Umi is a little place on the developing restaurant row of Peterborough Street, but it’s establishing itself as an outpost of the more creative rolled sushi and peach-infused sake that are fads at the moment. I don’t know that everyone in the Monster seats is going to want to top off the game experience with a Red Sox maki at Umi. But since the restaurant has only about 12 tables, two with tatami mats (plus outdoor patio seating for the summer), Umi doesn’t need a whole section of fans. Just a few smart ones.

The sushi are hedged with a few Japanese hot entrées, a couple of Korean dishes, and a pad Thai. I was actually quite taken with the tofu teriyaki ($10.95). Anyone can do chicken, beef, shrimp, salmon, or scallop teriyaki ($12.95–$15.95), but tofu is tricky stuff to broil. The trick is accomplished by frying it in tempura batter first, then broiling with a nicely sweet-salty teriyaki sauce and a few sesame seeds. With a bowl of excellent aromatic rice, a white miso soup, and a garnish of two asparagus, two florets of raw broccoli, a couple of carrot sticks, and a perfect cherry tomato — this is close to veggie heaven.

A bowl of tempura udon ($9.95) was only slightly less successful, mostly because the broth was sub-par. The fillings were fine, from the thick, rubbery udon noodles to a poached egg, two perfect tempura-fried shrimp, bits of seaweed and scallion, a few slices of fish sausage, and such. And the presentation in an iron kettle was lovely. But broth (dashi) is as crucial to such soups as the right rice is to sushi.

Among the appetizers, shumai ($4.75) are six little shrimp dumplings shaped like wrapped bay scallops, and even tastier, with a bit of soy-based sauce. Oshitashi ($2.95), usually a dish of sesame-flavored spinach, is here shaped into three cylinders like a shamrock — perhaps they are planning an Umi near the FleetCenter? The flavor is also different, with a tart, juicy dressing and only a few sesame seeds.

The sushi deluxe ($17.50) is uniformly excellent, but perhaps unimaginative. The sushi were six California rolls. The fingers included a couple of pink tunas, a salmon, a couple of white fish, a sea bass, one of cooked octopus and another of cooked shrimp, a slice of sea-clam foot, and a cuttlefish scored with long lines. I did miss the dark-red tuna of yore, and an odd piece of something more unusual.

For that, one must go to the à la carte sushi menu, which is long and interesting, with daily specials (including monkfish liver one night) as well. One impressive item is the spicy tuna roll ($5). Like many of the rolls, it is inside out (rice outside, spiral of nori seaweed inside). The real trick here is that the tuna is minced like steak tartare, and the spice comes from very fine minced fresh green chili, an entirely different hit than the side dabs of wasabi.

Red Sox maki ($11) could be the subject of various baseball jokes: 25 pieces each on its own plate for the old Yawkey-era teams? Avocado piled high on the right rear of the plate for the Green Monster? In fact, it’s just a long roll with a lot of red fish eggs on top, like a red sock. The inside is a tempura shrimp for richness, and the outside alternates faux crab, real eel, avocado, and scallion for different flavors in each of eight bites.

Umi special maki ($11) has a core of red fish eggs and cucumber for crunch. The outside is light tuna "torched" for an unusual grilled flavor, then some avocado and "black tobiko" (which is more or less caviar) on top. "Umi" means "sea" in Japanese, so this is an appropriate signature for the restaurant.

Drinks are mostly a longer list of sakes than one might expect in such a small restaurant. I tried Momokawa ($8.95), infused with peach. This is still a very dry drink, but the aroma of peach, like the jasmine in jasmine tea, floats over the alcohol aroma to make sort of a quaffable sake. It is served in a blue carafe with a hollow to hold a couple of ice cubes, and poured into blue glasses.

There is also a dessert, fried ice cream ($5.95). It’s presented nicely, cut into quarters with chocolate sauce and whipped cream on a base of vanilla ice cream. The only part I didn’t love was the fried part, which tasted like rubberized Rice Krispies. You need insulating air pockets to fry ice cream (meringue was used for the original baked Alaska). But the ice cream was good enough to stand on its own.

Umi has very good service, although neither of my visits were on crowded nights, which are probably game nights, when you can’t park anywhere near the Fenway. The design is simple but effectively Japanese, with blond-wood tables, accent lamps of blue and paper, and a cloth doorway unsuitable for any player taller than Lou Merloni. There are some live plants, a cactus garden, and one of those waving cats.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.