Ume Craft Ramen — Restaurant in Lexington

My family was excited to try this restaurant. We are all vegan and appreciated that they had a vegan ramen bowl clearly labeled.

We all ordered the "Vegan Ramen" and had been enjoying it until one daughter found meat in her bowl. It goes without saying that, vegans do not wish to have meat in their food. We told our waitress who oddly took the spoon with the meat on it (but not the bowl of ramen) to a group of staff members (we would later learn that one of them was the owner, Thomas). They talked for several minutes and kept looking at my daughter. After 5 minutes or so of doing and saying nothing, I walked over to ask our the waitress if they planned to remake the bowl. She stuck her palm toward me and dismissively said yes.

While my first daughter sat without food, my second daughter found meat in her ramen. At this point, we all stopped eating, no longer trusting the "Vegan Ramen" to indeed be vegan.

The second daughter then went to the staff (who still had not approached our table) to let them know that it was no longer necessary to remake the first dish because now none of us wanted to eat our food.

Eventually, a new waitress came to our table with a check and said that we only need to pay for 2 of the 4 bowls. We said that we didn't think we should pay for any of the bowls because we didn't trust them to be actually vegan and we were not going to eat them.

Long story short the owner, Thomas, who did not give his name or identify himself approached the table to say we would have to pay for the two bowls that we had not yet found meat in. He was fixated on the fact that I had eaten some of my food BEFORE we began discovering meat. He never apologized for there being what he identified as being PORK in the two bowls and showed absolutely no understanding that we would not want to continue eating food that the kitchen clearly was not taking care to avoid cross-contamination.

When we insisted it was wrong to charge us for food that we no longer trusted eating, he pulled out his cell phone and threatened to call the police. What?! This is where things got really ugly.

This is a NEW restaurant; 50% of our "vegan" food had chunks of pork in it; it was a reasonable assumption that the other 50% probably did too, so we wanted to pay for the one soda we ordered, leave and find a new place to eat because we still wanted dinner.

After much heated debate, Thomas finally agreed to only charge for the drink. I paid in cash because honestly, I would not trust this man with my credit card.

I cannot remember a worse dining experience ever. The happy ending was that we found a new restaurant-- Asian Wind which offers many truly vegan options and fabulous service. We had a lovely meal there after the horrible experience at Ume...

Unfortunately really the worst experience I have ever had at a restaurant :( I am very disappointed!!! We ordered vegan ramen and my sister and I both found pork in 2 of the 4 “vegan” bowls a few minutes apart. This obviously did not prompt the other 2 to continue eating with the clear pattern of cross contamination. We were not met with much understanding and expected to pay for 2 of the dishes, even though they were not going to be eaten. When we said we did not feel comfortable paying for the food we were not going to eat because of the pattern of contamination, the manager pulled his self phone out of his pocket and said “I can call the police, I will”. This threat after 1 minute of conversation displayed a lack of willingness to understand our concerns at all. I will also note that upon finding the initial meat in the first bowl, they did not communicate if the dish was being remade. The server and manager, however, did spend a nice deal of time I assume talking about the situation and glancing over at me!!! Overall really really terrible customer service! I was so excited to try this place and come back because I love ramen and it’s hard to find good vegan options! I was planning to spread the word had this not happened. He also kept insisting that there was no meat in the other two though it was very possible they all had meat bits inside. I think the biggest issue was that we were threatened to have the police called with no discussion! After I told him being threatened with a police call was not the best way to start an interaction, he tried to explain that he had recently dealt with customers walk out and not pay. However, we were very much just trying to explain our position with the food being labeled as vegan and finding meat in 50% of the bowls. Overall, I would not go here especially if you deal with allergies, dietary restrictions, or prefer to be met with kindness. I hope in the future, the employees here can learn from this situation and treat their customers with more respect and...

Pros: The food here is really, really tasty. When you order the spicy miso (or anything spicy I believe), you can request to get the spicy paste on the side and add it in yourself, making it accessible to your own spice level.

Ordering takeout from these guys is always REALLY solid because they make sure the noodles, topping, and broth are separate and that rocks. You always get everything that is about the same quality that you would get if you sat down and ate, and it's always done really fast.

Everything on their menu is varied and VERY tasty. Fast service, yummy.

Cons: They give you A LOT of noodles and broth and not a lot of anything else, and charge a lot for extra. The pork chashu comes with two small slices, and it's an extra 5.50 for more. It's also 2 dollars for another HALF an egg, which is half the cost for a standard carton. Two halves of your ramen egg is as much as a carton of eggs.

Everything here is pretty expensive-- One bowl of ramen and a drink without tip ended up being 24$.

They also charge an 18% large party fee for groups of six or more. 8 or more is usually the standard for that.

Our server forgot some of the food we ordered and didn't refill drinks unless you asked.

All around its decent, but it's definitely really pricey and it feels like they try to add on extra fees...