Umai Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Lansdale

My cousin first turned me onto this place several years ago and it had been my favorite sushi restaurant up until this past year. I remember going here with my wife when we were first dating and it was always consistently a great experience.

However the past year or two we have had four terrible experiences consecutively each one worse than the previous. It seems as though they are completely understaffed and the staff that are there are very poorly trained. The last time we went, after being seated, we waited for atleast 6-7’ before someone came to take a drink order. Not only does it take longer to get your order in, but the quality has gone down a certain degree as well, more noticeable in the salmon than the tuna. After our meal, it took us 15 minutes alone just to pay for our check, and that is no exaggeration. We gave them 4 tries to right the many wrongs we’ve seen but unfortunately we will not be going back.

Additionally my wife has been to dinner there since our debacle of an experience. I held out hope she would come back raving about how we need to go back and they had a great meal but she proceeded to tell me how their server actually asked my wife and her friend to leave because they had a reservation at their table (my wife and her friend had a reservation and were finishing up dessert). I couldn’t believe what I heard, the audacity of a server to actually ask a table to get out blows my mind and shows just how poorly trained and incompetent the staff is......

Me and my family have been loyal Umai fanatics since the first week they opened, having shared many a glass of wine, beer, and whiskey with Chef Ray while enjoying the best sushi in SEPA, if not the Eastern US. So it really breaks my heart to write this. Throughout the shutdown and pandemic we were all encouraged to support our local small businesses, and especially restaurants. Wanting to do my part, I bought my parents a gift certificate to Umai. Wanting to do their part, my parents, rather than immediately redeeming the certificate, opted to pay cash each time they patronized the restaurant over the past year or so. Last night they decided to stop in for dinner and attempted to finally cash in their certificate. They were met with, "Sorry, we cannot accept it because it's expired." Wait, what!?!? Did the cash that I exchanged for that certificate a little over a year ago "expire"? No it didn't. Aside from the fact that it's against the law, since refusing to honor a gift certificate, for any reason, constitutes a form of "unjust enrichment", it's in really poor taste and a slap in the face to customers who've been loyal for more than a decade. Customers who, out of a sense of community and a fond appreciation of the great experiences they've had at Umai, made a good faith effort to try and help out during difficult times. Some...

My friend told me that this place is the last place that she wants to eat before she dies.

I was here with my wife on the late night of a typical Wednesday. No one was there because we arrived almost at 9 pm but they greeted us nicely. All the waitstaff and sushi man was very friendly and welcoming even though we were late.

We had $65 omakase. It is most we spent on sushi but we didn’t doubt the quality of the dishes. The head chef aka owner gave us tons of foods. I never felt more full in a Japanese restaurant just eating sushi and sashimi. From start to end, we were amazed by how fresh and tasty all the foods were. My wife was wowing every time she had a bite. The owner explained and educated us nicely about the fishes and how he prepared it. Listening to his short life story was very entertaining as well.

Overall, it was one of the best experiences we had. We are from NYC and we travel a lot to eat in great restaurants. This place is must go place if you are a sushi-sashimi lover but know that it is not cheap as your everyday Japanese restaurant. I definitely will come back to try different dishes. Highly recommended. Thank you, chef and other staff, to give us a...