Sadly, Umezono is closed/rebranded as I <3 Sushi with new management and new chefs. It is the end of an era.

Umezono Japanese Restaurant was my first introduction to japanese cuisine, back in high school the early 00s, when I was part of CHS’ Anime Club (I know, WHAT A NERD, right?!) and we went out to Umezono as a club event. That was the beginning of a long relationship with this establishment. Not being sure at the time about all this “weird” asian food, I stuck to oyakodon, a chicken, egg, and rice dish, for a couple of years before branching out to some of the other “dons” like pork or beef. I went many more times in high school, and regularly in college, too. Eventually, I started getting more adventurous, and by now, after more than ten years of dining experiences at Umezono I feel as though I’ve tried most of the things on the menu.

Umezono, located in an unassuming strip center at the corner of Cobb Parkway and Windy Hill Road has some nice qualities:

• It is in close proximity to Tomato, a Japanese grocery store with lots of fun things inside
• A decent inside with lots of wood and architectural niceties (compared to other strip mall restaurants)
• A few authentic touches like the serving of hot towels, the servers’ garb and attitude, and tatami rooms for large groups
• A healthy selection of solid japanese food at decent prices

Unfortunately for some folks, the service is what some would term “typical Buford Highway” service – what I would more likely term “most of the rest of the world doesn’t make their servers pretend that serving you is the biggest joy they experience in life and that the happiness and well-being of each of you is critical to their own happiness” service. I’ve said it before and I am sure I will say it again as readership increases and there are new readers who haven’t heard me on the ol’ soapbox about it before: it doesn’t bother me.

Being rude is something else, and that does occasionally happen at Umezono, too. But more frequently, I think people are put off by colder service than they are commonly accustomed to, and then there is a misunderstanding or minor setback, and it just goes over far worse than it might have otherwise. But this is just my theory. Some folks really hate it here. And, since all the service we received in Japan was impeccable, the theory maybe not even make sense.

On this particular trip up to Umezono, it was our pleasure to dine with the Marie, Let’s Eat! duo. After some catching up and perusing the menu, we got to it. Adam and I got a chef’s choice sushi and sashimi platter, an onigiri, and a spicy seafood hot pot.

Almost every meal you could order comes with starter dishes before the meal and a scoop of ice cream at the end.

The seafood platter was good and tasted fresh, but I like what we have ordered in the past a bit more: chef’s choice with a suggested value. This sort of order is basically sending the message to the sushi chef, ” Hi, we’re looking to spend about $20 so just do whatever suits you because you’re the expert and you know what’s delicious better than we.” This is a compliment to the chef in a way, and usually gets us favorable results.

The time I am thinking of, we received an intricate roll with alternating stripes of salmon and avocado twisting around the outside length of the roll. I have no idea what it was, but it tasted amazing and we were entirely pleased with the value of what we received.

The onigiri (~$2) is a rice ball with meat or vegetables inside. We got one with seaweed. It was simple and pretty tasty, but I think we’ve had better elsewhere. No biggie, though, onigiri is hard to screw up.

The spicy seafood hot pot ($10) is a soup dish that takes a little while to make, understandably, and contains japanese yam, scallops, shrimp, fish cakes, salmon, and chinese cabbage. The menu says we also got chicken, but I think we got some type of white fish instead. We get this dish often, despite repeated warnings from the waitresses that it takes a while to make.

Marie got udon soup and Grant got katsu curry. They seemed to enjoy their meals, though we were so busy eating and catching up, we didn’t discuss the food too much. I can say that they both looked delicious!

At the end of the meal, we were each presented with a scoop of strawberry ice cream. Used to be, you’d get vanilla or green tea ice cream with the japanese sweet read beans on top. This seemed much more exotic and fun; it’s a real shame they’ve since decided to cut corners and drop that nice little touch.

Overall, Umezono is like a dear old friend. It has its foibles, but I believe it to be fundamentally good. We don’t get up to area very often, but it’s always a treat to go have a quality meal at Umezono, because we know exactly what to expect and consistently receive it – and at affordable prices. 4 stars.

Umezono Japanese Restaurant
2086 Cobb Parkway SE
Smyrna, GA 30080