Umami Burger

10/08/09

Review for the new Umami Burger in Hollywood

by i_know_la at Citysearch

Look, I know it's a soft opening this week, but things were really bad tonight. First off, the waiters did not know the menus had had to constantly grab one from us to see what we were talking about. Second, we waited forever for half our beers. And, when the second half of the beers came, some had HUGE heads on them because they were poorly poured. Thirdly, half our table of five was served at one time and the second half wasn't served until at least 10 minutes later. That may not seem like a long time, but try not eating for that long with food in front of you. The only reason we got the food is because one of us had to go up and bug the waitstaff twice. I got the Kumbo (or whatever) #3. The burger came with four chilies, but I couldn't see them...I'm assuming it was somewhere under the cheese. The burger was great, but I had to wait 10 minutes for my onion rings. All I can say about the rings was that they were really, really poor. Maybe that batch was rushed, but the onions were soggy and the skins not crisp at all. To top that off, they only gave us one spoon of their special homemade ketchup, which wasn't that special at all. I would have MUCH rather had Heniz 57. Then, we ordered more ketchup (as it only comes in soup spoon size servings - no, I'm not kidding) and it turns out they CHARGED us for it. Getting charged for bad ketchup is a true insult. Finally, we got our bill after much waiting and hand waving and there are two beers that were allegedly "free" because of the HUGE heads on them / mistakes on the bill. But, at that point I just couldn't wait to get out of there. But, wait...they can only split the bill two ways so we had to readjust our cards / cash to make things just right for them. Bottom line: I had a horrible time, the waitstaff while nice, was inattentive and didn't know the menu, and most importantly, the manager, or whoever was running the front of the restaurant, was doing a horrible job. Sorry, I've never written a review like this, but I was flippin' pissed after eating there. Another diner with me, an editor of an influential website which shall remain unnamed, was equally taken aback. How would I fix things? Tell the manager to look at the tables and manage the flow, tell the waiters to know the menu ahead of time, tell the cooks to get the whole table done at once, and tell the owners that charging a buck for ketchup that wasn't that good, and on top of poor service, is an insult.

• Pros: Burger Tasted Good
• Cons: Everything Else You Could Imagine...

06/01/09

Delicious!

by nandoc at Citysearch

You can tell there's passion and ideas behind these lovely morsels. All the ingredients; even the ketchup are home made! Very tasty, interesting burgers. Best I've ever had!

• Pros: different, unique
• Cons: I want more!

05/26/09

Umami is indeed tasty!

by bkbigfish at Citysearch

Los Angeles has tons of burger venues and yet this relative new entrant (1Q '09) manages to compete with its savory, gourmet offerings. I would venture to say that Umami's Port and Stilton burger is on par with Father's Office's lone burger. Instead of offering one signature burger like FO, Umami offers about 6-8 different, high quality choices. The one veggie burger was amazing according to my wife and the tempura onion rings were light and crispy. I found it interesting that Umami partnered with two local area dessert shops to sell their wares. They offered MILK's ice cream sandwiches and three varieties of Cake Monkey's cakewiches. I had the raspberry red velvet cakewich...it was sooo good.

Although they don't offer brews as another reviewer mentioned, you can BYOB for a small fee. In fact, you can even walk across the street to the liquor store to get what you need.

All in all, fantastic food that'll make your tastebuds happy.

• Pros: Gourmet burgers rival that of Father's Office
• Cons: tight seating