Crispy, Crunchy

They're called Crispy Prawns with lime and ginger, and an order of six costs $4 during happy hour at Belltown's spanking-new Umi Sake House. A generous happy hour it is, with snacks and drinks at reduced prices from 4 to 8 every day on the "front porch."

It's past 7 and no longer happy anywhere else on First Avenue, so we sit ourselves down in a clean, well-lighted, bamboo-paneled and skylit front room whose wooden benches remind us just a bit of our high school cafeteria. No matter. Former Bada Lounge has been totally redone to resemble Japanese country house.

Bevy of charming hostesses and servers bring menus for dozens of sake choices, pages and pages of dinner entrees and some 20 bar snacks (sushi, sashimi, rolls, tempura) at about half the cost of the dinner options.

Now, like most Seattle folk, we're pushovers for shellfish, so we order the aforesaid crispy prawns along with a $5 Hot Sake. Presto, they arrive, the prawns considerably warmer than the sake. Not curled up, either, but mysteriously straighted, each one the dimensions of a Magic Marker, wrapped in egg noodles and deep fried.

The first two or three go down like popcorn. Giant, shrimpy popcorn. Good thing there's a sweet chili dipping sauce for the fourth one. By the fifth, we're out of sake. By the end, we're prawned-out, shrimped-out.

Dinner? Hah! And don't even mention breakfast. Turns out there's a guy in England with the screen name Prawn Overdose. We know how he feels.

Umi Sake House, 2230 First Avenue, 206-374-8717