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Opening Night at Union Sushi + Barbeque Bar

By Roger Kamholz in Food on May 11, 2011 7:00PM

What was it, exactly, that lured us to opening night at Union Sushi + Barbeque Bar? Was it the tweets of skewered meats and seafood searing away on the restaurant's robata grill? Or maybe it was the promise of an ambitious Japanese sake program - a documented weakness of ours - which Mike and Chao, the world travelers come restaurateurs who operate Union, hinted at during the run-up to Union's debut. On top of all that, we had also caught wind that Bittercube, the talented cocktail consultancy and small-batch bitters makers, helped out with crafting Union's cocktail menu. All we know for sure is we couldn't wait to check the place out. And we were not alone.

Indeed, we walked in on a sizable crowd last night for Union's first public dinner service. From a seat at the bar, we took in the cavernous two-story space. Expansive windows face the street. Walls are clad in anime-fueled graffiti and giant photographs of neon-lined urban Japan. And at the center of everything is the robata grill, said to reach upwards of 600 degrees. It occasionally burps an orange flame high into the air; but not to worry, it's behind a sheet of protective glass.

Among your skewered-and-grilled options, you have chunks of beef filet, cauliflower with miso, and a hefty prosciutto-wrapped scallop with wasabi-avocado puree. The diverse menu also offers smaller dishes like Wagyu beef sliders and Agedashi Potato, an interesting take on tater tots, which come floating in a seasoned dashi broth. There are lots of broth-based choices, in fact, like Lamb Ramen and a Mushroom Soup. And as its name suggests, Union does sushi and lots of it, pulling ingredients like fried calamari and soft shell crab into the mix.

On to drinks! As a sake lists typically go, Union's is impressively big (see it in our gallery). Each selection is tagged by grade (junmai, daiginjo, etc.), sorted by a broad category (expressive, clean, etc.) and accompanied by helpful tasting notes for the unfamiliar drinker. Several are available by the glass, which is a great way to sample sake's incredible range of flavors. The knowledgeable bar staff can also help with recommendations. They pointed us toward the Water Place "Mizubasho" to pair with our grilled meat. And if you want to treat yourself to something truly special, they say go with the Drunken Snapper "Narutotai"; it's the one sake on the list that's nama-genshu, a rare designation to see outside Japan that means a sake has been neither pasteurized nor diluted with water after brewing. In other words, pure uncut goodness.

For its nine original cocktails, Union give the Bittercube guys free rein to innovate. They bypassed lychee martinis and the like in favor of cocktails that incorporated Japanese flavors, but spoke in the language of America's current cocktail revival. For instance, the Yamato Sling combines gin, sake, green tea syrup and Bittercube's vanilla-cherry bark bitters, and the 16th Century marries Japanese shochu with house-made ginger liqueur. Perhaps the most beautiful of the set is Princess Elena, which features cranberry and blood orange gin, infused in-house, and Amaro Montenegro, from Bologna. (Like the amaro itself, this cocktail is named after Princess Elena of Montenegro, who became Queen of Italy.)

Between the decor, the drinks and the bounty of foods on a stick, we see ourselves grabbing dinner at Union a lot. So far we're already one for one.

Union Sushi + Barbeque Bar is located at 230 West Erie Street at the corner of Franklin and Erie.