U is for Uzu Sushi

In a city of culinary behemoths (Stephen Starr, Jose Garces, etc.), it's sometimes nice to step back and recognize that the little guy still has a place in Philadelphia, tenuous as it may sometimes seem to be. These are people whose livelihood depends on their day to day flow of customers, the ones who stare at the door for hours and hours, hoping and praying for another customer to walk in the door. They try everything they can -- lowering prices, tweaking the menus, greeting customers with a free morsel of food or two -- just so they can stay alive for another week.

On average, I would guess that one restaurant in Philadelphia closes every day. Some close for good reasons -- the food is bad, the place is dirty, the menu is poorly thought out, the location sucks. Others just find that, though they do everything right, they simply can't compete with the big boys and it becomes financially unwise to stay open.

Which brings me to Uzu Sushi on the fridge of Old City, a very small sushi place that has been around for a few year but changed hands what looks like (in online reviews, at least) about a year ago. The new owner is the kind of guy you just have to root for -- he speaks in halting English and obviously only understands some of what you are asking him, but he is constantly checking in on you (which can be a little eerie, to be honest), and laughing when he thinks you are making a joke.

Uzu is perhaps the smallest restaurant I have ever been in, with a capacity of about 15 people. Maybe. We went on a Monday night, figuring that the crowd would probably be sparse. We were right. There was one person at the bar, but I got the sense that he either worked there or was related to the owner. Maybe it was because no one ever checked on him the whole time. So basically, we were the only customers there the whole time. Frankly, since it was such a random night, I was not surprised.

Uzu is sort of a romantic spot -- dimly lit, with "Enya lite" music in the background. But since you have to sit so close to the other tables, were there other customers, it would have been hard to have much privacy. I guess we lucked out there.

For such a small sushi joint, Uzu has a surprisingly large menu that compares to most other high-end places in town. As with lots of other sushi places, they give you a printout of all of the possible pieces of fish and roll combinations you can choose from, and you just mark off what you want and hand it back. If nothing else, it prevents confusion. You can also order combination platters, essentially choosing a number of pieces of basic sushi and/or sashimi with some more common rolls (ie, salmon/yellowtail). I certainly was impressed with the selection, although a bit wary. Since they obviously don't have a lot of turnover of customers and therefore product, I wondered how fresh their fish would be. Thankfully, it was an unfounded concern.

On to the full review...

THE FOOD: Admittedly, the pieces of sushi were not as large as I've gotten as other places. And being the only customers, you would think that, especially with two people preparing the sushi behind the counter, we would have been served quickly, but it did take them a while to get everything together for us. Still, I had few complaints about the taste and quality. We ordered quite a bit of sushi and sashimi and, with the exception of the octopus which was a bit chewier than usual, everything was excellent. My latest sushi quirk, sea urchin, which tastes sort of like fish custard (I know it sounds disgusting) was very, very creamy and very, very good.

THE DRINK: Uzu is a BYOB, which of course is great. We did have to pour our own wine (at least he opened it for us), but it wasn't a huge deal.

THE STAFF: As I said, the owner is just one of those people you have to root for. He isn't the greatest at service -- I often had to point out to him that I needed more water, and he kept waiting and waiting to give us the check when we were finished (I finally had to ask him). But he was very kind to us in general and had a good nature to him.

MAD PROPS FOR: When we finished our initial mound of sushi, which was preceded by a bowl of OK edamame, the owner made up a few special rolls for us. He had a hard time describing them to us beyond indicating that they were a lot of different types of fish thrown together. Still, we weren't about to complain. In my book, free food is good food.

OVERALL: Have I had better sushi before? Sure. Has there been better ambiance? Of course. Is this going to be a meal I remember for ages and ages? Probably not. But there is something very comforting knowing that a place like Uzu Sushi can survive in Philadelphia. With all the hubbub you hear about the latest splashy new space in the city, the little guy can easily get squeezed out. So when one of my co-workers asked me the day after our meal where she should take her dad for good sushi that night, I directed her to Uzu. I told her to tell the owner the goofy looking tall guy from last night had sent her. She said he laughed when he heard that. My little contribution to his life. My parents would be proud (OK, not really, but it sounds good).

THE CHECK: We dropped about $90 with tip. Considering how much food we ate, I was OK with that.

On to the Vs....

Ineligible restaurants for round 21:

• Vietnam Restaurant -- I remember going on a very unmemorable date here years ago.
• Vintage -- I really wish Vintage was better than it is. It has so much potential, but it just never quite nails it.

Candidates for round 21:

The wife and I have been waiting a long time to go to Vetri. Two cancelled trips (one in 2007 and another in 2008) make it the eligible restaurant I've been waiting to try since we started this journey back in November. No voting this round because I am making an executive decision. Plus, we made reservations 6 weeks ago.