Umai Pan-Asian Cuisine — Restaurant in Zone 1

I came across an ad on instagram showcasing Umai’s 1st anniversary and their special ramen menu for 999/-. Being an avid K-drama fan and seeing countless bowls of ramen on screen, I decided to try these ramen bowl’s myself. And that’s how i ended up at a quaint little place called Umai (all thanx to instagram’s AI).

So Umai is a small little restaurant with few tables (4/5 tables) in the indoor and few outdoor seating arrangement. So if you are a big group, better call ahead..

I ordered Japanese Shoyu Ramen. The broth was soy sauce based as described in the menu, so it’s salty for our desi Pakistani tastebuds. I couldn’t find the naruto fish cake in my bowl and i was too hesitant to ask the server so as not to sound stupid. Noodles were just like we see in tv, handmade and great texture.

The bowl was a big serving but the noodle to broth ratio was less in my opinion. The noodle portion should be increased.

Overall a good bowl of noodle, especially for someone who tried it for first time. But at the end i felt like swimming in the broth which became too salty for me to handle as i finished up the noodles halfway through the bowl.

For first timer’s: try to keep an open mind and open palate as we are not normally accustomed to such pan asian flavours . don’t hesitate to ask the server about whatever is it in your bowl. As we are not accustomed to fish cakes and seaweeds etc.. Hardcore desi’s may not like it. This is not what we eat at asian wok or mei kong etc etc.. don’t be afraid to try new things.. just enjoy the experience.

Will i go there again?? Maybe but hesitantly and only because im more of a desi chinese type. Umai is a different food taste scene so if i wanna try something new-...

WORST EXPERIENCE EVER! We went there last night to have dinner and the service was soo pathetic! We were made to sit on a table which was FILTHY as some customers had just gotten up and left. Nobody bothered cleaning the table before seating us on it. It had Coke/Pepsi spilt alll over it. Which I had to clean myself after repeatedly asking them for napkins. We removed dirty glasses from the table ourselves. The air conditioning wasn’t working. We asked for a baby chair for our toddler and it was brought but in FILTHY condition it was lying on the roadside with black soot and dust all over it. Imagine..for kids!

None of the servers came to ask us if we were ready to place our order. We had to ask three of them to come and take our order and eventually one of them came. Later, we asked the server to move us to a bigger table as soon as some guests left and without even cleaning or removing their dirty plates, he said “aa jayen” like it’s ready to seat us. I had to ask him to clean it first to which he gave me a very displeased stare and left without cleaning it. We moved to the said table and there was soup spilt alll over the floor underneath the table. Again, nobody bothered cleaning it. Wish I had taken photos but in that moment we were really looking forward to enjoying our meal without any drama. We asked for an extra serving for noodles to which the said server simply refused saying they had run out of noodles! But even that wasn’t the worst part; both me and my husband are severely sick as I write this and we are only worried for our toddler who had the food with us. Safe to say, never...

ordered the korean platter for 2 which costed rs.5500 and became rs.6000 with tax (5% gst). Iftar platter had desi items with chicken wings. 3 types of chaat were mentioned on the advertisement however dahi ballay chaat was missing and when asked the waiter replied that they only served it on some days which is absurd as it should be mentioned then. All korean labelled dishes had been desified. I was looking for that authenticity/originality which wasn't to be found. Kimbap was good but the serving was very less and it was served without any soup?? It still was the best tasting item. Kimchi jeon (pancake) tasted horrific. They DO NOT know how to make kimchi. Kimchi had been fermented for too long and it mostly had onions?? no cabbage or radish. Chicken buldak had no resemblance to any Korean dish. It was just sweet and sour chicken and had been put only to make the menu look bigger. Bibimbap was good. I wish they had given gochujang separately for us to mix according to our needs. Ramyeon was okay considering the other dishes however it would be below par in general. It had a couple of carrot pieces and a boiled egg (half) not even full? Tteokbokki was goooood as I was craving for some. Wasabi icecream tasted like mint icecream with wasabi aftertaste with those seldom kicks. Wasabi is a Japanese ingredient but it was still one of the better dishes. The biggest turnoff would be the absence of banchan (side dishes), not even one. Even a tteokbokki shack in Korea would give complimentary tea. No kimchi, yellow radish, beansprouts, roasted peanuts, nothing was given as banchan. IT DID NOT REMIND...