As
if
New York needed yet another
cult-favorite burger joint, Umami Burger
has flown in from LA to take over a lengthy strip of sidewalk on 6th
Avenue. We say "sidewalk" specifically, because the "line" (more like
"mob") of people waiting to dine in the precious new premises is always
lengthy enough to completely disrupt pedestrian traffic flow.
Let's just say we're glad we don't live in the Village.
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| If We Wanted to Stand in Line All Day, We'd Move to San Francisco |
We
are willing to brave the Umami Burger crowd because
Giada Di Laurentiis
specified that we must try their signature burger on the
HOMETOWN FAVORITES episode of
Best Thing I Ever Ate, and we have no intention of
setting sail for LA any time soon.
 |
| Primarily Because We Just Barely Know How to Drive |
We arrive at the premises at the
exact same time, and Ginger, assuming that we are going to walk inside
to find a
Shake Shack-like ordering line, barges through the front door.
"Hi, welcome to Umami Burger," the hostess greets us, grasping a clipboard in her hands.
"Yeah,
hi," Ginger continues through the second door, stopping dead in her
tracks when she finds only tables and servers rather than her expected
line. It is only at this point that it dawns on her that the hostess
was not merely serving as a Walmart-type greeter -- she was trying to
take our name for the wait list.
Clearly, should we ever actually make it to LA, we will not do well there.
 |
| Patience and Friendliness Are Not Really Areas in Which We Excel |
Our
plan for this place is that if they tell us the wait is longer than 30
minutes, we are hightailing it down the street to Empellon Taqueria to
drown ourselves in margaritas and tacos. In Murphy's Law news, when we
ask the hostess how long it will be, she replies, "30 minutes."
Just under the wire, Umami. Just under the wire.
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| Could Someone Bring Us a Drink While We Wait? |
We
languish outside for just over a half hour before being escorted into
the loudest, ear-ring-inducing restaurant ever. It is impossible to
describe just how loud this place is, other than to point out that as
our waitress blathered on for a solid minute about the menu, we had NO
IDEA what she was saying. NONE. It was full-on a scene out of Charlie
Brown's classroom, to the point that we almost began inappropriately
laughing at the absurdity of it all.
 |
| We Assume She Just Asked Us If We're Vegans |
Granted, there was one particularly disruptive table at
the front of the restaurant, whose members had clearly never learned to
use their indoor voices in elementary school, but they were not the only
flaw in Umami Burger's acoustical design. The place is an assault on
one's hearing.
 |
| BYOE: Bring Your Own Earplugs |
Thankfully for everyone involved, Umami does indeed serve
liquor, an attribute we had feared they would be without. Ginger does
some domineering ordering, shouting at our waitress that we would have
one sangria (when she asks if the stuff is overly sweet,
said waitress responds, "No, you can still taste the wine." As opposed
to WHAT?!), and one Upstarter (something with tequila and cucumber).
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| Ginger Also Shouted, "And STAT," but This Message Was Lost in the Cacophony of Sound |
At the same time, while her voice is still strong enough to be
heard above the din, she orders us one Umami Burger, one Truffle Burger,
truffle fries, and fried pickles (clearly, we are not one for the
low-cal lunch).
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| How to Lower Your Cholesterol, Vodka- and Ginger-Style |
Fifteen minutes later, all of our food gets placed on our
table in one fell-swoop, along with an assortment of Umami's four main
condiments. This is all great. What is not great is that our cocktails
are NO WHERE TO BE FOUND.
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| Is There Gin in the Ketchup?! Otherwise, We're At a Loss |
Now, call us crazy, but we like to have some
booze inside of us before we dive into our actual meals -- really, this
is better for all involved, as liquoring us up makes us decidedly less
hostile.
 |
| Unless, Umami Burger, You'd Like Us to Start COMPLAINING |
When we inquire as to the location of our drinks, a server
says that the bartenders (yes -- plural -- there are TWO people not
making our cocktails) are probably working on them. Without
exaggeration, our drinks do not hit our table for a full ten
minutes after our food does (and they are both LACKLUSTER at best), and
we are more than a little annoyed.
 |
| You Can Mess With Many Things, but Never Our Booze |
Indeed, before we even get down to enjoying (or not) the
food, we notice that Umami Burger's NYC location reeks of not having the
kinks worked out. Our water glasses remain empty for 7/8 of our meal
(and are only refilled once we manage to scream loudly enough to ask).
