Umami Kitchen — Restaurant in Bremerton

I found myself with nothing to do for a bit, and decided to come here to further my Ramen experience.

This is a small, quaint little place with a clean interior. The ordering process was a bit confusing at first, as you order at the register kind of like a fast food place, but the menus are actual physical menus like at a sit down place. The cashier was very friendly.

I ordered the Tonkatsu Ramen and asked if it could be extra spicy, but the chef said that he doesn't add spice but would give me some spices on the side so I can set my own spice level, He said he wanted to preserve the flavor of the Ramen. I appreciated that.

The food came out fast and piping hot. He included a small bowl of a dry spice mix and then another bowl of some chili paste. To be fair, I wanted to try it before I did any messing around with the spices. It was pretty good. It wasn't as packed full of veggies as I've seen in my one other experience and the pork was just OK. Overall, it was pretty good. I did end up adding just one tiny spoonful of the dry spice mix he gave me and it really did change the entire profile of the dish, I can see why he'd rather let the customer do that part. It was really good after that, and it was just the right amount of spice.

The prices were all very fair as well. I'm not completely familiar yet with prices of food in the area yet, but it didn't seem too expensive to me.

I saw a lot of people coming in for takeout as well, so they seem pretty popular with the people working/living in the surrounding downtown area.

Three stars = A-OK

Go...

Update (2025/06): the restaurant has since had a kitchen fire, closed down, and reopened. On our revisit, the food was hot, freshly prepared, and delightful. I don’t recall the prices but we’ll be returning to investigate.

Original review from 2022:

Umami kitchen is well rated so we decided we’d give it a try. Charitably, it tasted like on sale H Mart.

We picked up our order since there doesn’t appear to be indoor dining. We ordered kimchi, beef bulgogi, a spicy California roll, and a tiger eye roll.

The tiger eye roll was the best part: crunchy and savory. The spicy California roll was OK; I’ve had significantly better from Fred Meyer. The bulgogi was dry and reminiscent of an on sale, end of day H Mart bulgogi. The kimchi was also dry but at least crunchy.

While it was edible, it wasn’t an experience I’d pay $42.32 for again. There were plenty of leftovers and we ended up throwing most of the food away.

I’ll retry Umami Kitchen if it remains well rated, but it’ll be a year or so. I’m...

Probably my favorite place to get food downtown. I've sampled a pretty good cross section of their menu and haven't come across a single thing I didn't like, but the Takoyaki and Bibimbap are my favorites. Fair warning; they do not mess around with the kimchi udon spice levels. I ordered mine extra spicy thinking I'd get something with a pleasant kick and ended up getting something that actually made me sweat a little. Definitely not the spiciest thing I've ever eaten, but not for the faint of heart (or mouth) either. If you like Buldak spicy ramen, you'll love it. For reference, it was about the same as if you maxed out the spice scale at the average Thai restaurant, so pretty formidable. All the same, it was delicious and very much worth the pain, but I definitely recommend accompanying it with a milk tea to soothe the burn a bit. For first timers, the dining room is pretty small and the place is pretty busy around lunch time so would recommend ordering ahead and...