Umi Tea Chicken & Ramen — Restaurant in New York

3.5 stars. Tiny new chicken and ramen spot that opened last month. Conveniently located right next to a bus stop but kind of hidden since the restaurant is below street level. There’s a small flight of steps to go down so it’s not accessible to wheelchair users, disabled or with a stroller. The restaurant is very small with just a pickup counter, a kiosk for ordering and one small table outside by the steps.

The staff person was very friendly and explained the special promotions they were having currently and what was upcoming in April. They have an extensive menu of snacks, ramen, desserts and boba drinks. I ended up ordering from their special Buy One Get One Free menu and got a Miso Ramen bowl $15.95 and and order of Harumaki (Japanese spring rolls) $7.

Since this is mainly a takeout business, I appreciated the care they took with packaging the food. The ramen came in a bowl that had two separate compartments for the noodles and the rest of the soup. So very clever and I’ve never seen a bowl like this before.

The ramen was pretty good, not the best but certainly not the worst I’ve had. The soup base was okay, and it had two thinly sliced pieces of Char siu. The other toppings were a few pieces of bamboo shoots, rice cake, seaweed and half a boiled egg. Unfortunately, during the transit, the egg was cooked further by the heat from the soup base. So, it wasn’t the usual gummy ramen egg that I was hoping for. I love that the ramen noodles are separated from the soup base, but I wished they had also separated the egg from the bowl. If it had been in a separate container, I think the ramen egg would have fared better in transit. The spring rolls also stayed crunchy because they left the container partially opened. There were 4 spring rolls per order and came with a sweet and sour dipping sauce.

Overall, this place is a solid spot to quickly grab food to go especially since they are open until 2:30am. I’m not sure how long or if they will continue to have the Buy One Get One Free promo but the staff person said it will continue into April. Come by and check them out before the promo ends!

Tip: Sign up for their free membership and get 10% your first order, discounts, and...

One of the best bubble tea spots in NYC!!! LOVE their mojitos, especially the passion fruit and mango with popping bobba and lychee or coconut jelly. Also, don't do that small, medium, large nonsense. It's one size and it's huge and fulfilling. Food wise i like their shrimp dumplings, eel onigiri and edamame. Also, their mango cake is delicious and their ginger lemon tea is perfect for the winter.

Most importantly their service is INCREDIBLE!

I'd like to share a story: The lady at the front counter is very welcoming and accommodating. On my first visit i told her about my dietary restrictions and she ensured me that the shrimp dumplings have their own steamer, not shared with other meats (great for pescetarians) but the French fries were fried in the same fryer as chicken. What's amazing is that on my next visit she goes to the back and pulls out another fryer and she said as per your advice we now have a separate vegetarian only fryer. I was honestly blown away.

There are so many bubble tea spots in flushing and i've been to just about all but it's amazing service like this that...

I’m trying to be objective and fair as possible but Tonight(Wednesday) the owner is not in the store seems like, and the girl who answered the pick-up-order call from us sounded like just woke up. the fried chicken we got this time is really not freshly cooked like the first time: I.e. too salty, the oil seems stale and the meat is hard to chew indeed. I’m not a harsh customer and we all empathize everyone working hard to keep business open——but when you have a super owner who answers the call with lots of kindness and used to get freshly cooked meals, your expectation is of course to have the same high quality food when you calling for the 2nd , 3rd time. I’m not picky eater but after waiting for days to be able to get the same freshly cooked meals after work, I do feel disappointed seeing the fried chicken is like that (picture below) and unagi combo looks way smaller than the google picture. I hope the employees can live up to the high standard that the nice owner has set up for the business, and give more thoughts when...