Utage

This post on Utage, Delaware's first Japanese restaurant to serve sushi (1986!!), comes at either just the right time, or the worst time, depending on how you look at it.

Utage's last day of business is August 30. They plan to reopen at a different, undecided location sometime in the future.

So, this post is either a reminder to get your butt down there pronto for your last Utage fix (for a while), or this post will just taunt you with what you missed or will miss for some time.

I believe Utage was the second restaurant I dined at in Wilmington. Tucked in the corner of a strip mall bizarrely designed to look like Independence Hall (wrong city and state!) sits Wilmington's sushi forefather. Utage is a classic, sit-down Japanese restaurant with a small sushi bar and tables filled with diners who look like your parents -- not an after hours meat market like Wilmington's other favorite sushi restaurant. You go to Utage to eat, not to be seen. I hope Utage keeps their new digs that way.I started with miso soup. I know some people are picky about miso soup, but either I am not picky, or I have only had good miso soup. Utage's miso soup was just fine.Next up was a house special salad of two kinds of seaweed, daikon sprouts, sesame seeds, sesame oil, and vinegar dressing. Tangy and refreshing.I ordered the veggie sushi combo: oshinko roll, kappa roll, kanpyo roll, avocado nigiri, marinated mushroom gunkan-maki, cucumber nigiri, and sliced inari nigiri. I love to see the unexpected in veggie sushi, but Utage sticks with the classics. The sweet teriyaki marinated mushroom gunkan-maki is my favorite at Utage. My partner ordered kitsune soba, a big bowl full of soba noodles swimming in the most delicious, mildly sweet, and salty broth, topped with sweet fried tofu. I've never had this dish at Utage, and I fell in love with it. The broth is sublime. I would order the dish with fat udon noodles next time, though, simply because I like udon better than soba.

So, there you have it. Get on down there. Fast-like.

Utage
1601 Concord Pike, Wilmington, DE 19803 (for now)
302-652-1230