with some cucumber and sesame seeds on the rice outside. No soy sauce unless you ask and I didn't ask for wasabi since I was tired of waiting and was really hungry. It comes with a "white chili aioli", which basically is a flavorless white sauce. The aioli was bad. Kewpie mayo tastes WAY better. You can get better salmon rolls at like any generic sushi restaurant in the valley.

Nigiri was the only thing that was good. I couldn't hear anything the busser said to me about the fish though since it was loud in the restaurant. I only recognized the albacore tuna since it's one of the only white fish. I wish they would've let me upgrade it to bluefin or something though.

Pork belly was okay, but it basically was a tiny cube of meat with maybe 5 pieces of japanese potato. There was more mint garnish than pork belly.

The "jasamine" cream (which is actually supposed to be spelled jasmine) and coconut tapioca are two of the worst desserts I've ever been served in a restaurant.

They are both sour cream slop parfaits with flavorless crunchy stuff at the bottom. The coconut tapicoa one was inedible in my opinion since it basically tasted like vomit with a side of foot sweat. The jasmine cream wasn't much better and was also very sour.

The reason we tried both is because the waiter saw us grimacing and frowning as my girlfriend and I were both trying our tapioca. He quickly swapped it out for us to try the jasmine cream when we told him it was terrible. I appreciated that, but it doesn't make the bad food taste any better.

I guess I should've known what to expect when the menu hasn't even been proofread since the jasamine spelling error was still there, even though they swapped out the hama chilli for the salmon roll. I should've taken a...