Umu Japanese&Thai — Restaurant in Wesley Chapel

I drive past Bruce B Downs here a lot and have passed by this restaurant many times. Tonight I had an experience to remember when I actually decided to try this place out. Here's an essay about how great this place is. Enjoy reading this! My family and I ordered mainly dinner platters with some sashimi/nigiri. And everything was incredible. Pricing was competitive to similar restaurants in the area, very fair. But what you get is actually worth the price. Sometimes I've went to similar places with almost same pricing but not being worth it. This place is the opposite, the food is well worth the pricing. The sushi was easily unique from other restaurants in the area, by being noticably fresh and flavorful. The dinner entree's were cooked perfectly to order. The steak was super tender and actually medium rare, a thing that restaurants usually never get correct in my experience. Tasted delicious. The smoked salmon was cooked tender, it was not dry and rather very moist and soft, as it should be. Tasted excellent and the smokey flavor was yummy. The shoyu ramen broth was flavorful. The noodles were firm and stretchy as it should be, with the toppings being great. The pork chasu was tender and fell apart in your mouth. The chocolate cake was moist and soft, with the ice cream very good as well. I'm trying to think of something about the food to complain about, but I can't seem to find something yet in the food I've had so far. So here is my comment on the service. The servers are cool. Not too up in your face and were pretty nice. The shop decor was modern and I really liked it. The tables were very nice real solid polished granite or some type of rock tops, not the cheap laminated wood tops. I am definitely coming back and will update this review if I somehow can manage to find...

Where’s the head chef/owner on the busy Saturday night?

The booking process was flawed, and my order was incorrect. The replacement dish was never fulfilled, and I received someone else's bill.

Here’s what I ordered: Bluefin Tuna Sashimi (medium fat) x 2 King Salmon Sashimi x 2 Eel sushi x 3 Hand roll x 1 Udon Salad Edamame

YOUR employee informed me that she would not take our reservation because we were not a party of five or more. I thought the purpose of reservations was to accommodate the customer. If not, then who is being served?

When she brought out our dishes, she gave us sushi instead of sashimi, and no alternative was offered... so I asked.

She assured me that she would get a replacement, but ultimately, only one order of sashimi was served instead of two. Why does the sushi chef need to slice the fish separately at an indefinite interval? I had to give up the second half of my order. It was incredibly frustrating. I honestly believe that Taco Bell does a better job than your restaurant. I suspect the reason I received only a half portion of sashimi is that I mentioned I wouldn’t want the server to pay for my food, despite it being her mistake. I offered to cover half of the cost of her mistake. In other words, she hasn't covered her mistakes as she explained to me AT ALL.

You and your employees come across as cheap and inconsiderate.

I wanted to leave quickly, but then your employee brought me someone else's bill, leading to endless waiting.

By the way, this is the guy with the white Panamera Turbo. I truly hoped you would continue to pursue your passion for the restaurant business. You can't imagine how disappointed I was when you weren’t there... and tonight...

We have eaten at Umu a number of times since our first visit in 2022, so we wanted to add this additional comment from our recent visit this weekend (Jan 2024) The boxes are only sold at lunchtime (see our review below) , the dinner menu has many more sushi offerings including signature rolls, classic rolls, hand rolls, Nigiri and Sashimi as well as Japanese and Thai dishes from the kitchen. On this most recent visit we had Chicken Sa-Tay and Philadelphia Roll for appetizers, then Kao Pad (Thai fried rice) and Penang Curry for our main course. As usual all were excellent, and the prices were reasonable, though the glasses of house Chardonnay we had with the meal were a little expensive at $13. Service from Sarah was excellent. The total for the two of us was $101.65 before tip. Lunch review from 2022. We found this strip mall restaurant more by luck than judgement, and are grateful we did. My wife is an aficionado of Chicken Pad Thai and has been looking in north east Tampa Bay for a restaurant that served good Pad Thai. We have found it. Pad Thai is on the lunch menu as Box 9, Pad Thai and at lunchtime is served with gyoza dumplings, soup, salad, noodles and tamagoyaki. I had the Box 3, Steak Teriyaki which came with gyoza dumplings, rice, soup, salad, and tamagoyaki. That also was delicious. Lunch was excellent and the prices are very reasonable. We...