Uchiba

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Today our friends Tammy and Wendy from Blanco have come into town for a meal and some entertainment. They are impressed by "La Casa", our long stay, but it's nothing like the hill top home they are building. They salivate for some Tex/Mex food from Matt's El Rancho which is just across Lamar from our place. It's one of their favorite restaurants, ours too, and they can smell the food from here. But we have other plans.

It's a lovely day and we have our dinner on the street patio at Uchiba which is downtown at West 2nd and Neuces — very near the Central Library. This area used to be the warehouse district when we first came to Austin. Now it's tall buildings and fine restaurants like Uchiba. This isn't the BBQ and honky tonk side of Austin.

Tammy and Wendy made the 5:00pm reservation, we had suggested a different place on Barton Springs but they seem to have had some bad experiences there. One of the finest restaurants in town is Uchi, which is on Lamar, not too far from Barton Springs. We've been to Uchi serveral times as have Tammy and Wendy. Uchiba is a new spin off and none of us have been before. In the same vein there is Uchiko on North Lamar — another spin off we have been to. There was a third spin off, the name escapes me, in East Austin where we have been but it seems to have folded. We've been to Uchi several times, the food is lovely, as it is at Uchiba, but it's awfully loud there. I'm glad we're here on the patio. It's such a lovely day to sit outside and enjoy some conversation with our friends.

The food here is 5-star precious little bits often with an Asian influence. You order some to nosh on having only the vaguest of notions of what will arrive. If you're hungry, you order more. The wait staff give you some guidance but it's obscure stuff. Kate knew of Uchi through some chef challenge show on HGTV. The food is very good, very interesting, very precious and actually not that expensive. We enjoy our meal but it's not the kind of eatery I'd usually hang out at. I suppose the best strategy would be to just trust the wait staff to feed you and give them a little guidance. E.g. I really don't like raw fish sushi!

We have taken an Uber to get here from our place and another to get to Esther's Follies which is about 15 blocks away — well beyond the range Kate can handle.