UMAI — Restaurant in Girona

My honest take, as someone who is not Japanese but Chinese living in Hong Kong (one of the cities with most and some of the best Japanese restaurants in the world) and frequently travel, is this is a restaurant with nice ambience, ok service but really unauthentic food. It misses the basic understanding of Asian flavour profile and I’d imagine a Japanese friend would have been horrified.

The restaurant/menu is branded as an “oriental restautant” which is as inappropriate as naming a Spanish restaurant an “European restaurant”. We felt like having some hot food, so opted for udon and ramen. The descriptions mentioned “with Xi’an spice” and “Thai basil”!? We decided to order two things first in case they aren’t good. The udon was very salty, perhaps from too much soy, udon had been overcooked and soaked sadly in a pile of sauce. The beef was tough and nowhere close to “Wagyu”. The ramen had 2-3 pieces “chaksiu” but they were really super fatty pork belly with almost no lean part, which made the soup extra greasy. It too was salty and lacked balance of flavour. We ordered a green tea and was presented with white sugar, which totally killed us.

The bill came at EUR60sth. We could have spent way more and glad we cut our loss. We ate more...

No entenc d'on surt la fama d'aquest restaurant. Hem anat a sopar, teniem reserva. Han passat per davant nostre dues taules sense reserva que no hagués importat el més mínim si no fos perquè hem tardat pràcticament 45min a poder menjar un sushi mediocre amb salses precuinades acompanyat amb aigua sense embotellar. Això sí, espectacle assegurat amb un cap de cuina alliçonant a la cambrera enmig la sala per haver tombat les espècies de sobre un tall de carn sense voler quant el primer que hauria de tenir vergonya és ell de pasejarse per la cuina sense mascareta mentres els clients estem menjant i presentarse a treballar amb els cabells greixosos de no haver passat abans per la dutxa. Fastigós. Quasi tant com quan a l'altre cambrera li ha caigut un plat net a terra i l'han tornat a posar a la pila dels plats a utilitzar, que curiosament al demanar nosaltres per compartir obviament ens l'han colocat a la taula. Potser és que anava amb les espectatives molt altes per les ressenyes que havia llegit aquí però sincerament, no dec haver menjat al mateix lloc perquè el meu sopar no val el que en pagues i l'atenció no és la d'un restaurant de categoria tot i que ho intentint tot explicante les histories que et posen al plat. Ah, i no t'ho perdis, la carta és menys extença per tema COVID segons diuen però les taules entre començals no mantenen distancia mínima de seguretat i tens començals menjant de cares als fogons a menys de dos metres y sense mampares......

High end Japanese restaurant. Great menu midweek for 25€ (starter + main + dessert + tea or water + coffee). Would be great if wine or beer were included in the menu, but they aren’t. Some of the staff were great, but one hostess was either having a bad day or much less friendly. The quality of the sushi and food was fantastic. Portions were of perfect size. Interestingly they do not have any vegan milk options for coffee (simple improvement to add some)....