Yumai Japanese Grill — Restaurant in Austin

I have been anxious to visit the H-E-B Mueller Main Strest "food hall" ever since I heard it was opening. I got a great sandwich from The Meltery (reviewed separately) for my lunch and I wanted Japanese food for dinner. My original intent was to get some skewers, but when I saw the Japanese curry on the menu, I quickly change my mind. I'm glad I did and I want to go back to try various skewers!

As soon as I opened the container with the Japanese curry, my mind flashback to when I lived & worked in Tokyo for year and would walk by the curry shops and smell that inviting aroma. I have not found Japanese curry available at very many places in Austin, so I was anxious to give this one a try. They gave a generous portion of fried chicken cutlet and the curry sauce along with a bed of rice and sushi-style pickled ginger. (Very minor point here. I'm always used to a different style of pickled ginger and fortunately had a jar in my refrigerator from when I have made Japanese curry at home. So, that was a plus for this excellent dish!) Despite the curry sitting out for a while and reheated in the microwave at home, the chicken was still crispy and the curry sauce had an excellent flavor. I also ordered the 6 gyoza appetizer (potstickers) to go and after a quick reheat they were excellent with the dipping sauce. I was very appreciative that they were not deep fried, but panfried as is typical In Japanese restaurants.

The only negative I could think of from my experience is that this H-E-B is quite far from my home, but I know I'll be making a return trip soon try out more of the restaurants and invite some friends...

I go here about once a week and I love it! To all the people giving this place low reviews I would say two things:

1. it seems like a lot of people are buying their premade bowls instead of their made to order bowls. The premade are good when you're in a hurry but it's much better right off the grill.

2. I would agree that the portions are pretty skimpy on the skewers (they are very reasonably priced, so I'm not mad at it). What I always do is get their fried rice and then get the Brisket from True Texas BBQ in the food court and make some brisket fried rice.

I don't order their sushi but a lot of other people do and...

I ordered fried rice with grilled shrimps and veggies. First of all, the shrimps were much smaller than in the pictures. In fact, they were miniature in size. And there were no veggies in the fried rice. I had to look really closely to find tiny carrots and onions.

For what I got, it was expensive. Please use bigger shrimps and put some veggies in the fried rice if you are going to...