Ume Sushi Japanese Restaurant

SATURDAY EVENING IN SEPT '09: Out & about by Pleasanton Stoneridge Mall when me & BF-J do it again, ""What you want to eat for dinner?"" Well I wanted to try something other than the local Cheesecake Factory & PF Changs...I remember finding a sushi spot on Yelp that got a lot of positive reviews. Yep, we found our way over to Ume Sushi. LOCATION: Off of Hopyard Road with the major cross street of Stoneridge Drive. It's located in the shopping center with Chili's, Eddie Papas American Hangout, Cheesecake Shop, & more. Shared parking lot w/ other store vendors in center. It has a corner lot location next to a dry cleaners. RESTAURANT: Upon entrance, small Sushi Boat on the right where the chefs give a warm welcome & hello, then just look for some one (who appears to be an employee) wave you down & ask ""Party of 2?"" & get seated immediately. Clean, somewhat spacious, but plenty of seating w/ tables & armless chairs, plus large sectional booths aligned against wall w/ wood bench seats & not so fluffy pillows to sit on, but better than nothing. Booths offer more privacy vs booths @ Chili's for example...ur not gona have a convo w/ the person across the table from you & see the party sitting behind him/her 'cuz there's a wall that goes straight up...I'm sure u get my description. The place wasn't terribly crowded, nor empty...good crowd dinning in for some sushi on a Summer Saturday evening in Pleasanton. CUST SVC: Excellent! From the warm hellos from Sushi Chefs @ the Sushi Boat, to the ladies taking your order & bringing your food. We had 2 appetizers placed @ our table that we didn't order, when I told our waitress that we didn't order this, she smiles back ""Don't worry, on me!"" We're like really?! Sweet lady...but then again maybe she smacked someone up aside their head after restaurant closed for a mistake like that (haha) Overall, excellent friendly & thorough cust svc. Keep up the good work ;-) APPS & SUSHI: For app, we order Chicken Karaage & got freebies Edamame & Gyoza (6pieces of pot stickers). Chkn Karaage is very lightly battered; all 3 apps were tasty & good. Our sushi tastes included the Super Bowl (Shrimp temp, crab, unagi on top w/ white sauce), Lion King Roll, & Nemo Roll. The rolls all made fresh, easy to pick up & devour in 1-bite, & all get a recommendation!! We were going to call it quits, but I saw a table getting served Green Tea Ice Cream, so we both got our own scoop. No pic for this, but Green Tea Ice Cream was creamy & tasty...we probably could've just shared this, but we both felt we had a lil' more stretch in our jeans & could take on the challenge *tee-hee*. FINAL TAB: The evening ends w/ a $45.38 tab for 2 drinks, 1 app, 3 sushi rolls, & 2 desserts. Oh & our waitress stayed true to what she said...the 2 extra apps were on her & not on our bill =) Overall as our 1st visit it was a scrum-didly-umptous sushi dinner, great seating as BF got clear view of UFC show on flat screen TV by Sushi Boat, & excellent cust svc. We'll definitely be coming back & try out other rolls. Pros: Delicious sushi & great cust svc! more

Nice atmosphere, don't forget to take your shoes off if you are sitting at one of the tables along the wall. The spicy chicken is GREAT!! It is near the teriyaki chicken on the menu. STAY AWAY from the Maguro (Tuna) Sashimi, the last 2x I have had it, it was off in color, smelled bad, and tasted even worse. Don't expect to get a Dragon Roll here either, I asked for one and the sushi chef did not know what it was, he's a cool guy and offered to make one if I could describe it though. Pros: Cooked foods, Atmosphere Cons: Raw foods, Understaffed more

Because of this place, my wife now likes sushi. Her first experiance was No Name Sushi in SF. Staff very welcoming. Beer sold on premise. Nigiri sushi is very fresh and our first visit, the chef was laying on THICK slabs. They have Katsuo (Bonito) which was new for me and spectacular. Monster house rolls are worth trying. Definitely a keeper. There is a difference is chefs though, our first chef was much better and generous than our second visit, however we will be back nonetheless. Pros: Friendly, Big Bar, Good Quality Cons: No Sapporro, Small Staff more