Umi Sushi - Bellevue, WI

One of the first restaurants in the Green Bay area that my husband and I visited after we moved in was Umi Sushi in Bellevue. At the time, we thought it conveniently located-- but nothing to write home about. I spent those first few weeks avoiding any writing on local restaurants to try to get my bearings with the area. My mother was in town this weekend. She accompanied us on our first trip to Umi, and we thought it only appropriate to bring her again for our first post-COVID visit.
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Umi Sushi had their indoor dining closed for much of the pandemic, reopening dine in on May 1st of this year. This is part of the reason we hadn’t been back in a long time to give them another shot. We really only want sushi if we’re sitting down inside the restaurant. Ordering for takeout isn’t something appealing to my husband and I when it comes to sushi.

The Sunday crowd at around 3 in the afternoon isn’t impressively large anywhere you go, and that was the case here. Customers were well spaced out in the method a lot of restaurants used early in the pandemic-- at least one table between the few parties that came in. Two sushi chefs stood behind the counter working on what had been ordered by the other patrons, heads down and calculated.

It’s a cozy environment for a sushi bar with low lights and dark decor, and we sat down to a toast of sake to honor the late Kung-fu Legend Sony Chiba before ordering our meal. My husband and I ordered their fried calamari for the table and split their maki combination combo which included yellowtail, salmon, and tuna maki rolls for a very reasonable 15 dollars. I can’t go to any sushi place without ordering miso, so I got a bowl for myself.

The calamari arrived at the table as the most thinly sliced fried calamari I have ever seen in my life. They looked like each ring had been cut on a mandolin with the thickness that they managed to get on these before lightly frying them in what appeared to be a tempura coating, accompanied by a creamy wasabi sauce for dipping.

Crunchy on the outside and rarely chewy on the inside, the thin slices went down easy. If you are not a fan of the horseradishy taste of the wasabi that is served with sushi, the sauce may not be the best pairing for you. I tried mine with soy sauce as well, and the combination pleased me.​

Next came my miso. It came with all the components of a good miso for me-- wakame seaweed, green onion, and little bits of tofu floating around. It served its purpose as a pallet cleanser before the arrival of the maki combination plate that my husband and I ordered to share.

I’ll admit that I only had one piece of the yellowtail before helping myself to my mother’s california roll out of her bento box. We shared the tamago and unagi sushi with her as well. My husband really enjoys the sweeter flavor of the tamago (egg), and the unagi (eel) is a treat for all three of us at the table. I ate light that evening in preparation for a little more shopping afterward. If I went to town on our platter, they could have rolled me down the aisles at Target.
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Umi’s convenient location and improved quality since our visit in 2019 has raised it on the list of places my husband and I will surely visit again in the future. If we want sushi, and we want it now, we’ll get in the car and go to Umi.

You can order for delivery or takeout through their website, however, they employ only Eatstreet for delivery. Their website also instructs that reservations are preferable to keep wait times and capacity low as the pandemic continues and case numbers rise in Brown County again. Their facebook page is relatively inactive, but any immediately closures can be found there as well before you visit.