blogging Archives - Curiously Carmen

Update 11/2018: Since writing this post, it seems that Uomo has changed ownership and things have gone downhill. The prices increase each time, while the quality and quantity decreased. We have stopped going here now.

Sushi UOmo has been around for awhile now, I’d like to say at least a year? Maybe two? Correct me if I’m wrong. In case you are wondering…no, it is not a typo, it is capital UO and small mo = UOmo. I’ve been meaning to try this place, since all my friends have been raving about it. “CARMEN! You have to try this place! It’s so good!” So finally, I went to try it.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have gone when I was battling a cold… I think my taste buds were a bit off that day (stuffy nose) and I was feeling very groggy. I need to come back when I don’t have a cold so I can actually taste the full flavours of all the food LOL. Lesson learned, don’t try new places when sick. =( So, take this review with a grain of salt please.

We were pleasantly surprised when we received miso soup at our table. We told the server that we didn’t order miso soup, but she told us it was a complimentary starter, how nice!

Restaurants usually don’t offer free miso soup anymore. It tasted pretty standard, a bit saltier than normal and had a healthy amount of green onions, seaweed and tofu on the bottom. Considering it was free, it was still full of flavour and served hot.
Up next, was our tuna and salmon sashimi. The pieces of sashimi were absolutely HUGE. I don’t think I’ve seen such giant chunks of sashimi before ever, and it weirded me out in a way. But of course, quality over quantity, and was that the case? Despite my sickness, I still tasted the fresh and juicy flavour of both the tuna and salmon sashimi. Look at that glisten! I was already starting to feel a bit full since the sashimi was so big!

Then, our plate of rolls came! Starting off with the negitoro roll, it was my favourite out of all the dishes that night. Just like the tuna sashimi, the negitoro roll was packed full of fresh flavour, and there was a strong green onion taste which is what I’m looking for in a negitoro roll! The boyfriend and I almost always order negitoro roll every single time we eat Japanese food, we both agreed this was one of, if not the best, negitoro roll that we had so far.

Following that, was the BC roll. I didn’t have any because I’m not a fan of salmon skin, but the boyfriend said that it was very crunchy and had a lot of cooked salmon meat inside.

Here is where I regret trying new restaurants when I’m sick. I thought that the chopped scallop roll tasted a bit bland and rubbery, which surprised the boyfriend because he thought it was absolutely delicious! Well, more chopped scallop rolls for him then! I need to re-order this dish next time because I’m sure it tasted fine.

Moving on, I felt like trying something new so I ordered the smoked salmon roll. I loooove smoked salmon, so I thought that it would taste great in a roll. I didn’t really like this roll though, I think I prefer my smoked salmon alone. It was a bit warm which was off putting, and I didn’t like how the roll was so salty. There was nothing wrong with the sushi rice or smoked salmon, but I personally don’t like the taste of it together and will probably stick with salmon sashimi rolls.

I really wanted to try their tobiko, so I had a one piece of nigiri. The tobiko was very fresh, and extremely crunchy. In fact, it was so crunchy that as I was chewing on the tobiko, my boyfriend heard the crunch from the other side of the table LOL… which made him want to try some of it too.

Everything went well with our visit to Sushi UOmo, I think we will be back (I am feeling better now, and have fully regained taste yay!). It is a lot better than the place next door, Yo Sushi . I’m sorry, it had be said but I would pick UOmo any day over Yo Sushi. For the price you pay there, the quality is NOT worth it. Okay, I don’t want to rant about Yo Sushi so just read my review on it *~~~positive vibes~~~*

-Carmen

After a failed attempt and bad beginning at Kamei Baru, Cinnamon, Sangria and I all agreed that we didn’t want to stay, and decided to see what else was around the neighbourhood. As we took our first steps out the restaurant and recovered from the awkwardness of telling the waitress there, an Italian place by the name of Pacifico Pizzeria Ristorante right next door caught our eyes.

We quickly scanned the menu outside, which looked appetizing enough so we decided to try this place on a whim. Walking in, it was very quiet and only one other customer at 2pm.
The sole hostess/server was very friendly, and also gave us the option to sit upstairs. We were going to take the offer, but Cinnamon pointed out that it would be harder for us to get service. Instead, we sat at a booth on the main level. Judging from the way Pacifico was set up, seemed like they specialize in romantic date nights (Although from what Meaghan aka ElephantHeartBlog wrote, her date night failed because the food was horrendous sad face). Tables for two, wine glasses set up, candles on the tables…yup, the hopeless romantic in me approves. But how about the food?

Right after we sat down, we were disappointed and considered leaving. Again. I swear this never happens, I’m not a picky eater, we were just having bad luck that afternoon.

But after much hushed conversation and awkwardly glancing up to see if the waitress had overheard us, we decided to just suck it up and eat here because we were in a bit of a rush.

Turns out they don’t have the lunch time menu on weekends. So why put that outside if it’s false? We all wanted their paninis and sandwiches, and none of us were in the mood for heavy pasta.
But since we didn’t want to get up and leave another restaurant AGAIN, Sangria and I decided to split the pollo rustica pizza. We figured that this would curb our hunger for the next hour or so. It also helped that the pizza was $3 cheaper, I think it was the lunch special.

I’m not saying that the pizza was expensive, because it was decently priced for the atmosphere and location, but we just weren’t really in the mood for pizza and didn’t want to pay for something we didn’t really want.

Turned out, the pizza itself was fairly decent. There was a good amount of chicken breast, which was juicy and flavourful. There was a great amount of gouda and mozzarella cheese as well, which became very stringy as I bit into it. I wasn’t a fan of the artichokes so my friend happily had all of it. The freshly chopped onions added more flavour to what would otherwise have been a very bland dish. The crust and pizza dough itself wasn’t as thin as I thought it would be, and I actually enjoyed the texture of it very much.

Cinnamon ordered the appetizer size of the pizzetta margherita ($8). Unfortunately, she did not enjoy hers as much as we did. She wasn’t expecting that much cheese on her dish, and wanted to see if they could remake it.

It took quite awhile for her to finally wave somebody down, I remember I had already finished 3 slices by the time someone came. The lady that came didn’t look like she was a server, someone who worked in the back from the way she was dressed.

Anyways, Cinnamon explained to her that she didn’t expect this much cheese and I thought she was kind of rude about it. That or maybe she was very confused. She came back with a second one with lighter cheese. She ended up only eating half of it and wished that there was more basil or that it came shredded all over the pizza.

All in all, our visit was pretty brief and it was an average experience. Our server was nice in the beginning but she disappeared near the end, and it was hard for us to find service. If I was going to be very picky, it would also have been nice for them to bring us some pepper and chili flakes with our pizza, instead of us having to wave them down to ask for it. Pepper and chili flakes are pretty standard with pizza, no?

Unless this place is too fancy for that. Even though my friend didn’t enjoy her pizza, I thought mine wasn’t bad but I’m not dying to come here again, nor would I make my way downtown just for this restaurant.

-Carmen