Umaii Ramenbar Leipzig — Restaurant in Leipzig

Mediocre Restaurant with ok service but flavourless Ramen.

We came here on a busy Sunday evening. The restaurant was quite busy and the interior looked very promising.

We got a table outside, which was perfect with the nice breeze, at least, we thought.. At the moment there is a very weird smell going around in the streets. (This is not the blame of the restaurant of course, but it did had effect on our appetite).

The waiters were fast at the beginning and helped us fast. But after we received our appetizer, the vegetarian gyoza, they basically left us waiting for at least 20 minutes with an empty plate on our table, before taking it away. The ramen got served quite immediately, by a very nice, polite (manly) waiter. He explained that there was some delay with our ramen and he apologized.

The Vegetarian gyoza was pretty good, the filling was still recognisable and had much flavour. The wrapper of the gyoza was a bit too thick in our opinion, but the crispness was awesome.

I asked to make my ramen (CHASHU RAMEN) spicy, but I basically got served some 'hot' chili sauce which was sadly not hot nor tastefull AND on top of that, they charged me €1,- for the sauce. Which was not addressed anywere.

The Chashu ramen was tasteless, there was sadly no dept of flavours in the soup and the noodles were not ramen noodles but more the type of noodles you get from an instand noodles package. - The chashu was grey and it felt like they did not try anything to give it any flavour at all.

My partner had the TOFU RAMEN which was basically considered the same flavourless and very uninspired.

The seidentofu was definitely the star of the evening and was considered the best thing we tasted that evening by the both of us.

All with all, the food and service were average and nothing special. We had high hopes, but we lost it during the evening. We will surely not come back...

After several orders here and on Ramen 1974, this is my honest comparison review.

Umai: they don't have pork belly, which is a deal breaker for me. But the Chasu is much superior. They also have many varieties of ramen including one with sesame paste, which I liked quite a bit. The broth comes separately in a glass bottle. I dislike that. The ramen becomes colder when mixed, and it's close to impossible to loosen the noodles. You can choose between 3 different kinds of noodles though, which I don't care but some people might like. The gyoza is also stir fried. I can't really say which of the two places I prefer because I dislike both. they have a Chicken Karaage that makes me happy and angry at the same time. Happy because when it's well done it's fantastic. I particularly like the ginger-shoyu-mayo. Angry because mostly it's very dark (which means the oil is old and/or too hot) and too small of a portion. WARNING: I had food poisoning once. 24 hours of nausea and pain and not being able to sleep. Truly bad. I was refunded but I don't plan on ordering here again. I'll miss the Macha tiramisu though. You should try that. It could be a bit more subtle, with less Macha. But it's good.

Ramen 1974: The ramen comes with its liquid. You can't choose different kinds of noodles. The Chasu is weird, it is very dry and it always tastes a bit rancid like if it had been in contact with old rancid oil. On the other hand the sweet pork belly is absolutely divine and the main reason why I prefer this place. So my solution is that I ask to put more pork belly instead of the Chasu. The gyoza are disappointing, but I admittedly am no fan of stir fried gyoza, I prefer the soft steamed ones.

I...

Edit/Update: Downgrading to 4 stars after trying their Dango Ramen (curry ramen). Broth was their homemade curry, has an interesting and subtle spicy taste by itself, though quite weak for me. But the taste of the broth is not enough to hold up the noodles and toppings, and both end up pretty tasteless. In fact, by the end of the meal the broth is overpowered by the taste of the toppings like spinach and carrots.

I'd actually rate this place 4.5 stars. it's definitely a step up from Kirigami and definitely Shinto.

There is no tonkotsu ramen, so I went for the chashu (cooked pork) ramen that comes with shoyu broth. Broth was good, and has that extra subtle flavour that puts it above other lesser shoyu broths. The egg was nicely cooked Japanese style instead of the more common hard-boiled egg. Noodle texture was definitely ramen, thin and with right amount of chewiness.

For drink I ordered the Yuzu Lemonade. Interesting taste, tastes nice but maybe a bit pricey for some.

For dessert I ordered the sesame ice cream. I checked with the waitress whether it was black sesame, and she said yes. Unfortunately it was not completely black as I expected. But rather a matcha/white sesame flavoured ice cream mixed with black sesame seeds. But it still tastes homemade and not too creamy/ sweet. Just nicely dense like gelato. The portion was quite generous (about 2 and half small scoops) for 1.90 Euro, so it's still a...