The kitchen is obviously working at a rate about fourteen-times faster
than the bar. There is a never-ending stream of workers wandering the
restaurant, but nothing much seems to get accomplished. And most
egregiously, based on the perpetual line outside, the table turnover
rate in this place is downright atrocious. For a good portion of the
time when we are inside, the dining room is quite literally HALF empty.
Tables sit, clean and waiting for new patrons to fill them, and
somehow, everyone remains outside. How?! Is this all to build your own
hype, Umami Burger? Or are you merely incompetent?
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| The Dining Room Remained This Way for 10+ Minutes. THIS ISN'T LA, PEOPLE |
Moving onto the area where the restaurant is slightly
more proficient, the burgers, admittedly, are pretty good.
 |
| Except the Branding Often Looks More Like an Equals Sign... |
 |
| ...Than a U |
As promised,
the Umami Burger, which comes with shiitake mushrooms, caramelized
onions, roasted tomato, a paramesan crisp, and umami ketchup, manages to
hit a great combination of salty and sweet notes (plus whatever this
"umami" flavor is).
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| Burger Brains |
The bun is undoubtedly one of the best parts of
these creations, as it is both soft and moldable yet hearty enough to
never come apart under the weight and juice of the components.
 |
| We Do Love a Carb |
Speaking
of juice, we are at a standoff over how "juicy" this burger really is
-- Ginger, it seems, likes when her burgers physically squirt juice out
of the meat so that it runs down her fingers, which Umami's burgers do
not do. Vodka, in contrast, hates this sensation, but she does not
judge juiciness based on
messiness, so she still thinks this meat is
quite moist.
 |
| Ginger Presumably Wants This Plate Splattered in Grease |
We also come to an impasse concerning how the burger is
cooked, as Ginger is calling it "raw" and Vodka is calling it "just
right" (Umami recommends their burgers be cooked to a medium-rare
temperature, or "blood red," if you're Ginger).
 |
| "This Is RAW MEAT" |
Despite her issues with the meat, Ginger prefers the
Truffle Burger, which comes with housemade truffle cheese and truffle
glaze.
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| As a Rule, We Like Most Things With the Word "Truffle" in the Title |
Rich and hearty, Vodka likes it, but finds it to be a bit
"much," particularly when eaten with a side of truffle fries. These
fries are like an upscale version of the disco fries one would find in a
New Jersey diner, meaning that the cheese sauce is so thick that it congeals
into a giant mound at the bottom of the bowl (appetizing at 2am, not so
much at 2pm).
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| Velveeta Cheese Sauce |
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| Umami French Fries: Going from Hot to Cold in Five Minutes or Less |
But the truffle fries are downright works of art compared
to the fried
pickle plate, which is a true travesty. Unlike the slices
of lightly battered pickles that we had been expecting, we find four
giant wedges, fried within an inch of their lives with chicken
finger-like coating.
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| Oh, How We Would Prefer That These Actually Be Chicken Fingers |
The combination of flavors produces something that
is not only odd but rather revolting, and Ginger takes the taste of
this side dish quite personally.
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| It Should Be Right, But It's So, So Wrong |
"I am disproportionately upset about the fried pickles.
If you have this basic of a menu, everything on it should be perfect,"
she complains, sweeping her hand over her plate of red meat for further
evidence (clearly, we have a new
"defeatist plate").
 |
| "You Don't Know How to Eat Burger" |
By the time we're ready to leave, Ginger has
moved onto grumbling about the fact that an unadorned (read: no French
fries) burger here costs $12. Are the burgers fairly good? Yes, of
course. Are they worth twelve bucks, a half hour wait, dehydration, and
a subsequent appointment with a hearing specialist? Absolutely not.
 |
| If We Wanted All That, We'd Take Ourselves to McDonald's and Buy FOUR Burgers |
Umami Burger may think that they have invented
their own flavor, but unless they get their act together, they may very
well be run out of town faster than we can down one of their
nonexistent cocktails.
Umami Burger's Umami Burger: 4 stars
